Beyond Dubai: Seeking Lost Cities in the Emirates

This is the book that has been missing from the Dubai travel literature.

Beyond Dubai is a journey around the Emirates in search of its past—encountering smugglers, fire-starting genies, loved-up camels, and a mysterious mountain tribe along the way.

Hidden in the southern Arabian desert are lost cities which tell the story of its past—including Hili dating from around the time of Stonehenge, Ubar the ‘Atlantis of the Sands’, Mleiha capital of the ancient Land of Magan, and Julfar, a magnificent port in the 10th to 14th centuries larger and more important than London.

In the Empty Quarter the harsh Sabkha Matti is the last ghostly trace of what was once the Great River in the West of Bedouin legend, and on the coast the enigmatic mound of Jebel Barakah, home of the earliest Arabians who came out of Africa 100,000 years ago.

On the remote Gulf islands the author describes the compelling evidence that less than ten thousand years ago the Gulf was a fertile valley—the original Garden of Eden—and how climate change created the starkly beautiful Arabian desert landscape.