Shaukat Ali Rana is sitting in his family villa in Mirdif, surrounded by his three sons, Ayub, Taimur and Asad. Somewhere else in the house, a grandson is playing.
Four generations of one family have made the UAE their home, all because Shaukat's father, Rafi, moved to Dubai in 1966.
As the UAE celebrates its 50th anniversary since unification, the Rana family's tale is part of the story of the country itself, one of millions woven to create the fabric of the nation.
It begins in Lahore, where, Shaukat explains, his father received a job offer of clerical work with the British Bank of the Middle East in Dubai, now HSBC, which had been operating in the city since 1946.
What is now the UAE was in those days the Trucial States, bound to Britain by a series of century-old treaties. Mohammed Rafi Rana, who was born in 1929 in British India, left behind a wife in Pakistan, and eight-year-old Shaukat.
“The family followed in 1968,” he says. “By then my father had got a new job with Pakistan International Airways.” He was the airline’s dispatcher at Dubai International Airport, then just a single terminal, that opened in 1960. The airline operated one flight a week.
Initially, the family, which included his brother Liaquat, lived in a three-bedroom flat in Karama. “He rented it from Sheikh Rashid for 2,000 rial a year (Dubai used the Qatari rial before the Dirham) and it was in what they called the ‘Cola Colony’ because it was in the same area as the Coca-Cola factory.”
The family settled into their new home and soon added a baby daughter. Shaukat was sent to the Pakistani Academy in Karama in Oud Metha, a 40-minute walk through what was then mostly desert.
For entertainment, there was a cinema in Deira showing Bollywood films twice a night. Shaukat’s father was friends with the manager, a former roommate from his first days in the country. As a favour he allowed the children in for free. But only one at a time, says Shaukat. His father did not want to abuse his friend’s generosity.
In 1970, Rafi obtained his driving licence and bought his first car, a treasured Volkswagen hatchback. It was just in time for the family’s first adventure, a trip to Abu Dhabi to witness the formation of the UAE and celebrations that would also have included the fifth anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Zayed as ruler.
This was no 90-minute drive to the capital. To reach Abu Dhabi was a four to five-hour trip guided by nothing more than tracks in the sand.
After receiving their border pass at the Seih Shuaib crossing, Rafi was baffled. “My dad was worried about which way to go,” Shaukat says. “It could be the way to Abu Dhabi but it could also be Al Ain.
“We waited an hour until a taxi came along, and the driver said “you can follow me”.
Shaukat had been given his first camera for the trip, something that would become a lifelong passion, to record the celebrations. He was now 11, and a family photograph from the trip shows him watching the parade, barefoot, with the camera proudly hanging around his neck.
Five years later, Shaukat was ready to leave school. A confident young man – a photo shows him wearing a pair of fashionable flares – he had an idea for a business based on his love of cameras and photography.
The result was Shaukat Photo Studio, a tiny shop in Deira with big ideas from its teenage proprietor. The business sold camera equipment, but also handled film development, which for the more advanced colour slide films meant dispatching them for processing to Europe or the US.
There were other complications. “There was no email, no fax,” Shaukat recalls. “Business was conducted by letter. It might take two months just to get a reply and buy stock.”
Still, the business did well, even after being given notice to close. It later moved to larger premises in Al Quoz.
Telex arrived in the 1980s, an international communication system that used teleprinters. The Telex office in Dubai was based near the Sheraton Hotel on the Creek. Not long after, the fax machine made its debut.
As did married life.
In 1985, Shaukat married Fouziya, a match arranged by his parents with a Kuwaiti family to whom he was distantly related.
As a Gulf citizen, she was eligible to buy land in Dubai, so a plot was secured on the outskirts of the city at Mirdif. An aerial photograph belonging to the family shows it almost alone in the desert scrub.
“It took two years to get a telephone line,” Shaukat recalls. Today the area is entirely built up, home to an international Chinese school, and with the main runway of a much expanded Dubai International Airport just a few kilometres away.
The business grew, expanding to art materials and supplying hotels with artwork. His family also grew, with a daughter and three sons who also work in the business, the RAFI Group.
Now there are grandchildren. Two of the four generations have known nothing but the UAE, three if you include his sister, who was born in Dubai. His father passed away in the city in 2006. There are no relatives left to visit in Lahore, he says, but they all still have Pakistani citizenship.
Now in his 60s, the pandemic has left Shaukat with time to sort through the many boxes of photographs, negatives and family ephemera kept over the decades, including his collection of vintage cameras.
The lives of the Rana family are far from the glamorous international image of Dubai, with its five-star hotels and Instagram celebrities, but they are much closer to the real story of the city, one more chapter in the making of the UAE.
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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