Fujairah is the emirate that looks out on the other sea. While six of the seven emirates face the Persian Gulf, Fujairah is the only one on the Gulf of Oman, on the eastern side of the peninsula, wedged between the Hajar Mountains and deep, clear water that has made it the country's diving capital. The landscape changes here: rugged reddish mountains dropping almost straight into the sea, wadis with water, green plantations and a softer, more humid air. It's the Emirates almost nobody pictures: quieter, more natural, and with an ancient history etched into the stone of its forts and of the country's oldest mosque.
Underwater, off the coast of Al Aqah, the famous Snoopy Island (a rock shaped like the cartoon character) is a magnet for divers and snorkellers: reefs full of colourful fish, turtles and even small sharks. On land, Fujairah holds treasures from the past: Al Bidyah Mosque, built around 1446 and considered the oldest in the Emirates, with four domes resting on a single pillar; the 16th-century Fujairah Fort; and Al Bithnah Fort, which guarded the key pass through Wadi Ham. Ruled by the Sharqiyin tribe and the Al Sharqi dynasty, Fujairah was the last emirate to be recognised as such, in 1952, before joining the federation in 1971.
This guide helps you discover both of its sides in a practical way: where and how to dive or snorkel, which forts and historic sites to see, how to explore the mountains and wadis, where the best beaches are and why renting a car makes sense. Fujairah is the ideal destination if you want to see a different Emirates (deep sea, mountains and history), combine diving and hiking, and escape the bustle for the east coast, which is greener, calmer and full of surprises.
Fujairah has an ancient history tied to the Hajar Mountains and the Gulf of Oman: its territory holds centuries-old forts and towers and the oldest mosque in the Emirates, Al Bidyah, built around 1446 from mud and stone. The emirate is dominated by the Sharqiyin tribe, whose dynasty, the Al Sharqi, has ruled for generations. Unlike most of the emirates, Fujairah faces the Gulf of Oman rather than the Persian Gulf, and for a long time it was within Sharjah's orbit, breaking away in the early 20th century. It was the last of the seven to be recognised as an independent emirate, in 1952, when it entered into agreements with Britain as one of the Trucial States. In December 1971 it was one of the six founding emirates of the United Arab Emirates. The forts of Fujairah and Al Bithnah, which guarded the strategic Wadi Ham, and Al Bidyah Mosque tell that long story. You'll find all of it on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The five smaller emirates: cultural Sharjah, tiny Ajman, serene Umm al Quwain, mountainous Ras al Khaimah, heir to Julfar, and Fujairah looking out over the Gulf of Oman.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Fujairah is the geographical exception of the United Arab Emirates. While six of the seven emirates look out over the Persian Gulf, on the west coast of the peninsula, Fujairah faces the Gulf of Oman on the other side, to the east, already looking towards the Indian Ocean. That difference, which seems like a detail on the map, explains almost everything: it gives the emirate deeper, cleaner waters, a mountain barrier that separates it from the rest of the country, a somewhat more humid climate and a history of its own, tied more to the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean routes than to trade in the Persian Gulf.
That barrier is the Hajar Mountains, the great range that runs along the east of the Arabian Peninsula and cuts Fujairah off from the interior. For millennia, crossing those mountains was hard and dangerous, and contact with the rest of the coast went through a few passes between valleys, above all the Wadi Ham, the great watercourse that links the Fujairah coast with the interior. Whoever controlled that pass controlled trade, which is why Fujairah's mountains are dotted with forts and watchtowers: this was a land of natural frontiers that had to be defended.
Human settlement in this region is extremely old. Excavations have uncovered Bronze Age and Iron Age tombs and settlements thousands of years old, proof that these valleys and this coast were inhabited long before Islam. The mix of a sea rich in fish, defensive mountains and fertile valleys with water made Fujairah a liveable and strategic place from very early times, with an identity shaped by isolation and by its seafaring calling towards the Gulf of Oman.
The monument that best sums up Fujairah's long past is the Al Bidyah Mosque (or Al Badiyah), built around 1446 and considered the oldest mosque in the United Arab Emirates still in use. It is a small, humble building made of mud brick, stone and clay, with no minaret and four pointed domes resting on a single central pillar: an architecture unique in the country, movingly simple, set at the foot of the mountains with watchtowers on the hill above it. That a mud building has survived almost six centuries is a small miracle in itself, and a precious testimony to early Islam on this coast.
