247 The Emirates of the Arabian Peninsula
34.4.3: The Emirates of the Arabian Peninsula
The emirates of the Middle East (the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait) are monarchies ruled by emirs and represent some of the wealthiest Arab nations.
Learning Objective
Compare and contrast the emirates of the Arabian Peninsula
Key Points
- Most emirates have either disappeared, been integrated in a larger modern state or changed their rulers’ styles. True emirate-states have become rare, with only three in existence today.
- The United Arab Emirates is a federal state that comprises seven federal emirates, each administered by a hereditary emir. These form the electoral college for the federation’s President and Prime Minister.
- The UAE is criticized for its human rights record, including the specific interpretations of Sharia law used in its legal system that make flogging and stoning legal punishments.
- Qatar has the highest per capita income in the world, backed by the world’s third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves.
- Kuwait is among the Middle East’s freest countries in terms of civil liberties and political rights, and Kuwaiti women are among the most emancipated in the Middle East.
- Unlike other Gulf states, Kuwait does not have Sharia courts.
Key Terms
- Arab Spring
- A revolutionary wave of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, and civil wars in the Arab world that began on December 17, 2010, in Tunisia with the Tunisian Revolution, and spread through the Arab League and surrounding countries. Major insurgencies and civil wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen resulted, along with civil uprisings in Bahrain and Egypt; large street demonstrations in Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, and Sudan; and minor protests in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the Western Sahara.
- Emirate
- A political territory is ruled by a dynastic Islamic monarch-style emir. It also means principality.
- Apostasy
- A person’s formal renunciation of a religion, also used in the broader context of embracing an opinion contrary to one’s previous beliefs.
- Sharia law
- The religious law governing the members of the Islamic faith. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith.
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, or the UAE, is a federal absolute monarchy in Western Asia at the southeast end of the Arabian Peninsula and bordering seas in the Gulf of Oman, occupying the Persian Gulf. It borders with Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, although the United Arab Emirates shares maritime borders with Qatar in the west and Iran in the north and sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, and Bahrain. In 2013, the UAE’s population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates.
The country is a federation of seven emirates that was established on December 2nd, 1971. The con