Attitudes
His religious tolerance of Christians and the freedom given Western workers sojourning in the UAE was in marked contrast to most neighbours in the region and exposed him to criticism from other much more conservative nations. Sheikh Zayed was determined to bring the Emirates into federation. His calls for cooperation extended across the Persian Gulf to Iran. Sheikh Zayed advocated dialogue as the means to settle the row with Tehran over three strategic Persian Gulf islands which Iran seized from the (future) UAE Emirate of Sharjah in 1971. The islands remain in Iranian hands, despite over three decades of UAE diplomatic initiatives.
Zayed did not shy away from controversy when it came to expressing his opinions on current events in the Arab world. Troubled by the suffering of Iraqi civilians, he took the lead in calling for the lifting of economic sanctions on Iraq imposed by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, despite Kuwaiti displeasure and opposition.
Zayed was considered one of the wealthiest men in the world. A Forbes magazine estimate put his fortune at around USD 20 billion. The source of this wealth could be almost exclusively attributed to the immense oil wealth of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates, which sit on a pool of a tenth of the world's proven oil reserves. He enjoyed a relatively traditional lifestyle, riding and hunting with falcons, though he gave up hunting with firearms, a sport at which he excelled, to set an example for wildlife conservation in his fragile desert homeland. He was personally popular, and was regarded to be considerably pious in his religious observances.
Read more about this topic: Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan
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