Sheikh Zayed: Founding Father of the United Arab Emirates

Posted on Feb 5, 2025 in Other university degrees and diplomas

Sheikh Zayed: Founding Father of the UAE

The Formation of the UAE

In 1968, 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.
Sheikh Rashid, who was to become Vice President and Prime Minister of the newly formed state, and Sheikh Zayed took the lead in calling for a federation.
This federation would include not only the seven emirates that together made up the Trucial States but also Qatar and Bahrain.
An 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 December 2, 1971.
The seventh emirate, Ra’s al-Khaimah, formally acceded to the new federation on February 10, 1972.
Sheikh Zayed was successively re-elected as President at five-year intervals until his death 33 years later in November 2004.
The new state emerged at a time of political confusion in the region.
Iran had seized the islands of Greater and Lesser Tunb, part of Ra’s al-Khaimah, and had landed troops on Abu Musa, part of Sharjah.
Foreign observers predicted that the UAE would survive only with difficulty, pointing to disputes with its neighbors and to the wide differences between the seven emirates.

The Vision of Sheikh Zayed

Sheikh Zayed was more optimistic, and the predictions of those early pessimists were shown to be unfounded.
There is no doubt that the prosperity, harmony, and modern development that today characterizes the UAE is due to a very great extent to the formative role played by the UAE’s founding fathers.

The principles and philosophy that he (Sheikh Zayed) brought to government, however, remain at the core of the state, and of its policies, today.

Zayed and the UAE

“There were a lot of dreams. I was dreaming about our land catching up with the modern world, but I was not able to do anything because I did not have the means in my hands to achieve these dreams. I was sure, however, that one day they would come true.”

Born around 1918 in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed was the youngest of the four sons of Sheikh Sultan, Ruler of Abu Dhabi from 1922 to 1926.
At the time that Sheikh Zayed was born, the emirate was poor and undeveloped, and life, even for members of the ruling family, was simple.
In the late 1920s and 1930s, as Sheikh Zayed grew to manhood, he displayed an early thirst for knowledge that took him out into the desert with the Bedu tribesmen and into the sea with the fishermen and pearl divers.

He later recalled with pleasure his experience of desert life and his initiation into the sport of falconry, which became a lifelong passion.

These travels provided Sheikh Zayed with a deep understanding of both the country and its people.
In the early 1930s, when the first oil company teams arrived to carry out preliminary surface geological surveys, he obtained his first exposure to the industry.
In 1946, Sheikh Zayed was chosen to fill a vacancy as Ruler’s Representative in the Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi, centered on the oasis of Al Ain, approximately 160 kilometers east of the island of Abu Dhabi itself.
The job involved not only the task of administering the six villages but also the whole of the adjacent desert region.
This enabled Sheikh Zayed to learn the techniques of government as well as deepening his knowledge of tribes.
Sheikh Zayed brought to his new task a firm belief in the values of discussion and agreement, in contrast to disagreement.
Sheikh Zayed swiftly established himself not only as someone who had a clear vision of what he wished to achieve for the people of Al Ain but also as someone who led by example.
A key task in the early years in Al Ain was that of motivating the local economy, which was largely based on agriculture.
He also ordered a revision of local water ownership rights to ensure a more equitable distribution, surrendering the rights of his own family as an example to others.
Sheikh Zayed commenced the laying out of a visionary city plan and ordered the planting of attractive trees that, now grown to maturity, have made Al Ain one of the greenest cities in Arabia.
Despite the lack of government revenues, Sheikh Zayed succeeded in bringing progress to Al Ain,

– establishing the origins of administrative machinery – personally funding the first modern school in the emirate – pushing the relatives and friends to contribute towards small-scale development programs.

Oil production was to provide Sheikh Zayed with the means to fund his dreams, with the export of the first cargo of Abu Dhabi crude in 1962.
On August 6, 1966, Sheikh Zayed succeeded his elder brother as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with a mandate from his family to press ahead as fast as possible with the development of Abu Dhabi.
One of his early steps was to increase contributions to the Trucial State Development Fund.
In February 1968, 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, these efforts concluding in the establishment of the UAE. Sheikh Zayed was elected by his fellow rulers as the first President of the UAE.
Sheikh Zayed was naturally more optimistic, and the predictions of those early pessimists were shown to be unfounded.
During his years in Al Ain, Sheikh Zayed had been able to develop a vision of how the country should progress.
Once Ruler of Abu Dhabi, and then President, he had over three and a half decades to devote to making that vision a reality.
One foundation of his philosophy as a leader and statesman was that the resources of the country should be fully used to the benefit of the people.
He saw them to be not as a means unto themselves but as a tool to facilitate the development of what he believed to be the real wealth of the country – its people, and, in particular, the younger generation.
Within this framework, Sheikh Zayed believed that all of the country’s citizens have a role to play in its development.
He believed that both men and women should play their part.
Recognizing that in the past a lack of education and development had prevented women from playing a full role in much of the activity of society,
He took action to ensure that this situation was addressed rapidly and, under his leadership, the country’s women came increasingly to play their part in political and economic life.
He also believed in the encouragement of initiatives designed to conserve the traditional culture of the people, in order to familiarize the younger generation with the ways of their ancestors.
In his view, it was of crucial importance that the lessons and heritage of the past were remembered.
The prosperity, harmony, and modern development that characterizes the United Arab Emirates are due to a very great extent to the role played by Sheikh Zayed, both prior to the formation of the federation and in the nearly 33 years that followed until his death in November 2004.

Sheikh Zayed and the Environment

His belief in conservation derived from his own upbringing, where a sustainable use of resources required man to live in harmony with nature.
This led him to ensure that conservation of the environment was a key part of government policy.
Sheikh Zayed made it clear that conservation is not simply the task of government.
He believed firmly that there was also a role for

– the individual – non-governmental organizations – citizens and expatriates,

Applying this belief not just to concerns such as environmental conservation but to other areas of national life as well.

Sheikh Zayed and Islam

Sheikh Zayed imbibed the principles of Islam in his childhood, and they remained the foundation of his beliefs and principles throughout his life.
He was a firm and dedicated opponent of those who sought to pervert the message of Islam to justify harsh dogmas, intolerance, and terrorism.
In Sheikh Zayed’s view, however, such an approach was not merely a perversion of the message but is in direct contradiction of it.
Extremism, he believed, has no place in Islam.
In contrast, he stressed that:

“Islam is a civilizing religion that gives mankind dignity.

A Muslim is he who does not inflict evil upon others. Islam is the religion of tolerance and forgiveness, and not of war, of dialogue and understanding.“