In August 1996, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan completed thirty years as Ruler of Abu Dhabi and on 2 December 1996 celebrated his silver jubilee as President of the UAE, coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the United Arab Emirates, of which he was a key architect. These events were marked by a host of special activities in the UAE on the occasion of its twenty-fifth National Day and during the course of the year.Sheikh Zayed is the grandson of Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi from 1855-1909, the longest reign in the Emirate´s history. His father, Sheikh Sultan, was Ruler between 1922 and 1926, and then, after a brief reign by an uncle, Sheikh Shakhbut (Sheikh Zayed´s brother) came to the throne at the beginning of 1928. At the time, Britain , which first established its presence in the region as early as 1820, had signed a series of agreements on maritime truce with local rulers of the seven Trucial States on the Southern coast of the Arabian Gulf that make up the United Arab Emirates today, including Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi was poor and undeveloped, with an economy based upon fishing and pearl-diving along the coast, and on simple agriculture in scattered oases inland, like Liwa and Al Ain. When the world market for Gulf pearls collapsed in the 1930s, the already poor emirate suffered a catastrophic blow. Sheikh Zayed´s family, like their people, fell upon hard times. When the young Zayed was growing up, there was not a single school anywhere in the Trucial States. Like his fellows, he received only a basic instruction in the principles of Islam from the local preacher, although a thirst for knowledge took him out into the desert with Bedouin tribesmen, to absorb all he could about their way of life. He recalls with pleasure what his expeditions taught him about desert life and created companionship among the people. The falconry, which he learned from Bedouins, has remained a lifelong passion.These early years taught Sheikh Zayed much about his country and his people. In the early 1930s when the first oil company teams arrived to carry out a preliminary surface geological survey, it was Sheikh Zayed who was given the task of guiding them around the desert, giving him his first exposure to the industry that was later to have such a great effect upon his country. He performed well, and in 1946, he was the obvious choice to fill a vacancy as Ruler´s Representative in the oasis of Al Ain, then a cluster of small villages, though today a thriving city with a population of around 200,000.When, a little over thirty years ago, revenues from oil exports offered the opportunity to develop the emirate as a whole, Sheikh Zayed was the obvious choice of the Al Nahyan family, rulers of Abu Dhabi for 250 years, to tackle the challenges ahead. He was a man in a hurry. With revenues growing, he was determined to use them in the service of the people, and a massive construction program got under way, of roads and schools, housing and hospitals.Upon acceding to power in 1966, he called openly for the seven emirates comprising the Trucial States to come closer together. "Federation is the way to power, the way to strength, the way to well-being, a high reputation . . . Lesser entities have no standing in the world today, and so it has ever been in history". As always, Sheikh Zayed followed up his words with concrete action, donating substantial funds to the Trucial States Development Council, which had been established a decade or so before to promote development projects. By 1968, Abu Dhabi was the Fund´s largest donor.When in 1968 Britain announced its intention of leaving the Gulf by the end of 1971, he was ready to act. Together with the late Ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, later UAE Vice President and Prime Minister, he took the lead in calling for a federation among the emirates and in July 1971, it was agreed to form the United Arab Emirates. Initially, the seven Trucial States were joined by Qatar and Bahrain, who eventually chose to seek their own separate paths. Holding out the hand of cooperation to Ras al-Khaimah, which initially declined to join, but did so in early 1972, and to Qatar and Bahrain, Sheikh Zayed commented: "I am not imposing unity on anyone. That is tyranny. All of us have our opinions and these opinions can change. Sometimes we put all opinions together and then extract from them a single common point of view. This is our democracy".Sheikh Zayed was elected the first President of the Federation until his demise on 2 November 2004, a post to which he has been successively reelected at five year intervals, while Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai was elected Vice President, and remained so until his death in 1990.

Biography

Achievements

Leader Of A Nation
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