Mountain 7.175 ft (2.187 m) the most dominant mountain in Khushmaan life and the hightest in Egypt outside Sinai. The nomads call it Jebel Shaayib “Old Man Mountain”. Symmetrical, lofty and rugged, this red granite megalith has long had a special appeal to many people. Diodorus of Sicily wrote of the mountain in the first centurz b.c.: “Above a great plain there towers a mountain whose colour is like red ochre and dazzles the sight of those who look steadfastly upon ist”. The Scottish cartographer George Murray described its formidable summit as “a monstrous webbed hand of seven smooth fingers”.
Shaayib’s honored status among the Arab owes in part to its inhospitable character. The mountain erupts from the Red Sea coastal plain and offers no gentle slopes or easy routes. Any climb involves unshaded unshaded steep talus and dry waterfalls requiring long detours. This struggle is rewarded with breathtaking views of the Red Sea, the rugged mountains stretching from the South Galala Plateau to Quoseir, the peaks of Sinai and northwest Arabia, and the white line of humidity and smoke rising from the Nile Valley. Although Shaayib dominates their landscape, the Arabs lack the vanities that have prompted foreigners to reach its summit, and they seldom have any reason to visit the mountain. While the mountain has game and other resources, most Bedouins regard fetching them as too difficult. One of the greatest deterrents is that Shaayib has only one permanent water source, yielding less than a half-gallon (2 litres) per day. Bedouins who did climb Shaayib had unusual and sometimes tatal experiences which are recorded in Ma'a’a folklore and place names. Most famous are the encouters two girls, the banaat of Shaayib al-Banaat, had with the mountain. Idrayra was an ‘Ayayda girl who climbed Shaayib while her family was camped at umm Dhalfa. From near the summit, she saw Quena, seventy-five miles (120km) away, with her bare eyes during daylight. The nomads say this would be impossible today due to the haze produced by oilfields and warfare. Salmi, an 'Abadi, now lies buried at the base of Sidd Salmi, the precipitous dry waterfall named after her. She was walking alone, probably at night.
Failing to see the danger, she fell about one hundred feet (30m). There are several other places of death on the mountain including Hussayn’s Ravine named for an ‘Abadi who was killed by a falling boulder in about 1910.
The Bedouins ascribe mystical qualities to Shaayib, believing this mountain and one other in Lebanon host the world’s only two specimens of the “tree of light”. There are two reasons for the tree’s name. Its leaves applied to blind eyes, are said to restore eyesight. One Thursday night of each year, about the time ben-trees are in bloom (April and May), the tree af light gives off a luminescence that may be seen from a long distance.

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