The oasis city of Al Ain looks both to the past and the future: to be the past as the  site of some of the oldest archaeological remains to be found in the country and to the future as the home of the Emirates University, the country’s first seat of higher education

Al Ain is located to the east of Abu Dhabi in the lee of the great Hajar Mountains.  Little more than 25 years ago it was a fairly ramshackle collection of six small villages; the largest called Al Ain, belonging to Abu Dhabi, situated next to three others, of which the largest is Buraimi, belonging to Oman.  Each has its own falaj (underground irrigation channel) that brought water to the date groves and rudimentary agriculture on which people depended for their livelihood.  The falaj system is at least 3,000 years old