How It's Used

"He was the first foreigner to cross Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter twice, first in 1946 and again in 1948, when that vast and inhospitable desert with sand dunes hundreds of feet high was one of the last unknown regions of the earth. He became the first outsider to enter the Liwa oasis and to see the quicksands at Umm as Samim.  Arabian Sands, his account of those travels, first published in 1959, became an international best seller. It was also a declaration of love for the Bedouin Arabs whose harsh way of life he shared in the Empty Quarter."

—Paul Lewis, "Sir Wilfred Thesiger, Renowned Explorer and Writer, Dies at 93," The New York Times, August 26, 2003.

“Saudi Arabia broke with longstanding practice starting in 2003 by signing deals with foreign oil companies to prospect for gas in the Empty Quarter.”

—Neil King, Jr., “Saudi Industrial Drive Strains Oil-Export Role,” The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2007, p. A1.

"The Armani residences are apparently selling at US$3,500 per sq ft and office space for rather more, but I had an eerie feeling no one would ever live there. Soaring up from that tongue of sand, with the Empty Quarter stretching away to the south, Burj Dubai seemed outrageously megalomaniacal, and defiantly worldly, a new Tower of Babel."

—Germaine Greer, "Comment: From its artificial islands to its boring new skycraper, Dubai's architecture is beyond crass," The Guardian (UK), February 9, 2009.

"It's ironic, because when representatives of the emirate's second-in-command, Crown Prince Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, approached Mr. Beasley three years ago and offered him the job of chief planner, sustainability was not what they had in mind.

"'They were worried about becoming another Dubai, and having the same explosion of unmanageable growth, and watching the quality of their lives diminish dramatically in one generation,' Mr. Beasley recalls.

"Their solution, then, was massive infrastructure for a city of only 400,00. A 12-lane superhighway, for example, to run across its centre. Mr. Beasley fought that idea, and won. He then came up with a plan to save and even restore some of the city's fragile ecosystem, including its mangrove swamps and fingers of desert, while allowing for a huge population expansion and a tripling of its current size, into the so-called Empty Quarter."

—Brian Hutchinson, "The Urbanizer: The man identified with 'Vancouverism' has lessons for the world," The National Post (Canada), April 4, 2009, p. A11.

"Saudi Arabia traces its roots back to the earliest civilisations of the Arabian Peninsula. Over the centuries, the peninsula has played an important role in history as an ancient trade center and as the birthplace of Islam, one of the world's major monotheistic religions. Since King Abdulaziz Al-Saud established the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, its transformation has been astonishing. In a few short decades, the Kingdom has turned itself from a desert nation to a modern, sophisticated state and a major player on the international stage. Faced with a much larger and better equipped army, Abdulrahman bin Faisal Al-Saud was forced to abandon his struggle in 1891. He sought refuge with the Bedouin tribes in the vast sand desert of eastern Arabia known as the Rub' Al-Khali, or 'Empty Quarter'. From there, Abdulrahman and his family travelled to Kuwait, where they stayed until 1902."

—no author listed, "The origins and history of the Saudi Kingdom," The Canberra Times, September 23, 2009.

Also Known As (AKA)

Rub' Al-Khali

Links

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the Empty Quarter
National Geographic Magazine article from May, 2002 on the Empty Quarter