shagara al ghaf

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night/ It came again with a great wakening light,/ And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,/ And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

Just out of the soft dunes is the old gravel road that Strabag built from Ashkharah to Khuwaymah, now replaced by the tarmac that runs parallel to its east. Follow it south for a few kilometres, before turning right onto sandy tracks that will take you into the desert woodlands. From the old road, Obaid scratched his beard, puffed his chest out with pride and swept a hand over the desert. That rocky outcrop to the left, he said, was Nimr, there was Wadi Arafat, the white sand you see there is Wadi Hayyan, and the tracks to the right lead into Wadi Hamed. But best of all, in the distance, were shagara al ghaf, or trees of ghaf – a scraggly canopy that would look unremarkable if not for the fact that these were trees that rose out of desert sand, not soil.

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