|
Most of Dubai Emirate is covered with rolling sand
dunes at the foot hills of the arid Hajar Mountains.
A decade back, 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. Today's modern Dubai
is actually the product of very fast and intensive development
for the past 20 years. 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, as
a caravan station of the sixth century AD was excavated
in the emigrant 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.
By the turn of the 20th century Dubai was an adequately
well-to-do port to draw settlers from Iran, India and
Baluchistan, while the marketplace on Deira side was
thought to be the largest on the coast, with some 350
shops. The facilities for trade and free venture were
sufficient to make Dubai a natural shelter for merchants
who left Lingah, on the Persian coast, after the foreword
of high customs dues there in 1902. The international
trade which flowed from Dubai's cosmopolitan contracts
was the foundation of rapidly increasing opulence. This
gave the city an early start in development before the
beginning of oil production in the late 1960s. During
the 20th century the city has benefited from the stabilizing
pressure of two extraordinarily 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.
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 portion of
those in Abu Dhabi, so Dubai's growth has always depended
partly on the inhabitants' own industrial abilities.
Worldtravel4indians.com provides information on History
of Dubai and different ideas about tours to Dubai.
|
