Englishman Colonel Charles Whitaker forsakes his native country for Islam and the deserts of Arabia. Adapting quickly to this hostile terrain, he soon becomes more Bedouin than British - an almost legendary figure who the Arabs know as 'The Wise One'. Whitaker's illegtimate son, David, is a tough from the Cardiff docks, wanted by the police and who escapes to Arabia to become a geologist. He in turn is followed by Cardiff solicitor George Grant, whose duties as executor take him into a world of sand, heat, desert politics, the intrigues of the big oil companies and the wars of the oil-mad sheikhs. Can father and son meet and reconcile before greed destroys their chances?