More than 40 years ago, two great Gulf desert leaders set out to make history. Despite major challenges and hardships, they succeeded.

On December 2, 1971, their strenuous and incessant efforts gave birth to the UAE, a unique unity experiment in contemporary Arab history.

Late Sheikh Zayed’s dream was to create a strong, rich country with reasonable weight on the world arena. Late Sheikh Rashid’s dream was to turn Dubai into a regional trade hub that forms the UAE’s commercial and financial backbone.

Both dreams were fulfilled and both leaders were gratified.

Skeptics had doubted such moves would succeed in uniting seven scattered Sheikdoms, previously known as the Trucial States.

When the union was declared just after Britain ended its colonial rule, skeptics were still not convinced, predicting its collapse a few years later.

When the union survived storms and time, skeptics were still not satisfied, claiming it could disintegrate with the death of Sheikh Zayed or Sheikh Rashid. Both leaders have passed away and the union became even stronger. At last, the skeptics seem to have shut up, apparently tired of predicting.

Nearly four decades after it was created, the union has withheld storms and pitfalls and is emerging stronger. People in the UAE believe this would not have been possible hadn’t late Sheikh Zayed and late Sheikh Rashid laid the union on a strong foundation with the help of the rulers of the five other emirates.

As late Sheikh Zayed had dreamed, the UAE is now one of the wealthiest nations, with a reasonable weight on the global map and with strong cohesion and affinity among its leadership and people.

After it was a mere arid strip of small desert oases, the UAE is now the second largest Arab economy, one of the largest 10 oil producers with the seventh largest oil and gas resources, and one of the top aid donors relative to its GDP. In 2010, the UAE also had the second highest per capita income in the Arab region after Qatar and one of the highest rates in the world.

As late Sheikh Rashid had dreamed, Dubai is now the Middle East’s commercial hub and one of the world’s largest transshipment centres. When it comes to non-oil trade--as late Sheikh Rashid had conceived--Dubai is the country’s commercial backbone and one of the Gulf’s main financial centres.

While the union was supported by the massive oil and gas exports, analysts believe such natural wealth could have been futile hadn’t it been used wisely and harnessed for the sake of the union and the people.

If there is any consolation for the UAE people and probably for all other Arabs and Moslems about the death of Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid, it is that their struggle for unity was not in vain as their dreams of making history were fulfilled. What is also a consolation is that the successors to those leaders continued in the same path, further strengthening the union.

Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid have died but their deeds have not. They can surely rest in peace as their main ambition to serve their people and not let them down was fully achieved.

When Dubai had a financial problem last year, Abu Dhabi rushed to help as if to assert Sheikh Zayed’s famous saying:”We are one family and one body….if part of this body aches, the whole body aches.”

Abu Dhabi’s immediate response to Dubai’s crisis was just another shining example that Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid had laid the union on a strong rather than fragile foundation. With the federation resting now in the hands of the current leaders, the UAE people have every reason to be reassured that the union is in safe hands and is powerful, solid and unshakable.

On this occasion and on every day and year, late Sheikh Zayed and late Sheikh Rashid should be remembered as great leaders who made history and accomplished a miracle. May God bless their souls and have mercy on them.

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