Updated: April 14, 2024

The Middle East has been a meeting ground of three different continents of Africa, Asia and Europe through conflict or through trade. The Desert offered a number of riches for people across these continents such as glass, pearls, gunpowder, ceramics and petroleum which were traded across these continents. It bore a number of religions and transferred ideas such as algebra and modern numerals. Trade through sea also brought in spices, timber, cotton and silk. Ibn Battuta was a fourteenth-century traveller who visited Timbuktu, Zanzibar, Southern Russia, Egypt, Iran, China and India. His travels illustrate the unity of Africa and Asia in the modern era.
The Bedouins were cattle herders who relied mostly on animal produce and the date palm for shelter and food. The British saw Dubai as an important trading hub and the discovery of important minerals in the desert caused it to become a rich city. This is a city extending into the sea as it moves into the desert. The artefacts of the peoples past are preserved in museums like the Saeed Al Maktoum House near Dubai creek which was an old market. The new markets such as the Souk Madinat are in the newer parts of the city near the Burj Al Arab in the Palm Jumeirah. A number of public buildings are made in Dubai and Abu Dhabi involving some of the best designers and engineers from around the world. The Louvre and the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa in Dubai are instances of these collaborations between East and West. Dubai has transformed into a melting pot of cultures from an outpost of an empire perhaps because of where it is situated and the regulations and interactions with its neighbouring countries. Here are glimpses of places I witnessed…