History And Culture:

The stories of the land of UAE go long back to almost over a 100,000 years. Evidence from the Hajjar Mountains imply that this land had was one of the reasons behind the migration of humans from Africa to Asia. But it is believed that humans started living here some 7500 years ago. The use of copper of the Hajjar Mountains and agriculture facilitated trade and thus supported life in this part of the world. Seafaring people from across the world came to this land in olden days. Around the first century AD, pearls were discovered from the Sea and later this business reached its height.

From 630 AD the spread of the Islam started here. In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese managed to establish regional supremacy in this land which caused many blood feuds for the residents. This resulted to the entrance of British people. The main purpose of the British was to govern the maritime trade between India and the Gulf. This was the time when the villages of Liwa started witnessing social and economic activity. By the 1790s, development of the town Abu Dhabi had started and so the Sheikhs of several villages including the Al Nahyan family moved here. In the 1820s the British signed various agreements with all the Sheikhs. This resulted in the areas being known as the “Trucial States”.

The pearling industry was the main provider of trade during the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. This acted as the source of livelihood to many Arabic people. Unfortunately, the pearling industry saw depression during the First World War and then it’s faced a low as the Japanese came up with artificial pearling industry. It faced its lowest time after the Second World War when the Indian Government started levying heavy taxes on the trade of pearls from the Gulf. This was when the young Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan took the lead to develop the Oil industry in the Gulf region. In 1946, the Sheikh was made the representative of the rulers of Abu Dhabi and the eastern regions and thus started the development of the “Trucial States”.

In 1968, the British announced their departure. And Sheikh Zayed immediately started negotiating an agreement between the Emirates. This resulted in the birth of a federation known as United Arab Emirates on 2nd December 1971 which included six Emirates. Later in 1972 the seventh Emirate Ra’s Al-Khaimah was added.