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The history of the expanding city of Abu Dhabi, now spreading rapidly on to the mainland goes back many thousands of years. Around 4,500 years ago, the little Island of Umm a Nar was a major port, trading with the East and West. Vessels were getting to it from the Indus Valley civilizations, bringing pottery and precious stones, while copper ore was extracted from the inland mountains near Al Ain and traded in the great cities in Mesopotamia.
Excavations at Umm an Nar, now on the site of an oil refinery, have shown the early evidence of sheep, goats, oxen and camels taming did by its inhabitants. The evidence of ancient settlement on the island of Abu Dhabi are its small wells a good fishing offshore, likely been used by fishermen and pearl divers.

The legend tells that, around 1761 a group of nomad Bedu hunters from the Liwa Oasis, found tracks of a gazelle approaching the coast and then entering a shallow inlet of the sea and emerging again on the shore of the facing island! The hunters crossed the sea inlet and found the gazelle's tracks leading to a small spring of fresh water. They immediately realized that a vital and important source of fresh water was available on the island. Returning to the Liwa Oasis and reporting to their leader Sheikh Dhiyab Bin Isa (a leader of the Al Nahyan family) the happening.
Sheikh Dhiyab Bin Isa ordered that a settlement should be established on the island, and decreed that the name of it should be "Abu Dhabi" meaning in Arabic "Father of the Gazelle".

Whatever the truth of the tale is, in the next thirty years after the happening there were more than 200 houses on the island. In 1795 Sheikh Dhiyab's son, Sheikh Shakhbout bin Dhiyab decided to moved his headquarters to Abu Dhabi and ordered a fort to be built up called Qasr Al Husn, which today serves as the Government's Center for Documentation and Research.

Today H.H.Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan rules the Emirates from where his ancestor's 200 years earlier have ruled for generations. Under H.H.Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa " Zayed the Great 1855 -1909" (grandfather of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan) Abu Dhabi became one of the major ports of the southern Gulf and had emerged as one of the keys centers for the pearl trade, with 600 c.a. boats active in the trade.

Sidan uppdaterad 040404 / Lennart