A university was born in the sand

In 1971, seven tiny states of the Gulf decided to merge into one United Arab Emirates — the UAE. Others like Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain opted for independence. These tiny states (emirates) are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah, Ras Al-Khaimah and Ajman. After their merger, they developed into a viable political entity with Abu Dhabi being the richest and Dubai the most attractive tourist and business state.
Abu Dhabi was and is still the main source of income for the other five. Conventionally, the ruler of Abu Dhabi serves as president of the country while the ruler of Dubai is prime minister.
Presently, Abu Dhabi’s ruler Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan is the president and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid is the prime minister of the UAE. The heads of the other five states are members of the Federal Supreme Council.
When I first went there, only Dubai had the semblance of a city with a small Arab population and a majority of Indians. The balance is still in favor of Indians as it is in all the Gulf states.
In 1988, when I visited the country as part of a press tour, I found both Dubai and Abu Dhabi to be two of the most flourishing cities in the Middle East while the others were growing quite well.
But the surprise came to me in Ajman, the tiniest of all, with no resources of its own at the time. The news came to me soon after arrival when I was informed that the state of Ajman had started building a university called Ajman University College of Science and Technology which is now known as Ajman University of Science and Technology.
In fact all the area was desert. So there was no lack of space but what about the money, the infrastructure, the staffing, student accommodation and all the other details connected with a university where there had been none. So I called the owner of the gigantic project, Dr. Saeed Abdullah Salman, former minister of education for the whole union. He holds a doctorate degree from France. Since I was staying at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dubai it was easy to communicate and travel to and from Ajman within the same morning, a matter of 45 minutes each way.
The next day I was in his office in Ajman and could see that the man took his project seriously urged and assisted by his friend, the ruler of Ajman, who offered him all the facilities required to build and operate a university college from scratch.
Other meetings followed over the years with impressive results. The first laboratory for example had only one microscope and no students yet but the prospects were promising indeed as the country filled the need for foreign students. Other colleges, funded and operated by the governments of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, could hardly cater to the demand of a fast growing foreign population from all parts of the Middle East. Thus the new college had its future cut and dried. As money was relatively easy to find, land was abundant, there was a rush to build hostel accommodation for students expected to enroll from all parts of the federation as well as other Arab cities and the families could stay together or close by instead of scattering all over the country.
The nearly nonexistent institution of 1988, now has colleges with various departments in charge of the academic programs including engineering like electrical, biomedical, architectural, and interior design. Then you have a college of information technology. The college of dentistry has five departments, basic and medical sciences, restorative dentistry, growth and development, surgical sciences.
The college of business administration has four departments. It is still hard to believe that Ajman of the 1980s has been able to create a modern university in the sand which I first visited in the late 1960s and could not count more than a few cottages that had been built in a hurry to accommodate the few foreign personnel required by the state at the time. I entered one of them and decided that it would take a lot of persuasion to make me stay there permanently.
In fact the university offers the people and foreign residents everything they want in higher education without having to go abroad for more expensive courses.
Fuller details are of course available on the Internet since the university in the previously unlikely little state of Ajman provides an essential service to the people so much so that I wondered what would have happened to them without it. It is a tribute to my friend Dr. Saeed Abdullah Salman who strove so much to build it and achieve it in very difficult circumstances.

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