Page 272 - UAE Truncal States

A City Stale - Example Dubai

Sketch of the town before work on the creek began
The town and the people
The first house built of concrete blocks was constructed in 1956. A
large number of inhabitants of Dubai lived in palm-frond (barasli)14
houses until well into the 1960s. These barasli quarters usually
contained compounds for extended families grouped together in
clusters of related families. Between these groups of two to about five
compounds, the alleyways were often just a little wider than those
which provided access to the compounds within the group. The
quarters of different tribal relationship were usually quite separate
from each other, especially in the settlements of fishermen along the
shore of al Jumairah and between Dairah and the date gardens. In the
quarters where coral and mud-brick houses predominated, the alleys
were nowhere wide enough to let a car pass through. There was no
need for wide spaces between houses since each house and
compound was built to provide the maximum of privacy inside, with
high walls connecting the various buildings within the compound;
there were no windows, or only very small and high ones, opening on
to the street, and there were high walls and screens on the outward-
looking side, even on the rooftop terraces. Transport within the town
was possible only on donkey or camel until the beginning of the
1960s, when some roads were opened up by the municipality. Traffic
between Dubai and Dairah was largely by rowing-boats (called
'abrah). There were, and still are, a number of fixed landing points on
either side of the creek. On Fridays the passage was free for people
from Dairah who went to attend the midday prayer in the big mosque
on the Dubai side of the creek.
The first motor car on the Trucial Coast was imported in 1928 by
the Residency Agent, Tsa bin 'Abdul Latif, in Sharjah, for use
between Sharjah and Ra’s al-Khaimah. The first car in Dubai was
brought in about 1930 by Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Dalmuk, who
gave it to Shaikh Sa'Id bin Maktum. Cars could be driven over the
salt-flats (sabkah) and along the beach at low tide, but had to be left
well outside the built-up quarters of Dubai. In the late 1930s a taxi
service operated in Dubai and between Dubai and Dairah around the
eastern end of the creek. Another service, owned by Shaikh Maktum
bin Rashid, had a monopoly over journeys between Dubai and
Sharjah.
In a society where consumer goods in bottles, tins, and plastic
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