On the morning of December 2, 1971, as the United Arab Emirates marked its formation, a 19-year-old stood outside Mushrif Palace in Abu Dhabi, peering through a fence.
He had entered a competition months earlier to design the national flag but had received no confirmation. Abdullah Mohammed Al Maainah could only wait and watch.
“There was no wind that day, so I waited until there was a draft to make sure that the flag up there at the pole was mine,” he told The National in a 2011 interview.
When the breeze finally lifted the fabric, revealing the full design, he knew. The flag raised that morning in Abu Dhabi, and another at Union House in Dubai, was his.
Al Maainah's story is particularly resonant today, following the call by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, for the UAE flag to be raised high above homes and buildings across the country to celebrate the nation's strength and pride in the face of Iranian missile and drone attacks.
Al Maainah’s winning entry was the result of a last-minute effort. He had come across an advertisement in Al Ittihad newspaper, issued by Sheikh Zayed’s royal diwan, calling for submissions ahead of unification. With only days before the deadline, he gathered materials and worked through the night to produce a set of designs.
He submitted six entries in total, part of a competition that drew more than 1,000 designs. The final shortlist was published in newspapers, but in black and white, leaving him unsure if one of the selected designs was his.
There was little fanfare. He was not contacted when his design was shortlisted, nor when it was ultimately chosen. Only by travelling to Mushrif Palace and seeing the flag raised did he confirm it for himself.
The country, newly unified, had other priorities. Al Maainah later received a prize of 4,000 riyals and a simple acknowledgement. The UAE dirham had not yet been introduced.
The design he created would go on to become one of the nation’s most recognisable symbols.
The UAE flag features three horizontal bands of green, white and black, with a vertical red strip nearest the mast. These are known as the Pan-Arab colours, historically associated with Arab unity and identity.
Their origins trace back to the Arab Revolt of 1916, and they have since appeared in several Arab flags. Al Maainah himself described them as representing successive eras in Islamic and regional history, from the early caliphates to the Fatimid and Ottoman periods.
White, he said, also carries meanings of charity and good deeds, as well as sovereignty and pride.
Other interpretations, including those inspired by the poetry of Safi Al Din Al Hilli, link the colours to virtues such as courage, hope, strength and unity.
For Al Maainah, the symbolism was also rooted in a local context. Black reflected the oil that would transform the country, green its fertile land, while red and white echoed colours already present in the flags of individual emirates, brought together into a single design.
That sense of unity remains central to the flag’s meaning.
Only two flags were raised on the day of unification in 1971. Today, it is flown across homes, schools and government buildings, particularly on November 3, when the UAE marks Flag Day, established in 2013 as a moment of collective expression.
In the years that followed, Al Maainah went on to represent the UAE abroad as a diplomat, serving as an ambassador in countries including South Korea and Chile, carrying with him the symbol he created as a teenager.
For Al Maainah, the connection remains deeply personal. “I can’t help but smile whenever I see the flag,” he told The National in 2011. “I feel a great honour and pride each time I am photographed with it.”
What began as a hurried submission has become a lasting emblem of the nation, first raised in still air, then carried forward by the winds of history.
