Wind is the Alpha and Omega of the Western Desert. It creates and destroys…blasting…carving…sometimes a breeze, more often a blast.
-A Guide to the Oases and Western Desert of Egypt, Cassandra Vivian
I can hear Mas’ūd still today, saying something about the Sāfiyā’, on a day when the north wind blew hard, a word I didn’t know until just now when I found it in the dictionary next to Saqat, a word I also heard said that day, thinking it then a synonym for Wind. But no, Wehr gives Saqat as, Any Worthless Thing, and Sāfiyā’ as, from its verb, To Raise and Scatter (Said of Dust in the Wind).