About UAE

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Introduction

The United Arab Emirates was established in 1971 as a federation of seven emirates, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al-Khaimah, Ajman, Umm al-Qaiwain and Fujairah. The rulers comprise the Federal Supreme Council, FSC, which elects the country's President and Vice President at five-yearly intervals from amongst its members. HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Ruler of Abu Dhabi, has been President since 1971, and HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, has been Vice President (also concurrently Prime Minister) since 1990. The Council of Ministers is chosen by the Prime Minister in consultation with the President, and is the executive arm of Government. The Federal National Council, or parliament, has 40 members, drawn from each of the emirates, and has a legislative and supervisory role and can amend proposed federal legislation. The judicial structure is headed by the Federal Supreme Court. There are also local governments in each of the emirates, while each major urban centre has a Municipality for local affairs. The traditional 'majlis' system of open discussion between the tribal leaders and their people has evolved into an important, although informal, part of the UAE's governing system. Few nations on earth have experienced more complete and far-reaching change over the past few decades than the United Arab Emirates. Today a land of six-lane highways and glittering streams of motorcars, where space-age cities of ivory-white and crystal glass emerge like a mirage from the haze of desert and sea, this federation of seven ancient Emirates - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras a]-Khaimah, Umm al Qawain, Ajman and Fujairah - is not only the world's fourth largest oil-producer, but also its richest state per head of population, and the new commercial hub of the Middle East

Yet only fifty years ago, when oil-exploration started, there was no electricity, no plumbing or telephone system, not a single public hospital nor modern school, no bridges, no deep-water harbor, no metalloid roads, no more than a handful of cars and scarcely a building more impressive than the crumbling mud-brick forts and watchtowers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where now high-rise stacks, gilded domes and minarets tower over wide boulevards, where cascades of water are flaunted with conspicuous opulence, and where acres of shrubs burgeon on the desert shore, stood sleepy settlements of reed, coral and mud-brick houses, sweltering on sand spits and islands in the most ferocious summer heat.

Life on the Trucial Coast - as it was known until the 1970s - and in its hinterland, was one of considerable hardship. In the towns, fresh water was scarcely available and often had to be drawn by oxen from deep wells, or even brought in barrels from neighboring islands by dhow.

Tribesmen would harvest the unreliable winter rains by stretching a sail with a hole in its center between two poles, and in the merciless heat of the Arabian summer would trap the cooling winds by the ingenious use of wind-towers made of sackcloth or cotton. On the sun-blasted terraces of the Hajar Mountains, subsistence farmers eked out a bitter existence, and in the interior the hardy Bedouin scoured the dunes of the great Empty Quarter for pasture. In the hot months, members of these various groups would come together to work as divers in the pearl-yielding oyster beds which flourished in the warm, shallow waters of the Gulf For almost three millennia the economy of this region was bound up with the pearling fleet, culminating in a boom that was only ended by the invention, in the 1920s of the cultured pearl.

Despite its harsh climate, civilization has flourished in this region since the earliest times. At Jebel Hafit, near al-Ain, lie the remains of a settlement dating back more than five thousand years; at Hili, not far away, have been found pillbox-shaped tombs of dressed masonry so finely wrought that archaeologists believe they may be connected with the ancient land of Magan, mentioned in ancient Sumerian texts as a land of fabulous wealth, the source of copper, minerals and semi-precious stones.