Did the Emir of Dubai say, “Hard times make strong men,” and did he illustrate this with camels and cars?

There is a popular statement on the Internet by an Arab sheikh that his grandfather rode a camel, he himself drives a Mercedes, and his great-grandson will ride a camel again. We have verified the accuracy of this quote.

The full phrase attributed to the emir is: “My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drove a Mercedes, my son drove a Land Rover, and my grandson will drive a Land Rover, but my great-grandson will ride a camel... Why is this so? Because hard times create strong people, strong people create easy times. Easy times create weak people. Weak people create difficult times. Many will not understand, but we need to raise warriors, not parasites.”

Although in a number of sources (for example, in article Wikipedia about the eastern ruler, on websites With collections quotes and portal Islam-Today) give only the first part of the statement; apparently, the “full” version has become much more popular. It can be found, for example, in large public pages on VKontakte with hundreds of thousands and even millions of subscribers: "5 interesting facts", "What inspires", "Did you know?", "Readers", H.S., "I'm a Billionaire", «SmartMoney | Business magazine", "Wisdom of Life" etc. Thousands of likes recruited And publications V communities on Facebook, where the alleged statement of the Emir of Dubai published including politician and public figure Irina Khakamada.

Let's start with the fact that often publications with this quote on social networks are accompanied by an erroneous photograph. It does not depict one of the founders UAE Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al-Maktoum (1910–1990), who is usually credited as the originator of the expression, and his third son and emir Dubai since 2006 Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. However, some sources not only provide the statement with an incorrect photograph, but sometimes directly attribute the phrase to the modern ruler of the emirate.

In the spring of 2021, the tested phrase became popular outside the Russian-language segment of the Internet, which attracted the attention of our foreign colleagues. By data fact checkers from AFP, similar posts were posted by users from Japan and Bangladesh, fact checkers from AAP sorted it out messages posted on Facebook by residents of Canada and Papua New Guinea. According to the observation of our colleagues, foreigners also often provide a quote with a photograph of Sheikh Mohammed, and not Sheikh Rashid.

In the fifth edition of Oxford Essential Quotations indicated, that the phrase we are interested in sometimes attributed Sheikh Rashid. At the same time, the compilers emphasize: it is not known for certain when and under what circumstances this phrase was uttered. It has been clearly established that back in 1986 a similar statement tied up with Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Minister of Petroleum Industry of Saudi Arabia. In this version, the phrase goes like this: “My grandfather rode a camel, and my father rode a car, I fly an airplane, my son will ride a car, and my grandson will ride a camel.”

Fact checkers from AAP contacted for commentary from Graham Wilson, author of several books on leaders of Muslim countries, including Sheikh Rashid. Wilson confirmed the accuracy of the quote: “I first heard about this phrase from Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid (son of Sheikh Rashid and Minister of Finance of Dubai from 1971 to 2021 - Ed.) around 1988, and many years later from George Chapman, Sheikh Rashid’s shipping adviser.” According to AAP's interlocutor, the Emir of Dubai used this phrase during a conversation with advisers, explaining why windfall profits from mining should be invested in development - such an approach would help avoid a return to camel riding.

At the same time, the second part of the statement, dedicated to “hard times” and “strong people,” has nothing to do with either Sheikh Rashid, who died in 1990, or his son Mohammed, who now rules Dubai. These words taken from the science fiction novel Those Who Remain by G. Michael Hopf. As the author states in the notes to the text, he took the expression “Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create hard times” from “a meme he saw a few years ago”, the origin of which he could not determine. Be that as it may, we could not find such words in the speeches of the Dubai emirs.

Half-truth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. AAP. Dubai sheikh’s words lost in translation with viral quote
2. AFP Fact Check. Sheikh Mohammed did not say great-grandson 'will be back on a camel' in 2014 interview