This Buried ‘Ghost Village’ in Sharjah Is Haunted by a Vengeful Jinn

Soft grains of sand cascade between your fingers, barely coming into contact with your skin before being guided away by a gentle gust of wind and returned to the golden sea from which they came. As you dare a glance behind, you notice your fading footsteps, dusted off and swept away before they ever make their mark on the plain, wiping any evidence of your presence. Then, a chilling thought snakes its way into your mind, consuming you with dread—if you would just stop for a moment and allow the landscape to evolve as it wills, it would envelop you and claim you as one of its own. 

The desert scapes, with their seemingly endless expanses and towering mounds of sediment, have been enchanting wanderers since the dawn of time, luring them in with the temptation of seclusion, and forever silencing them with the foreboding promise of erasure.

Such was the fate of Al Madam Village. 

Between the borders of Sharjah and Oman, on an unassuming strip of desert terrain, the ‘Ghost Village’ of Al Madam lies submerged within the very landscape it once called home. The village, whose alleys carry the essence of the semi-nomadic Al Ketbi tribe, was initially imagined as a housing project during the unification of the seven emirates. Not thirty years later, the village folk hastily abandoned their homes, chased away by a mysterious ‘other’. 

As you cross the threshold of the village, your ears drum with the deafening silence that has settled over its streets since the mid-1990s. Veiled by the shifting sands, two rows of houses with rusty iron gates and a mosque—decorated with a threadbare green carpet where worship once took place—peek through their coarse confines, fighting to be remembered before the last remaining shred of their existence disappears beneath the dunes, where—it is believed—the village’s sole inhabitant lurks, waiting to capture any soul that dares return.

Inside the long-deserted homes, cracked floors with remnants of mosaics and ceilings engraved with intricate patterns speak of the spirited life that once thrived within these walls of green/blue/yellow hues, muted by layers of decades-old dust. 

Doors left ajar, surrounded by scattered personal belongings, are a reminder of just how quickly that life ended. 

Beyond the decay, scorpion tracks along heaps of sand that lead halfway-up a wallpaper with a clawed-at landscape design warn you of an otherworldly presence that lingers still—the malevolent mother jinn, Umm Duwais. An ominously charming woman with feline eyes and an affinity for irresistible perfumes, Umm Duwais wanders along the roads of the village in search of male victims, treasure hunters drawn to Al Madam by the legend of buried valuables discarded by the fleeing villagers, seducing them with her scent. As they draw closer to the bewitching jinn, she swiftly cuts them down with her hands—two razor-edged machetes—and devours them where they stand. 

Their cries still echo throughout the village to this day. 

Non-believers who wish to freely bash the village’s dunes, document its structures, or camp amidst its eerie embrace weave the story of harsh living conditions and poor infrastructure, which presumably led to the mass exodus from Al Madam Village. Over time, nature is said to have taken its toll, leading to the creation of this Atlantis of the Arabian Desert. 

Sinister spirit with nefarious intent, or equally sinister sands with an inescapable grip—whichever version of events rings true for you does not matter. Because either way, a single truth prevails: the destruction that has befallen the village of Al Madam remains a haunting warning to all those who dare tread along its paths or even far beyond.