Alongside the mosques, the forts are the stars of Fujairah's heritage. Fujairah Fort, dating back to the 16th century, stands on a hill overlooking the city and the date plantations: for centuries it was both the rulers' residence and a military stronghold. Inland, above the strategic Wadi Ham, stands Al Bithnah Fort, which guarded the key pass between the coast and the interior of the peninsula. Control of Al Bithnah was fought over again and again, because whoever held it commanded the most important trade and military route in the region.
These fortresses are not decoration: they tell the real story of tribes competing for control of the valleys, the passes and scarce resources. Life in Fujairah, between the mountains and the sea, depended on fishing in the Gulf of Oman, on farming in the wadis that had water (dates, above all) and on trade through the mountain passes. It was a tribal, austere and warlike society, shaped by harsh geography and by the need to defend every inch of fertile land.
The Emirate of Fujairah is dominated by the Sharqiyin tribe (the 'easterners'), the main tribe of the east coast, and its modern history is largely the story of their struggle to assert themselves as an independent power against their neighbours, above all against the powerful Al Qasimi of Sharjah, who for a long time claimed control of these shores. For generations Fujairah sat within Sharjah's orbit, more in name than in reality, but the Sharqiyin, protected by their mountains, kept their autonomy in practice.
A key milestone came in 1901, when Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Sharqi, head of the Sharqiyin, declared Fujairah's independence from Sharjah. The British, who controlled the politics of the region, did not recognise that independence straight away, and for decades Fujairah was left in limbo: independent in fact, but without the formal status of a 'Trucial State' that the other emirates had, which left it outside the treaties and official British protection. The Al Sharqi dynasty kept ruling and consolidating its power, relying on its control of the forts and the mountain passes.
The long-sought formal recognition only came in 1952, when Britain finally accepted Fujairah as an independent emirate and brought it into the Trucial States. It was the last of the seven territories to gain that status, which makes it the official 'youngest' of the emirates, despite how old its human settlement is. That late recognition was a triumph for the Sharqiyin and sealed international acknowledgement of an autonomy that had in practice existed for a long time.
Having been recognised as an emirate barely two decades earlier, Fujairah reached the 1970s with an identity and an autonomy already well established. When Britain announced in 1968 that it would withdraw from the Gulf by 1971, the seven emirates of the coast, Fujairah among them, had to decide their future. The answer, driven above all by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai, was union.
On 2 December 1971 the United Arab Emirates was born, and Fujairah was one of the six founding emirates, together with Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman and Umm al Quwain (Ras al Khaimah joined in early 1972). For Fujairah, the poorest and most peripheral emirate, wedged between mountains and with no significant oil of its own, joining the federation was a decision about the future and about survival: it meant sharing in Abu Dhabi's enormous wealth, becoming part of a common project and finally leaving its historical isolation behind. Its ruler, from the Al Sharqi dynasty, joined the Supreme Council of rulers of the new country.
Sheikh Zayed became the first president of the Emirates, the 'father of the nation', and under the federation came development, roads that at last crossed the Hajar with ease, schools, hospitals and water. Fujairah, so isolated for centuries, was connected to the rest of the country by mountain roads that are now a tourist attraction in their own right. Within a few years the union transformed the lives of its people, without erasing the strong identity of the Sharqiyin or the distinct character of the east coast.
21st-century Fujairah has turned its unique geography into its great advantage. Its location on the Gulf of Oman, outside the Strait of Hormuz (the bottleneck through which a large share of the world's oil passes and where the Gulf's geopolitical tensions are concentrated), has given it enormous strategic value. The Port of Fujairah is today one of the largest ship-fuelling (bunkering) hubs on the planet, and a key point for the pipelines that allow oil to be exported without going through Hormuz. That port and energy role is the emirate's economic engine.
At the same time, Fujairah has bet on tourism, making the most of what no other emirate has to the same degree: the deep, clear waters of the Gulf of Oman, ideal for diving, and the Hajar Mountains. Snoopy Island and the reefs of the east coast are among the best dive sites in the country; the resorts of Al Aqah and Dibba are a much-loved weekend getaway; and the mountains, wadis and scenic routes draw hikers and adventurers. The Al Bidyah Mosque and the forts add the historical appeal. Fujairah sells itself, rightly, as the most natural and authentic side of the Emirates.
The emirate is still ruled by the Al Sharqi dynasty and keeps an identity shaped by its particular history: that of an isolated territory between mountains that fought for decades for recognition and is today a strategic piece of the country. For travellers, Fujairah is a revelation: the place where the Emirates stop being desert and skyscrapers and become deep sea, rugged mountains, mud-brick forts and a mosque almost six centuries old at the foot of the Hajar. A side of the country few people expect, and one that almost nobody finds disappointing.
