The Rub’ Al Khali, or Empty Quarter, is often thought of as an area of endless sand dunes, a landscape that is striking but, as its name suggests, empty.
But those who have been there many times know that there is much more to the Empty Quarter than the cliché of nothingness, even if visitors may have to look a little harder than in other places to find features of interest.
In an extraordinary three-decade association with Arabia, Dr Gary Brown has made several visits to the sprawling Empty Quarter.
Thanks to his lengthy experience surveying the natural environment of Arabia, few could match Dr Brown’s ability to understand the unforgiving region, which lies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen. The Briton most recently went deep into the area earlier this year.
Being in the Empty Quarter, which, depending on how it is defined, can cover as much as 650,000 square kilometres – an area bigger than France or Ukraine – is, Dr Brown, 66, said, “a very spiritual experience”.
“On the whole it’s a very remote place,” he said. “If you go into the dunes you can more or less guarantee nobody’s been there.
A place of wonder
“It’s still the same as ever, in many places untouched. In some ways you could call many parts of it true wilderness. There is no wilderness left in Europe any more – everything’s been touched by humans in some form or other. Down there you could say it’s true wilderness.
“It’s a huge area. No roads or anything in there, just a few tracks here and there. If you want to get around in there, you have to be self-sufficient. That means taking everything with you.
“You don’t go there by yourself, it’s just not feasible … By yourself it would be far too dangerous because if you do break down, nobody’s going to find you for days.”
It is, he said, “the largest sand sea in the world”, but it is not all sand dunes, as there are also large areas of salt-rich plains.
Nature takes root in the desert
While these plains typically lack plant life, on the sand dunes vegetation may be found even in the depths of the Empty Quarter because sand is “a very good medium for plant growth”.
“In an arid climate, the rain passes through the sand pretty quickly, through the surface layers, but it’s held in the subsurface and plants with deep roots can access this,” Dr Brown said.
“The Bedouins knew this – this is why they always followed the rain for grazing. It’s what they used to do when they were nomads. The camels could smell rain from a long way away – I think from 30 to 40km away and they [the Bedouins] followed the camels and headed to where it rained.
“After a couple of weeks the green starts coming up, grasses come up, sedges come up and in the northern part of the Empty Quarter, the annuals come up, which are very good for grazing.”
While there are no trees in the Empty Quarter – even the hardy ghaf tree found in the UAE cannot cope with the harsh conditions, Dr Brown found about a dozen perennial plant species – species that exist for several years – during his most recent trip. However, there were very few desert annual species.
“I think there are two or three [annual plant] species. If you go to a place like Kuwait you find a couple of hundred [annual plant] species,” he said.
“You can see lots of vegetation in some parts of the Empty Quarter, but it’s salt bush, Zygophyllum. It’s perfectly natural, it’s just that nothing very much eats it, camels don’t like it.”
The wettest parts of the Empty Quarter probably get, Dr Brown said, less than 30mm of rain a year – about a third or less of the amount in most coastal areas of the UAE.
Wildlife thrives at night
There is, he said, little animal life to see during the day, although creatures such as skinks or sandfish can sometimes be spotted, but Dr Brown said they dive rapidly into the sand when a person comes near.
“All the activity’s at night or a lot of it is,” he said. “We camped down there recently on our trip. If you get up in the morning you see all these footprints – gerbils, jerboas. I think it was Ruppell's Fox we saw during the day.”
On his latest trip, Dr Brown had an uninvited guest in his sleeping bag – a camel spider. These creatures, which are arachnids but are not actually spiders, can give a nasty bite to people and although not venomous, are capable of killing rodents and small birds, among other creatures.
Dr Brown’s other work on the Arabian Peninsula has been no less interesting than his adventures in and around the Empty Quarter, an area he first visited in 2005.
Originally from Nottingham in central England, as a child Dr Brown moved to Germany, where he completed a PhD before carrying out biodiversity surveys for regional governments.
Then, almost exactly 30 years ago, he moved to the Middle East to teach botany at Kuwait University.
He undertook detailed surveys of the natural environment and, after moving back to Germany, was awarded a higher degree for his work on the vegetation of north-eastern Arabia, particularly Kuwait.
