Growth form: Nitraria retusa "Gharqad" is a salt-tolerant desert shrub.
Order: Sapindales
Family: Nitrariaceae
Genus: Nitraria L.
Species: Nitraria retusa (Forssk.) Asch.
Citation in the Quran:
Gharqad is not mentioned in the Holy Qur’an
Citation in the Hadit:
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (Peace Be Upon Him) as saying: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree of Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” Sahih Muslim , book of pertaining to the turmoil and portents of the Last Hour.
Habitat & Distribution:
The plant is native to deserts and to sand dune areas of northern Africa, north of the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan and Palestine, where it grows in primary successions on barren sand dunes.
