Sheikh Zayed Passes

I was wrong.

I read the papers as implying that the UAE presidency would pass from Sheikh Zayed al Nahyan, on his death, to Sheikh Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.


On the evening of November the 1st, the passing of Sheikh Zayed was made public.

I was at a meeting of a local society’s executive committee when I heard the news:

“At this moment, 8:50 pm, November 2, 2004, M’s cell phone rang. He retreated to the other room to take the call. On his return, he reported that Sheikh Zayed’s death had just been announced.

In the sudden silence, it was resolved that the group would express our regrets and condolences in a letter to our sponsor, Sheikh N.

B. volunteered to compose such a letter.

‘This is a very significant and very sad event,’ said G.

At this point, other cell phones started going off. J, after answering his, advised, ‘Take it easy when you’re going home. There are people hysterical out there on the streets.’

Indeed, there was loud mourning through the night from all the city’s mosques.”


This is an event bigger, in local terms, than the Kennedy assassination would have been in the US. Zayed is literally the founder of this country, its George Washington. And he is a genuinely good man as well, genuinely loved by all. No one, after his very long rule, has a bad word to say about him. On Dave’s ESL Café, all the comments by usually cynical expat English teachers, were praise. At mass the next Friday, the priest declared that “Sheikh Zayed is now in heaven,” and that “he was a very holy man.” This a Catholic priest speaking of a Muslim.

It is in a way sad that Zayed’s passing was noticed less than it might have been in the wider world, happening as it did on the eve of the US elections and at almost the moment that Yasser Arafat’s illness was revealed.

I suppose this is as it should be: Yasser Arafat’s passing, and what happened in the US election, will have a far greater bearing on the world. They took up all the attention of this blog as well.

But it is a shame that we do not more celebrate the truly good among us, and the truly good leaders.

One measure of Sheikh Zayed’s generosity: fully 28% of the budget of Abu Dhabi went on foreign aid.

His funeral did attract a very good selection of Middle Eastern leaders. Afghanistan’s President Karzai was there, I believe on the very day he won his election, perhaps his first official act. Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq was there, despite his pressing concerns at home; and so was the Iraqi president. Almost every ruler in the Arab world attended personally. Britain managed Prince Charles and Prince William, plus the Minister of Defense, Geoff Hoon.

The US did less well. I imagine people were tied up with the election, but the best they managed was Assistant Secretary of State Armitage a few days later.

This might, however, have been the preference of the UAE government.

But then the surprise. Maktoum did not, as I predicted, take over.

Even though the constitution provides for him to automatically become president for a thirty day period pending election by the Supreme Council, the presidency was given within hours to Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince.

Nothing shocking here; many people thought Sheikh Khalifa would get it. It just defies the tea leaves I thought I read in the newspapers.

Peace, in any case, be upon Sheikh Zayed’s soul.