Abdulla al Maainah should be a household name. After all, everywhere you go in the UAE you see his iconic work. Rasha Elass talks to the man whose design was chosen to represent the nation in a contest that drew a thousand entries.
When Abdulla al Maainah saw details of a competition in a newspaper 38 years ago, he knew he had to participate. The advertisement came out of Sheikh Zayed's royal diwan, and it solicited entries from artists to submit flag designs. The unification of the emirates was to be announced three months later, and the grand occasion was still missing an official flag.
This is the story of Abdulla al Maainah, the current ambassador to South Korea and the man credited with the design of the UAE's flag. He was raised in Ras al Khaimah and Abu Dhabi in an artistically inclined family. From an early age he took up the hobby of drawing, though he was always "serious about school".
He recalls the time leading up to the birth of his nation when, aged 19, he submitted his designs for the country's flag.
"There was a day or two left for the deadline in the ad, and I didn't have the right equipment. So I rushed out to get what I needed, and in one night I stayed up and drew my designs, and put them in an album and worried about not making the deadline."
He entered six designs in the competition, which, according to him, drew a total of 1,030 designs. The committee in charge of choosing the winning design narrowed down the entries to six; among them was one of al Maainah's flags.
"The papers ran the six nominated designs, but back then, all papers were in black and white. So I wasn't certain that one of the flags was mine. It looked like mine, but there were no colours, so I couldn't know for certain."
Today, meeting the man behind the country's flag design might draw some awe. But back then, al Maainah says, there was no real fanfare to commemorate the occasion. No one contacted him to inform him his design was one of six being considered, and when his design was finally chosen for the country's flag, no one threw the usual high-honour festivities that we might expect today. He did not even know for sure that it was his design until he travelled down to the Mushrif Palace, where the flag was raised at the announcement of the unification.
"One day after announcing the unification, I was still unsure that it was my design," he reveals. "None of the announcements were in colour. So I went down to the Mushrif Palace to see for myself. I recognised it right away when I saw it. It was my design. I was so happy. People were excited about the unification, but I was the happiest of all."
The colours and stripes of the current flag have specific meaning, and nothing in the design came about by accident. The observant eye might notice the colour theme of the flag is also present in most Arab flags, and there is historical reason for this.
"The colours represent the colours of the Arab revolution," al Maainah explains. He is referring to the Arab Revolt of 1916, initiated by Sherif Hussein ibn Ali, who worked closely with Lawrence of Arabia, against the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of establishing an Arab state that would have spanned from Turkey's current southern border to Yemen.
The four colours in the flag are known as the pan-Arab colours, and are present in six other flags that represent Arab nations: Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria and Palestine. Other Arab flags incorporate some combination of these colours.
Rooted in the flag of the Arab Revolt, the four colours each represent an era in the region since the inception of Islam. Black is for the early years of Islam, which includes the time of the Prophet and the first two caliphates: the Umayyads based in Damascus followed by the Abbasids based in Baghdad. The latter's rule continued from 750AD to 1258AD, and reached as far west as modern day Algeria to as far east as India.
Green represents the Fatimids Caliphate, which ruled out of Egypt from 909AD to 1171AD over an area that spanned all of north Africa, the west coast of the Arabian Penninsula, the Levant, as well as Malta and Sicily.
Red was the colour of the Ottoman flag. Before unification, the emirates had a red and white flag. White represents both a concept and a historic period.
"White is for philanthropy," says al Maainah. "It's for charity and good deeds. The white flag also has its own sacredness. It represents the sovereignty of the state, and gives one a sense of pride."
Today the white flag has international meaning recognised by the Geneva Conventions. But it also has special significance in early Islamic history. It was raised after the Prophet's first victory on the battlefield, in the Battle of Badr, when he overpowered his opponents in Mecca and for the first time began to establish himself as a political and military force.
The Umayyads later used white in their flag as a symbol to commemorate this early victory, and to differentiate themselves from their Baghdad rivals, the Abbasids, who used black in their flag and in the uniform of their trained battalions. The flag of the Arab Revolt looks very similar to the UAE flag, except the red is in a triangle.
Maybe it is because of the country's young age that there has been little local attention to the man who designed the flag. Chances are, few young Emiratis know the story, and the elders who do know it might be able to recollect it from first-hand memory. Even al Maainah seems oblivious to his special place in his country's history. Indeed, it would be years later, when a Korean journalist interviewed al Maainah, that the press and the diplomatic corps caught on, and the story slowly drifted home.
"For us, it is quite an ordinary thing," he says. "But in other countries, designing the country's flag is an extraordinary thing."
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
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Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
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Brief scoreline:
Burnley 3
Barnes 63', 70', Berg Gudmundsson 75'
Southampton 3
Man of the match
Ashley Barnes (Burnley)
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.”
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
UAE group fixtures
Sunday Feb 23, 9.30am, v Iran
Monday Feb 25, 1pm, v Kuwait
Tuesday Feb 26, 9.30am, v Saudi
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza, Rohan Mustafa, Alishan Sharafu, Ansh Tandon, Vriitya Aravind, Junaid Siddique, Waheed Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Basil Hameed, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Ayaz, Zahoor Khan, Chirag Suri, Sultan Ahmed
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Sreesanth's India bowling career
Tests 27, Wickets 87, Average 37.59, Best 5-40
ODIs 53, Wickets 75, Average 33.44, Best 6-55
T20Is 10, Wickets 7, Average 41.14, Best 2-12
