Page 36 - UAE Truncal States

Geographical Conditions

an Arab monopoly - has consequently not been a very important
feature of its economy until recently.
The shallowness of the Gulf accounts for conditions of water
temperature and light which are favourable to the growth of the pearl
oysters. Throughout the centuries pearl-fishing has been one of the
most important economic activities of the population on the southern
coast, although the intensity varied, depending on the changing
factors such as regional security or international demand for the
pearls. Just as in previous times the common interest in issues
concerned with pearling encouraged contacts and co-operation
between the various States around the Gulf, today matters concern­
ing “Gulf oil” interest the same countries increasingly. Their sharing
of the waters of the Gulf as an economic lifeline to the rest of the
world requires that they should become more closely involved with
one another.
In the past, even immediate neighbours found it easier to
communicate by sea rather than by land. This same highway of local
communication is, however, also a divide between two distinctly
different worlds. The way of life on the southern coast has in many
aspects retained features of early Islamic times and of its traditional
Arab heritage, while the way of life across the water in Iran is
influenced by a completely different heritage from ancient times and
by the fact that the population belongs ethnically to another group.
Islam has been the unifying factor that bridges the gap between
different political developments on the two sides of the Gulf. But even
within this common realm of Islam, the waters of the Gulf and the
mountains of Iran divide the predominantly Sunni Arab coast from
the traditionally Shi'ah Persians, as many of the inhabitants of the
Persian coast are Sunni and of Arab tribal origin.

3 The main geographical features of the
individual Emirates

Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi, by far the largest State, occupying approximately 87 per
cent of the total UAE territory, owes its character to the desert.8
However, there are some two dozen islands of significance in the
coastal waters and some half dozen sizeable islands belonging to
Abu Dhabi further out in the Gulf. Several of the latter are frequently
11