In 1938, Dammam No. 7 struck commercial quantities of oil in Saudi Arabia. The discovery transformed the Arabian Peninsula's economy, geopolitics, settlement patterns, and relationship with global industry. Desert landscapes became linked to pipelines, company towns, ports, and petroleum wealth.

Oil modernity changed Arabic poetry by placing desert memory beside sudden urban growth, labour migration, wealth, and alienation. Gulf poets increasingly wrote across contrasts between Bedouin inheritance, sea and pearl traditions, drilling rigs, asphalt, and petro-state transformation.