Dubai’s Giant Island That Stayed Empty for 14 Years

In April 2022, an astronaut photographed Palm Jebel Ali from the International Space Station. NASA described it in three words: mostly undeveloped. Sixteen fronds of bare sand, fifty per cent larger than Palm Jumeirah, and nothing standing on any of them. Hundreds of people had already paid for homes there. They signed while the fronds were still being sprayed out of the sea. This documentary follows the money instead of the engineering. The island was finished. The bill was not. In December 2006 Nakheel listed the largest sukuk the world had ever seen, 3.52 billion dollars, with a three-year term. In November 2009 Dubai asked its lenders for a standstill, and the date arrived anyway. Who paid when it came due? What did Nakheel offer the buyers who were left holding contracts for sand? And why did seventy-four of them write to the Ruler's Court in 2014? Through the sukuk, the rescue from Abu Dhabi, the court ruling obtained without the buyers in the room, and the island's relaunch twenty years later, we explore what happens when a market's bill has a date on it and a family's bill does not. Subscribe to After Ambition for more stories of ambition, engineering and the consequences of getting it wrong. CHAPTERS 00:00 Sixteen fronds, bare sand 00:55 The year Dubai changed one rule 02:32 The men who built the boom 03:27 The largest sukuk in the world 05:02 Nineteen days before the bond fell due 06:29 The tower that changed its name 07:02 A decade, one letter at a time 08:11 The letter seventy-four buyers signed 09:27 Cancelled without them in the room 11:17 An island announced for the first time 12:37 Whose bill had a date on it SELECTED SOURCES NASA Earth Observatory — A New World Built of Sand https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... Nasdaq Dubai — Nakheel lists world's largest sukuk (2006) https://www.nasdaqdubai.com/exchange/... Dubai Financial Support Fund — Statement in full, 14 December 2009 https://gulfnews.com/business/dubai-f... International Monetary Fund — United Arab Emirates: 2009 Article IV Consultation, Staff Report https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/... Human Rights Watch — Building Towers, Cheating Workers (2006) https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/11/11... The National — Investors on stalled Palm Jebel Ali project at odds with developer Nakheel (2014) https://www.thenationalnews.com/busin... Arabian Business — 74 Nakheel investors write to Dubai ruler over stalled Palm Jebel Ali (2014) https://www.arabianbusiness.com/74-na... AGBI — Nakheel sold 29 homes on stalled Palm Jebel Ali, official data shows (2022) https://www.agbi.com/articles/nakheel... AGBI — Palm Jebel Ali buyers get 150% refund as credit if they reinvest (2022) https://www.agbi.com/articles/palm-je... Nakheel — Mohammed bin Rashid approves new masterplan for Palm Jebel Ali (31 May 2023) https://www.nakheel.com/en/media-cent... The National — Thousands queue from 3am to snap up property on Dubai's Palm Jebel Ali (2023) https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2... The National — Palm Jebel Ali set for building surge as Nakheel awards $950m for new villas (2026) https://www.thenationalnews.com/busin... PRODUCTION Visuals are AI-generated historical reconstructions, not archival footage. Narration is AI-generated. Music generated with Google Lyria 3 #PalmJebelAli #Dubai #MegaprojectFailure