Al Fahidi Fort

Al Fahidi Fort was built in 1799 to protect the city, and was restored in 1970 and rebuilt from the original building materials. After its restoration it was officially opened by Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum on 12 May 1971 as a museum for Dubai preserving its history and heritage, and it is now a complete museum of heritage life in Dubai. It stands in Bur Dubai near the Ruler's Court. Among its archaeological exhibits are copper items, ceramics and pottery found inside tombs dating from three to four thousand years ago.

Al Fahidi Fort is considered the oldest standing building in Dubai. It was the ruler's seat until 1896 AD, when the ruler decided to move to Shindagha. The fort's uses were varied thereafter. The fort stands in the middle of Bur Dubai so as to be a defensive centre and a lookout point giving warning of approaching dangers. The fort is a square castle whose area is estimated at about 1,535 m²; its stones are sea stones coated with gypsum and it is roofed with palm trunks bound together with wood, and it is surrounded by three defensive towers, two circular in shape and the last square. Their tops were used as gun emplacements.

Given the fort's historical importance, its image has been placed on the front face of the one hundred UAE dirham banknote.

Machine-translated from “حصن الفهيدي” on the Arabic Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Al Fahidi Fort ranks #4,896 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #4 of the 18 mapped in United Arab Emirates. See how United Arab Emirates compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Arabic) ↗