The major part of the Dubai emirate consists of rolling sand dunes lapping the foothills of the arid Hajar mountains in the east. Until a decade or two ago, the dunes were inhabited by nomadic bedouin roaming with their flocks and herds. Today the nomads have all settled, in villages in the few fertile oases or valleys, or else in the city.

Modern Dubai is the product of the past 20 years of intensive development. Prior to that, Dubai was a small trading port, clustered around the mouth of the Creek.

It had grown gradually from a fishing village inhabited in the 18th century by members of the Bani Yas tribe. Its origins, however, go back into the far more distant past. The town’s museum displays a rich collection of objects found in graves of the first millenium BC at nearby Al-Qusais, while a caravan station of the sixth century AD was excavated in the expatriate suburb of Jumairah.

The village really began to grow in the early 19th century, when some 800 members of the Bani Yas tribe, the Al Bu Falasah, moved north and settled in Dubai.

Dubai lacked the productive hinterland of Abu Dhabi, with its fertile oases of Liwa and Al Ain - its inhabitants were committed to life on the coast, and looked to the sea for their living. They based their livelihood on fishing, pearling and sea trade.

By the turn of the 20th century Dubai was a sufficiently prosperous port to attract settlers from Iran, India and Baluchistan, while the souk on Deira side was thought to be the largest on the coast, with some 350 shops. The facilities for trade and free enterprise were enough to make Dubai a natural haven for merchants who left Lingah, on the Persian coast, after the introduction of high customs’ dues there in 1902. These people were mostly of distant Arab origin and Sunni, unlike most Persians, and naturally looked across to the Arab shore of the Gulf finally making their homes in Dubai. They continued to trade with Lingah, however, as do many of the dhows in Dubai Creek today, and they named their district Bastakiya, after the Bastak region in southern Persia.

Meanwhile a flourishing Indian population had also settled in Dubai and was particularly active in the shops and alleys of the souk. The cosmopolitan atmosphere and air of tolerance began to attract other foreigners too: by the 1930s, nearly a quarter of the 20,000 population was foreign, including 2,000 Persians, 1,000 Baluchis, many Indians and substantial communities from Bahrain, Kuwait and the Hasa province in eastern South Arabia. Some years later the British also made it their center on the coast, establishing a political agency in 1954.

The international trade which flowed from Dubai’s cosmopolitan contracts was the basis of rapidly increasing prosperity. This gave the city an early start in development before the beginning of oil production in the late 1960s. Like the other towns along the coast, Dubai had been severely affected by the decline of the pearling industry, due to competition in the 1930s from Japanese cultured pearls, and by the drop in trade in the Second World War. But Dubai contacts and mercantile skills increased resilience and the ability to profit from favourable conditions for entrepot trade with Persia and India after the 1939-45 war.

The successful early development was due in large part to the foresight of Dubai’s rulers. During the 20th century the city has benefited from the stabilizing influence of two exceptionally long rules: that of H H Shaikh Saeed Bin Maktoum from 1912 to 1958, followed by that of his son, H H Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed al-Maktoum. For many years prior to his father’s death in 1958 Shaikh Rashid has played a leading role in directing the state. Since then he has guided Dubai in its expansion from a small, old-world town to a modern state with excellent communication, and industrial infrastructure, and all the comforts of contemporary life. Since 1980 Shaikh Rashid has played a background role due to ill health but his four sons have continued his policies in exactly the same mould.

While this development has been greatly facilitated by the discover of oil and its production from the 1960s, oil revenues in Dubai have always been a fraction of those in Abu Dhabi, so Dubai’s growth has always depended partly on the inhabitants’ own entrepreneurial abilities.

Unlike Abu Dhabi or Sharjah, Dubai has only one substantial town. While the emirate of Dubai covers 3,900 square kilometers, the population (estimated at 889,518 in 1990) is largely concentrated in Dubai town. This has enhanced the popularity of a number of oases which provide a welcome break at weekends from the competitive commercial life of the city. The emirate is mainly desert, with sand dunes ranging from near white along the coast to a deep orange inland near the mountains, and in places dotted with a scrub of desert bushes and even some large trees.

A one-and-a-half hour drive along a good asphalt road leads to Hatta, most easterly of Dubai’s territories. This pleasantly green valley, is a small enclave in the dramatic, arid Hajar mountains and is completely surrounded by land belonging to Oman, to Ajman and to Ras al-Khaimah. Here, the charming Hatta Fort Hotel in its beautiful gardens gives a warm welcome to visitors.

Nearer to Dubai, and only about 20 kilometers inland, are the twin oases of Khawanij and Awir. These oases, which can be reached in 25 minutes from the town center, lie in attractively wooded dune lands. They have been extensively developed over the past 20 years and boast fine country houses with superb gardens for some of Dubai’s leading families. The district’s ample water supply has enabled local enthusiasts to create garden so lush and colourful that the visitor finds it hard to believe that this is still Arabia.

The emirate’s largest urban development outside Dubai city is, however, the industrial complex of Jebel Ali, 20 kilometers southwest along the coast. The government has built the largest man-made harbour in the world, with a dredged deepwater approach channel stretching far out to sea, and to create a complete industrial complex it has established such major undertakings as an aluminium smelter and gas separation plant, as well as a residential village of more than 300 houses.

SOUK

'Souk' is the arabic word for market or place where any kind of goods are brought or exchanged. Trditionally, dhows from the Far East, China, Ceylon, India would discharge their cargos and the goods would be bargained over in the souks adjacent to the docks.

Over the years the items on sale have changed dramatically from spices, silks and perfumes to include electronic goods and the latest in consumer items.However, the atmosphere of the bustling market with noisy bargaining and friendly rivalry remains.

The fish souk in Deira is an attraction by itself. Early morning and late nights, local fishermen unload mountains of fresh fish which they then sell in a frenzied bargaining session. King fish, red snapper, rock cod, barracuda, tuna, lobster, crab, king prawn, seabream, squid, pomfret, shark, mackerel, sardine and other species are available in abundance for most of the year.