97 Hours in Dubai
Jogging along the banks of the Alster River in Hamburg, while practicing running, images of the places I had seen during my recent short visit to Dubai ran through my mind. Wandering among its caves, gazing out from the windows of its castles onto the city, sitting atop a rock and pondering, how was this great dam built, that temple. Endless details pulling me to explore the places and the secrets of distant times, before the buildings touched the clouds.
What a crazy city that resembles my soul, arousing my curiosity, capturing photos incessantly until the sun sets! I retire to my room, lay my tired body on the bed, open my phone, and start sharing the most beautiful photos I took on social media and work groups, anticipating questions from my German friends and colleagues who were always impressed by these photos.
They know nothing about Dubai except skyscrapers, oil, and the desert!
They have this fixed image of it being a Muslim country where women are deprived of their rights.
I saw women have gained many advantages, rights, freedoms, and encouragement, the number of women ministers and leadership positions in the country held by women makes you realize how far women have come in this country! Traveling broadens my horizons, allowing me to travel with my mind, not just my body, to places and times! A whispering voice from within, tells me that I don't belong to this era, making me wonder to myself: which era do I belong to? This voice and question has always accompanied me, especially when I am in a place or a country and see its civilization and history! These vague feelings suddenly erupt within me, making everyone around me disappear, even though they are present, and I find myself alone in that era, accompanied by all these questions.
It has become a habit in my many travels that when I start planning the places I will visit, my first encounter with these places is through the country's history.
One of the places that made me stop in awe was the civilization of Southeast Arabia, especially those in the United Arab Emirates. Most of us know only Dubai as a city of luxury and fun, and we know it for its modern urban image. Very few look through the doors of the past of this city, which is not only found in Dubai but also in its seven emirates.
History to me has a scent that varies from place to place, but the scent of the past in Dubai and its present like Cambodian Oud in a French perfume bott resembles the scent of the reality you see today when you set foot on this land and walk among its streets, beaches, markets, and under its skyscrapers, where you feel like you are wandering among different times and peoples! What's interesting is that when you visit any country and any city in the world, you find a unique character belonging to it, except in Dubai! Inside this city, you feel like you are visiting several countries, dazzling you with their diversity and multiplicity, and you don't know a definite answer when asked: which places impressed you the most here?
At that moment, while those images were running with me on the Alster River, I felt a great desire to continue what I had started there, to dive deeper into the history of this city. That's why I wrote to Abdullah, the Emirati friend through whom I saw the decency and generosity of the Emiratis, telling him about my idea to continue exploring the historical places in Dubai. He warmly welcomed my idea and generously offered to help by showing me the places I wanted to visit in the seven emirates.
I didn't hesitate to book my return trip to Dubai, and begin the first steps of my journey. When you want to satisfy your curiosity and knowledge about a place, Google and the media won't be enough! That's why during my trip to the UAE, I had long conversations with Emiratis, and even with expatriates living there, one of them was a British woman who told me at a bar one evening, "Here, you don't feel like a foreigner, but you feel at home!" This enchanting city that has combined great development to become a major player in the digital world and one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world, with the fragrance of authentic history that you smell behind these towering walls...
During one of the tours my friend Abdullah took me on, on a road stretching between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, he pointed to a place and said, "This is called Al Samih area. Here was the historic meeting between Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum in 1968 to sign the agreement for the union of the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and this meeting was called the ‘Al Samih Accord’." Abdullah told me about the spirit of brotherhood that carried this meeting as they planned the future of the UAE, when they agreed with mutual affection that Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan would be the ruler of the UAE and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum his deputy! And this reflects their sincerity and loyalty to their land and their goal of building their country without any desire for power! This desert that has turned, over two decades, into one of the most important cities in the world, its secret lies not in its oil wealth, but in its sincere rulers and sons who have put the interests of the nation above their personal interests. When leaders do not lose their moral compass, the result is Dubai.
Despite all my travels to several countries and the photos I posted of those places, I did not find the same interaction and admiration from my German and European friends and colleagues on my trips to other countries as I found on my trip to the UAE, and that's what made me document everything from that trip and started to write a book called "97 Hours in Dubai"
Tarfah Al-Fadhli
