ABU DHABI - United Arab Emirates President and founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan died on Tuesday, his office announced.
"The president's office mourns with the people of the United Arab Emirates and the Arab and Islamic nations the leader of the nation and president... His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, who passed away on Tuesday evening, November 2," the announcement said.
The announcement, which did not immediately give more details, was reported by official media while Abu Dhabi television aired verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Sheikh Zayed, who was genuinely loved by his people for using oil money to turn his desert country green, played a key part in creating the UAE out of the Trucial States on December 2, 1971, following Britain's pullout from the Gulf.
The president, who died aged nearly 90, was also respected by Arab counterparts, having tirelessly counseled reconciliation, tolerance and unity in a region riven by political disputes and personal rivalries.
His calls for conciliation extended across the Gulf to non-Arab Iran, with which his country has a territorial dispute. Sheikh Zayed advocated dialogue as the means to a solution of the row with Tehran over three strategic Gulf islands.
The plight of Iraq's sanctions-stricken people moved him to take the lead among Arab rulers in calling for an end to the UN embargo imposed after Baghdad invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
But early last year, he also called for Saddam Hussein to step down as Iraqi president in an attempt to avert the US-led invasion of Iraq.
A steadfast champion of the Palestinian cause, Sheikh Zayed did not shy away from criticizing US policy in the Middle East, chiding Washington for its perceived lack of even-handedness in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"I came here first of all to hear the views of Sheikh Zayed, a wise man, on the situation in the aftermath of the September 11" anti-US terror attacks, French President Jacques Chirac said during a visit to Abu Dhabi in November 2001.
Underpinning the president's rule was a delicate balance between the seven emirates making up the federation. His deputy was Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashed al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, the federation's second most important emirate.
Sheikh Zayed - who was born "around 1918" according to official documents - had his share of health problems over the past few years, undergoing neck surgery in 1996 and a kidney transplant four years later.
In August 1966, he was proclaimed ruler of what became the wealthiest emirate of the federation.
The Nahayan family agreed that he should succeed his brother Shakhbut, who bowed out after governing Abu Dhabi for 38 years during which the modern world was largely shut out.
Abu Dhabi was a poor backwater living off pearling and rudimentary agriculture in scattered nearby oases.
The collapse of the pearl market in the 1930s as a result of the world economic crisis and the advent of Japanese cultured pearls spelled disaster.
The Trucial States did not even have schools. This meant that Sheikh Zayed's education was limited to the basic tenets of Islam at the hands of a local cleric.
Enter oil.
It began flowing in Abu Dhabi in 1959 and exports started four years later, bringing hitherto unthinkable riches which Sheikh Zayed used upon assuming office to launch large-scale development projects.
Sheikh Zayed had been initiated to the rules of government in 1946, when Shakhbut entrusted him with the administration of the oasis of Al-Ain.
In 1953, he accompanied his brother on visits to Britain and France and came back impressed by what he saw, notably schools and hospitals.
The oil boom enjoyed by Abu Dhabi spread through the six other emirates after their rulers chose Sheikh Zayed as the first head of the UAE federation in 1971.
His first five-year mandate was systematically renewed since, and when he died, he left a country that is one of the world's richest.
A keen falconer, Sheikh Zayed fathered 19 sons and several daughters from four wives.
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