Before there were roads, towers, and electricity, there was the rhythm of the sand and the silence of the desert, broken only by the bleat of a goat, or the crackle of fire beneath a pot of coffee.
It was the only world Sheikha Sabha Alkhyeli knew. Born in 1948, she remembers the place that became the UAE as an open, borderless land of tribes, tents and faith.
“I was born in the desert,” said the 77-year-old. “And we didn’t know anything better than it. We grew up in it. We were happy in it. That was our life.”
She was raised in a black tent woven from goat hair, stitched by hand by her mother, Hamda bint Jumaa Al Khyeli. However, her life changed forever when, at the age of 16, she married Sheikh Saeed bin Shakhbout – son of the ruler of Abu Dhabi from 1928 to 1966.
Her father, Mohammed bin Jaber Alkhyeli, died when the youngest of the sisters was an infant. There were three daughters – Qadhma, Maryam and Alyazia and a half-brother, Mattar Alkhyeli. Her mother raised them alone, with fierce strength and strict discipline of the desert.
“Our house wasn’t made of walls,” she said. “It was made of effort. My mother stitched it from wool and goat hair. Each section was cleaned, sun-dried, combed, and spun by hand. It was long and wide, with six or seven panels. It had to be – we were many.”
Their way of life was mobile. “We didn’t stay in one place,” she said. “We’d move every few months depending on the water. Three months here, six months there – sometimes less if the grass dried up. In the summer, we stayed near water. In the winter, we went where the grazing was good.”
Making it work
Their lives revolved around survival and beauty. They walked barefoot or wore zarabeel, handwoven socks made of sheep’s wool. In summer, they offered protection from the heat. In winter, they shielded from the cold.
“We used to fetch water from wells – some more than 10km away. We’d carry it in leather skins. We used donkeys to help us, but most of it was by hand,” she said.
Milk came from their camels, meat was rare, and bread was handmade on a fire.
“We had nothing, but we never went hungry,” she said. “We made do with what we had – sugar, flour, rice – all came from India or Iraq. We cooked with what was available.”
Joy came from the smallest things.
“When the rain came, it was a celebration,” she said. “We’d make barniyoush, rice with dates. The kids would look for a tiny red insect we called bint al matar (the daughter of the rain). The grown-ups would chant 'Yalla bil matar w’seela, hatta al-‘anz tiyb as-kheela'.
“‘Oh God, send us rain and floods, so the goats give birth to the best of kids.’”
They played for hours in the sand, shaping it into camels, houses, people. “We’d even shape women cooking and children playing. We didn’t just imagine – we built whole worlds out of sand,” she said.
Community spirit
When a woman gave birth, the neighbourhood rallied.
“We were five or six houses in a camp,” she said. “But if someone delivered a baby, everyone came. They’d bring firewood, help wash clothes, cook, even rock the baby to sleep.”
Their lives were hard but never miserable.
“For us, it wasn’t hardship. That was just life. And we loved it,” said Sheikha Sabha.
In the 1960s, the winds of change began to blow their way. Her sisters moved to Al Jimi in Al Ain, where the government had started building homes. Later, they received land near the hospital, built houses, and began a new kind of life. But the desert never left them.
“Even in concrete homes, we still lived like Bedouin,” she said. “The values, the habits, the mindset – it stayed.”
Sheikha Sabha entered a different world: Qasr Al Hosn, where she lived between 1963 and 1966 with Sheikha Maryam bint Rashid – Sheikh Shakbout’s second wife and her mother-in-law.
“She was everything,” she said. “Educated, religious, wise. She taught me so much. We would sit every night and talk. About the past. About life. About God.”
Those evenings became her classroom.
Lessons learnt
“I couldn’t read or write, but I had a deep need to express myself,” she said, explaining how she learnt as an adult. “One day, I came back from a wedding, upset. Something was inside me. I only recently learnt to read and had never written before I picked up a school notebook – not even mine – and I wrote 12 pages. I didn’t stop.”
That was the beginning. She began writing her life story, her memories, her thoughts.
“I used to ask girls to read to me. I copied Ayat Al Kursi [a verse of the Quran] to learn the letters. I started writing letters for others. I even wrote official correspondence.”
Eventually, she wrote a book. Then another and another and today she has written five books. One of her books, now being displayed at Louvre Abu Dhabi, is an autobiography while the other – Kharareef – is a compilation of folktales and stories she had heard her grandmother recite to her as a child when she slept on sand dunes under the stars.
Next month, she hopes to open a private museum at her farm in Al Ain.
“I built it large, air-conditioned. I placed shelves and I brought everything I had from camel saddles to old copper pots. I even recreated my room from Qasr Al Hosn exactly as it was. Down to the cushions. Down to the chest I bought from an Indian trader back then.”
The museum is not yet open, but it will be. “When people enter, I want them to feel what we felt. Not just see but feel.”
Today, Sheikha Sabha’s legacy continues in her family. Her daughter, Sheikha Fakhra, is married to Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the UAE’s Minister of Tolerance and Co-existence.
Her granddaughter, Sheikha Alyazia bint Nahyan, is the UAE’s Arab culture ambassador to Unesco and a writer herself – her most recent book, The Humdrums of Culture, is a philosophical call to think critically and never take stories at face value.
Sheikha Alyazia also wrote Intersections which her father, Sheikh Nahyan, described as a “unique blend of creativity, innovation, artistic skill and an intelligent openness to a world committed to freedom of expression, and conscious sound thinking.”
The two of them – grandmother and granddaughter – are so different and yet so alike.
“She’s philosophical. I am practical. But the love of reading – that, we share,” Sheikha Sabha said.
But Sheikha Sabha does not need titles to feel proud. Her joy comes from simpler things.
“During Ramadan, we only break fast together. That’s our rule. Everyone brings a dish, we eat as one. That’s what matters. Togetherness,” she said.
She still picks flowers – real or artificial – and calls her grandchildren over.
“I just want them to smile. That’s happiness. Not money. Not luxury. But tea in the garden. A shared meal. Laughter. Family,” she said.
And that, perhaps, is what she has preserved most – not the objects in her museum, but the values. Generosity. Resilience. Simplicity. Dignity.
“The UAE has changed,” she said. “We have light, roads, safety, prosperity. But we must never forget who we were.”
And then, with the weight of a century in her voice, she said the words that tie it all together: “We lived these stories. We didn’t just hear them – we breathed them. This is who we are.”
