Thanks for downloading the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Laura Jones.

With a football world cup in Qatar beginning on Sunday, we're bringing you stories from

across the Arabian Peninsula. In 1971, a new country was formed, the United Arab Emirates.

Its economy was based on oil revenue. I've been speaking to Muhammad Al-Fahim about the

transformation from desert life to urban oasis. There are two Abu Dhabi families in this

story, Muhammad's. We had nothing, no water, no electricity, we're living in a fishing village

on a basic existence. We had no schools. And the royal family, who we'll hear about later.

Let's start with Muhammad. Born in 1948, he grew up in a big family in the desert in the

Alain area of Abu Dhabi, which at the time was one of seven so-called crucial states under

British protectorate. All the leaders of the tribal states had signed a treaty or a truce with

the British government in the 19th century. Muhammad didn't know it growing up, but his family was

not destined to sleep in the desert forever. Seven, down everywhere we're not. Nothing. We did not have

concrete structures. We didn't have most of the houses we built upon leaves,

half of the inhabitants lived in tents, including our family. And only in the sixties my father built

two rooms. So really there was no modern amenities, no bathrooms or toilet. We had to go to the desert.

How can you be happy? Leaping on the sand all day in the shade and in the evening you go up

the roof or sleep out in the open and the extreme humidity.

Companies had been searching for oil in Abu Dhabi since before the Second World War.

And in 1958 they found what they were looking for. Here's how the BBC reported it.

Oil spills over the sand, oil that has been hidden under the dead dunes for a million years.

Now it will feed the needs of remote mechanized societies. Its discovery challenges the primitive

order of the desert people and threatens the simple personal power of their ruler, Sheikh Shackbert.

...