{"id":573,"date":"2010-10-27T13:29:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T09:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=573"},"modified":"2011-07-16T11:23:58","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T07:23:58","slug":"a-sad-day-for-the-uae-as-last-of-its-founding-fathers-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/a-sad-day-for-the-uae-as-last-of-its-founding-fathers-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sad day for UAE as Last &#8216;Founding Father&#8217; Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Sheikh-Saqr-470x303.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-918\" title=\"Sheikh-Saqr-470x303\" src=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Sheikh-Saqr-470x303-300x178.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"178\" \/><\/a>It&#8217;s a sad day for the United Arab Emirates &#8211; the Ruler of Ras Al  Khaimah, His Highness Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, died this  morning.<\/p>\n<p>The world&#8217;s oldest reigning monarch and the last of the UAE&#8217;s &#8216;founding  fathers&#8217;, Sheikh Saqr was 92 and had been in ill health for some time.  The newspapers lagged Twitter this morning and struggled to get stories  together, but the immediate flood of interest brought down WAM, the  UAE&#8217;s news agency and the source of any &#8216;official&#8217; news.<\/p>\n<p>Ras Al Khaimah means, literally, &#8216;headland of the tent&#8217;. The khaimah is  the traditional barasti (palm frond) dwelling of the mountain people of  the UAE. Typically khaimahs are dug into the ground, lined with stone  and then the barasti walls and roof are built above. Sheikh Saqr would  remember when these were the majority of buildings in RAK &#8211; he had ruled  the country since 1948.<\/p>\n<p>RAK joined the UAE a year later than the other emirates, the Federation  was founded in 1971 and RAK joined in 1972. I never did find out the  precise reasons for the delay, which has always intrigued me.<\/p>\n<p>This really is the passing of an era rather than one man. It&#8217;s a sad day  for Sheikh Saqr&#8217;s family and the people of Ras Al Khaimah, but it&#8217;s  also sad to see the passing of the last of the men who brought this  country from a scattered land of tribal peoples to become a modern  nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This really is the passing of an era rather than one man, the passing of the last of the men who brought this country from a scattered land of tribal peoples to become a modern nation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,83,187],"tags":[2118,166,162,2116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}