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There is a saying that "when God divided the world into the lands and the oceans, He left the Arabian Peninsula as Rub‘Al-Khali", an empty quarter, uninhabitable and impenetrable. The sultanate Oman is located to the furthermost southeast of the Arabian Peninsula, the empty quarter. Big parts of the country consist of deserts and bleak mountain ranges. Life is only possible there in oases. Neither the extreme changes in temperature – 50 degrees centigrade in the shade during daytime and minus 10 degrees centigrade during the night – nor the hardly measurable precipitation were able to drive away the inhabitants of the oases. On the contrary. Oman’s oases developed into thriving cities. Professor Heinz Gaube, islamologist from Tübingen, and Michael Jansen, Professor of Historical Architecture at the Technische Hochschule Aachen, are examining the secrets of the oases of the Rub’Al-Khali. How was it possible for such an affluent and powerful culture to evolve under these hostile conditions? Among the most famous oases is Ubar, a city that is already mentioned in the Koran, a city that Lawrence of Arabia called "Atlantis in the Desert", and that medieval authors compared to Paradise. Satellite pictures reveal ancient caravan routes meeting in one particular place, where, buried beneath the sand, remains of an old settlement have been discovered. Are these the remains of famous Ubar that was destroyed 300 A.D.? A chance finding brought Professor Gaube on the right track. In a decaying ghost town, he found more than 8000 letters dating back to the early 19th century: the complete correspondence of Sheik Murzin al Abri, the former sheik of the oasis.