Dr Brown later lived in Abu Dhabi for more than three years, working for the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency, the forerunner of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, a period during which he got to see almost every corner of the Emirates.
Other work included spells helping with desert restoration efforts in Kuwait long after the first Gulf War and, from 2010, a university role teaching botany in Oman, which allowed him to travel widely surveying the country’s natural environment.
Although now living back in Germany, he travels to the region regularly as a consultant to help with land resource management, environmental assessments and conservation.
On September 22, he will give a talk on the Empty Quarter to the Dubai Natural History Group.
Although the Empty Quarter is one of the world’s few remaining wildernesses, it is not devoid of human influence.
Delving into desolate lands
A village in the southern part, Thabhloten, which lies in Saudi Arabia not far from the Omani border, is among the most remote settlements in Arabia and was visited by the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger, who famously travelled through the Empty Quarter.
While covering only a tiny fraction of the land area of the Empty Quarter, there are also oil and gas developments, some of which have provided surprising benefits to birdlife in the area.
“Oil companies have created their own lakes from oil exploration,” he said. “There are one or two lakes down there, artificial lakes, which depending on the time of year are wet or dry.
“[There is] lots of birdlife. You’d be surprised what turns up in these artificial wetlands but also natural ones … there are springs.”
Among the birds Dr Brown has seen in the Empty Quarter is the hoopoe-lark, one of the few resident avians. A migratory species that passes through is the bluethroat, an attractive insectivorous wetland bird of countries including the United Kingdom. Dr Brown has spotted ducks, waders and harriers.
“[Migratory birds] tend to avoid the Empty Quarter if they can, but it’s not always possible. I suppose they might learn that there are wetlands there,” he said.
“The water’s brackish in some places, so it’s probably not too good to drink, but there are reed beds there for them to hide in.”
So, despite its reputation as a vast emptiness, for experts such as Gary Brown, Rub’ Al Khali offers plenty to see.
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Muslim Council of Elders condemns terrorism on religious sites
The Muslim Council of Elders has strongly condemned the criminal attacks on religious sites in Britain.
It firmly rejected “acts of terrorism, which constitute a flagrant violation of the sanctity of houses of worship”.
“Attacking places of worship is a form of terrorism and extremism that threatens peace and stability within societies,” it said.
The council also warned against the rise of hate speech, racism, extremism and Islamophobia. It urged the international community to join efforts to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMaly%20Tech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202023%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mo%20Ibrahim%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%20International%20Financial%20Centre%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunds%20raised%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%241.6%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2015%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPre-seed%2C%20planning%20first%20seed%20round%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20GCC-based%20angel%20investors%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
'Ghostbusters: From Beyond'
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace
Rating: 2/5
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Power: 110 horsepower
Torque: 147Nm
Price: From Dh59,700
On sale: now
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ASSASSIN'S%20CREED%20MIRAGE
%3Cp%3E%0DDeveloper%3A%20Ubisoft%20Bordeaux%0D%3Cbr%3EPublisher%3A%20Ubisoft%0D%3Cbr%3EConsoles%3A%20PlayStation%204%26amp%3B5%2C%20PC%20and%20Xbox%20Series%20S%26amp%3BX%0D%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%203.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
North Pole stats
Distance covered: 160km
Temperature: -40°C
Weight of equipment: 45kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 0
Terrain: Ice rock
South Pole stats
Distance covered: 130km
Temperature: -50°C
Weight of equipment: 50kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 3,300
Terrain: Flat ice
Pakistan World Cup squad
Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez(subject to fitness), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Junaid Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain
Two additions for England ODIs: Mohammad Amir and Asif Ali
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Why seagrass matters
- Carbon sink: Seagrass sequesters carbon up to 35X faster than tropical rainforests
- Marine nursery: Crucial habitat for juvenile fish, crustations, and invertebrates
- Biodiversity: Support species like sea turtles, dugongs, and seabirds
- Coastal protection: Reduce erosion and improve water quality
Bareilly Ki Barfi
Directed by: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring: Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao
Three and a half stars
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
The%20specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.8-litre%204-cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E190hp%20at%205%2C200rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20320Nm%20from%201%2C800-5%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeven-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%206.7L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20From%20Dh111%2C195%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
