Qatar: The new capital of the Islamic World

In June 2006 I read an article on New York Times titled Is Qatar the next Dubai? (SHERWOOD, 2006). In that article the author explorers how this tiny nation then with a population of just over 800,000 is “striving to become a world-class business and leisure centre”. I can vouch for his observations because in 2006 I was living in Qatar. Five years on I can see that the Qataris have stood by their vision. What I also noticed was that Qatar is not merely copying Dubai, instead learning from the mistakes Dubai made.

Dubai doesn’t have abundant natural resources so it had to look for other avenues of revenue or continue to be the tiny backwater fishing village it was three decades ago. But the sheikhs of this emirate were too ambitious to let that happen. When oil was discovered in 1971 albeit in small quantities, they used the revenue brought by granting concession to big oil companies to transform their fishing town in to a regional trade hub. They diversified their economy to include tourism, real estate and services like in other developed economies. They now boast the world’s tallest tower; world’s deepest man made port and the two of the worlds largest shopping malls among other things. Though the intentions of the rulers were good and progressive, they did grave miscalculations. Socially the influx of foreign migrant workers mostly from south Asia to facilitate this development drastically changed the demographic landscape of the city and with it the social and cultural aspect of it as well. When you walk down a street in Dubai you can easily mistake it for Mumbai, Dhaka or the Karachi. Basically they lost their Arab and Islamic identity. I know because I now live here. Economically the model Dubai followed was fine provided they don’t have to encounter natural or manmade disasters like the 2008 global financial crisis which they did and eventually brought Dubai to its knees. There plan was to create a conducive environment to achieve their regional trade hub and tourism destination dream. According to their plan they were to create the infrastructure for people and companies from all around the world to move in and do business in the entire region and with it the money to flow. When the money that there depleting oil reserves pumped in wasn’t enough they turned to debt. The plan did work, until 2008 of course.

Qatar on the other hand took a cautious approach to development despite boasting the world’s highest or the second highest GDP per capita, depending on who you listen to and oil reserves to last 37 years and not to mention the third largest natural gas reserves or 14% of the world’s total. They encourage niche tourist markets like sports tourism, meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) tourism and cultural tourism which is a lot more stable than mass tourism. Although they see all sectors of the economy as an integral part of the countries development what took my attention was the countries leadership’s ambition to build a knowledge based economy. This is where Qatar is becoming less like Dubai and more like 8th century Baghdad. The then capital of the Abbasid Empire and the larger Islamic world. Like Baghdad then, Qatar today is a centre for learning. The “The House of Wisdom “has reincarnated as the Qatar Education city. It houses over two dozen educational institutes and research centres including satellite campuses of renowned western universities like Weill Cornell and Texas A&M. Qatar has the highest literacy rate among the Gulf countries so it’s no surprise that all the Gulf Co-operation Council members decided to adopt the Qatari education system in their respective countries. Qatar welcomes intellectuals in all fields from all corners of the world the same way Baghdad did to the Chinese, Persians and the Indians then, with which the paved the way to Islamic Golden Age.

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