Pre-Islamic Era
The rise of the Sasanian dynasty in south-western Iran in 240 AD brought Sasanian influence to most of eastern Arabia, including the UAE, as is indicated by finds of coins and ceramics at Kush (Ra’s al-Khaimah), Umm al-Qaiwain and Fujairah. Indian Ocean trade and communications with the Near East continued during this period. Contact with the outside world was reflected in the spread of religious influences at this time, influences that would have varied from Arab paganism to Sasanian Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity.
The Coming Of Islam
The arrival of envoys from the Prophet Muhammad in 630 AD heralded the conversion of the region to Islam, but the death of the Prophet in 632 AD was followed by a widespread revolt that was subsequently quashed by the army of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr. During this time, a battle at Dibba, on the UAE’s East Coast, is said to have resulted in the deaths of over 10,000 rebels. Their graves can still be seen on the outskirts of the town. By 637 AD, the Islamic armies were using Julfar (Ra’s al-Khaimah) as a staging post for the conquest of Iran. Indeed well- known historians of early Islam, such as al-Tabari, and local sources indicate that this area was of considerable interest to successive Umayyad and Abbasid rulers. In 892 AD we find Julfar being used again, this time as an entry point for the Abbasid invasion of Oman. In the tenth century the area of Oman and the UAE came under the control of the Buyid dynasty (reflected in the discovery of a hoard of Buyid coins in Ra’s al-Khaimah in 1965). Julfar continued to be a port and pearling centre of considerable importance, mentioned by al-Maqdisi in the tenth, al-Idrisi in the twelfth and Yaqut in the thirteenth centuries.
Portuguese Presence
The Portuguese arrival in the Gulf had bloody consequences for the Arab residents of Julfar and East Coast ports like Dibba, Bidiya, Khor Fakkan and Kalba. A string of forts established in these towns, often described as ‘Portuguese’, are in fact better considered strongholds of local Arab sheikhs, allies of the Portuguese. The Portuguese author Duarte Barbosa, writing in 1517, noted that the people of Julfar were ‘persons of worth, great navigators and wholesale dealers.
Bani Yas
The ancestors of the bedouin, who made the sandy deserts of Abu Dhabi and Dubai their home, created date gardens and built themselves date-frond houses in the hollows of the dunes where adequate water was found. The ‘arish habitations eventually formed about 40 settlements, some of which were inhabited all the year round. This arc of villages at Liwa was the focus of economic and social life for the Bani Yas, at least since the sixteenth century. By the early 1790s, however, the town of Abu Dhabi had become so important a centre of activity that the political leader of all the Bani Yas groups, the Sheikh of the Al Bu Falah (the Al Nahyan family, transferred his residence there from the Liwa. Early in the nineteenth century, members of the Al Bu Falasah, a branch of the Bani Yas, settled by the Creek in Dubai and established Maktoum rule in that emirate.
Qawasim
While European powers like Portugal, Holland and eventually Britain competed for regional supremacy, a local power, the Qawasim, were gathering strength and at the beginning of the nineteenth century had built up a fleet of over 60 large vessels and could put nearly 20,000 sailors to sea. Their strength posed a serious challenge to the British, then emerging as the dominant power in the Indian Ocean, and in the first two decades of the nineteenth century a series of clashes between the two sides ended in the virtual destruction of the Qasimi fleet and the consolidation of British influence in the Gulf.
The Trucial States
Following the defeat of the Qawasim, the British signed a series of agreements with the sheikhs of the individual emirates that, later augmented with treaties on preserving a maritime truce, resulted in the area becoming known as ‘The Trucial States’. The treaties with Britain meant that the sheikhs could not engage in independent relations with foreign powers, and were obliged to industry thrived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing both income and employment to the people of the Arabian Gulf coast. On land, freed from the damaging effects of warfare at sea, but lacking any real economic resources, the emirates developed slowly. One of the greatest figures of the period was Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa of Abu Dhabi, who ruled that emirate for over 50 years from 1855 to 1909, earning the title ‘Zayed the Great’.
New Beginnings
In the early 1930s the first oil company teams arrived to carry out preliminary surface geological surveys and the first cargo of crude was exported from Abu Dhabi in 1962. With revenues growing year by year as oil production increased, Sheikh Zayed, the younger brother of Sheikh Shakhbut, who was chosen as Ruler of Abu Dhabi on 6 August 1966, undertook a massive programme of construction of schools, housing, hospitals and roads. One of Sheikh Zayed’s early steps was to increase contributions to the Trucial States Development Fund, established a few years earlier by the British. Abu Dhabi soon became its largest donor. In the meantime, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, de facto Ruler of Dubai since 1939, had developed facilities for shipping along the Creek in a determined effort to replace pearling revenues. When Dubai’s oil exports commenced in 1969 Sheikh Rashid was also able to use oil revenues to improve the quality of life of his people.
The Federation
At the beginning of 1968, when the British announced their intention of withdrawing from the Arabian Gulf by the end of 1971, Sheikh Zayed acted rapidly to initiate moves towards establishing closer ties with the emirates. Along with Sheikh Rashid, who was to become Vice-President and Prime Minister of the newly formed state, Sheikh Zayed took the lead in calling for a federation that would include not only the seven emirates that together made up the Trucial States, but also Qatar and Bahrain. Following a period of negotiation however, agreement was reached between the rulers of six of the emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain, Fujairah and Ajman) and the Federation to be known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was formally established on 2 December 1971. The seventh emirate, Ra’s al-Khaimah, formally acceded to the new Federation on 10 February 1972. |
