The present Ruler of Abu Dhabi, who was also elected the President of the UAE by his peers, is Zayed’s eldest son, HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He has followed the tolerant and generous policies adopted by his father, whom he succeeded in November 2004.

For centuries the tribes that inhabited the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula lived a tough nomadic lifelihood, or earned a living by diving for pearls and fishing along the coast. In 1958 massive oil and gas reserves catapaulted these impoverished desert sheikhkdoms into a dimsension of wealth and plenty. Slowly embracing socio political reform too, today the region’s most socially liberal country, is a federation of modern city states replete with gleaming skyscrapers towering above manicured artificial oases and palm-lined boulevards.