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The history of Abu Dhabi has been marked by violence
within the ruling dynasty. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan
Al Nahyan has ruled Abu Dhabi since 06 August 1966,
when his older brother, Sheikh Shakhbut Al Nahyan
(Ruled:1928-66), was deposed in a palace coup with
British support. Zayed was in power until his death
in Nov. 2, 2004.
The tribal forces (Al Qawasim, whose descendants now
rule Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah), whose ships
controlled the lower Persian Gulf and in much of the
Indian Ocean. In the early 19th century, the Qawasim
tribal forces provoked the intervention of the
British that defeated the Qawasim and the British
became dominant in the region.
Qawasim, thus lost power and influence in the region
and the Bani Yas tribal confederation of Abu Dhabi
became dominant along the coast of the lower Gulf.
The Al Nahyan originally were beduin of the Bani Yas
tribe and were based in the Al Liwa Oasis. An
ancestor of the current ruler migrated to the island
of Abu Dhabi in the late 1770s and established a
commercial port there. Prior to 1966, Abu Dhabi
remained a small town and residence site of the
ruler, but it had not attracted most Al Nahyan
sheikhs, who preferred to live in the interior
oases. Even Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan favored the
beduin lifestyle as a young man, and for several
years under his brother's rule he was governor of Al
Ain in the Al Buraimi Oasis.
Abu Dhabi was poor and undeveloped, with an economy
largely based upon the traditional combination of
fishing and pearl-diving along the coast, and simple
agriculture in the scattered oases, like those at
Liwa and Al Ain inland. When the world market for
the Gulf's high-quality pearls collapsed in the late
nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties, owing
to the invention by the Japanese of the cultured
pearl and the world economic depression, the already
poor emirate suffered a catastrophic blow to its
economy.
The first exploration well in Abu Dhabi had been
drilled at Ras Sadr in 1950, to be followed by
others in what is now the Western Region, and then
with other wells offshore. By 1958, the first
commercial oil-fields were discovered, first
onshore, in the Bab field, and then offshore, at Umm
Shaif. The first export cargo of oil left Abu Dhabi
in 1962.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the oil-boom-induced
transformation of Abu Dhabi into a cosmopolitan city
prompted politically ambitious Al Nahyan members to
settle in the capital, where many of them obtained
positions in the expanding emirate and federal
bureaucracies.
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan designated his son, Sheikh
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan ( 1949), as crown
prince. In 1992 he served as president of Abu
Dhabi's Executive Council and as head of the
Department of Social Services. In addition, he was
deputy commander in chief of the federal Union
Defense Force.
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