Page 264 - UAE Truncal States

A City Stale - Example Dubai
even then the revenues were a fraction of Abu Dhabi’s income from
oil.1 Therefore the physical changes (e.g. town planning) and social
changes (e.g. population increase through immigration) throughout
the 1960s and early 1970s were not directly generated by the new
resource, oil. Such changes were then still the effects of the growth of
Dubai into a mercantile metropolis. The description of some aspects
of the development of that City State in this chapter will therefore be
taken beyond the final years of the 1950s, the decade which
otherwise is seen in this study as the borderline between an old order
fitting the homogeneous society and a new transitional period on
which the social as well as the economic systems are superimposed
by foreign elements.

Early history
Within recorded history Dubai started as an insignificant fishing
village probably some time during the 18th century. It was a
dependency of the shaikhdom of Abu Dhabi2 and its inhabitants
were probably mostly Bani Yas. In 1833 a group of about 800 people
of the A1 Bu Falasah subsection of the Bani Yas seceded from Abu
Dhabi and settled in Dubai.3 The leaders of the exodus, 'Ubaid bin
SaTd and Maktum bin Buti, remained joint leaders until the death of
the former in 1836. Maktum bin Buti ruled until he died in 1852,
establishing the dynasty of the al Maktum Rulers for Dubai.4 The
newly-established shaikhdom had some difficulty in defending its
independence from both Abu Dhabi and its Qasimi neighbour in
Sharjah. Maktum and most of his successors usually followed a
policy of good understanding with the British authorities in the Gulf,
probably partly as a safeguard against obliteration of the small State.

Developing into a focal point for trade and pearling
Before they were artificially improved, the ports of most of the coastal
towns of the western Trucial States had certain features in common.
They were sheltered creeks connected with the open sea, but suffered
from sandbars forming at their entrances due to a strong current
parallel to the coast. In this respect the creek of Dubai was no
exception, but it had the advantage that it extended considerably
further inland than any of the other creeks.
Dubai now stands on both sides of the S-shaped entrance of the
creek, which was the dividing line between Al Bu Falah and
Qasimi domination along the coast during the time of Abu Dhabi’s

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