Seven emirates built a hub where only one in nine is Emirati
The United Arab Emirates, a federal semi-constitutional monarchy of seven emirates with Abu Dhabi as capital, sits at the Arabian Peninsula’s eastern tip beside Oman and Saudi Arabia, with Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman shores. Only about 11 percent of residents are native Emiratis; most are expatriates, largely South Asian.
Stone tools show people from Africa living here some 127,000 years ago, and a butchering tool on the Arabian coast may push that back to 130,000. Copper mined in the Hajar Mountains from around 3,000 BCE fed trade with Mesopotamia, Iran and the Indus Valley, and Sumerian texts call the land Magan. The Hafit, Umm Al Nar and Wadi Suq cultures followed, and falaj irrigation channels later allowed fortified farming towns.
Islam arrived after Muhammad's letter to the rulers of Oman in 630, and the Battle of Dibba, where perhaps 10,000 died, ended the revolts after his death. Julfar, in today's Ras Al Khaimah, served in 637 as a launch point for the invasion of Sasanian Persia. A Nestorian monastery built around 600 on Sir Bani Yas Island, found in the 1990s, is the country's oldest Christian site and was abandoned peacefully around 750.
British sailors called this shore the Pirate Coast because Qawasim boats attacked their ships, a charge Sharjah's ruler disputes in his 1986 book. After campaigns in 1809 and 1819, a maritime truce in 1820 gave the Trucial States their name, and 1892 agreements made them a protectorate. Pearling sustained the economy until the Depression and cultured pearls destroyed it, bringing severe hardship. The first well drilled in Abu Dhabi, at Ras Sadr in 1950, took a year, went 4,000 metres deep, cost £1 million and came up dry.
Independence came in 1971 under Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who used oil money for rapid development. Today the seven rulers form the Federal Supreme Council, which picks the president. The country holds the world's seventh-largest oil and gas reserves and has more than 11 million residents, and English is the everyday language of business.
Source: United Arab Emirates
