During may long stay in the UAE, I came across quite a few Emaratis out of “mixed marriages”. This means a UAE national whose mother is from outside the GCC countries. One such was son of a UAE Doctor and an Iranian nurse. He told me the he was never accepted as full Emarati by the higher gov’t circles even though 25% of the UAE national are of Iranian descent. He married a full blooded Emarati girl only to ensure that his children do not face this discrimination.
I noticed that it was quite common for the poor UAE nationals of Fujairah to marry Indian Muslims girls from Hyderabad. I was informed by one of the guys who had done so that it was because he could not afford demands of the Emarati woman such separate house and a maid and excessive ‘Maher or dower’.
Sponsor of the company I worked for was brother of the Sheikh hence I also was on friendly terms with some of the senior officials of the Fujairah gov’t. Understand that UAE gov’t gave one 10,000 sq. ft. plot to each UAE national on his marriage at throw away price but this applied to first marriage only. Thus if a UAE national wanted to marry 2nd or 3rd wife, he would marry a non Emarati woman because her demands were few and he could get away with rented accommodation.
On the other hand, since children of Emarati women from their mixed marriages were not entitled to UAE nationality, many were having difficulty finding Emarati men. It was therefore being considered that UAE nationals will be allotted second or third plot for the house as long as they married Emarati women.
Interpretation of Sharia law in the UAE is not as strict as the Taliban definition. In Pakistan we always try to be pure than the pure. A tradition of the Prophet (PBUH) does not mean that you must do it such keeping the beard and something allowed can be restricted if it is going to cause disruption in the society such as marrying non- nationals or a group of nationals as in case of Saudi Arabia.
Marriage directly affects the family and cohesion of the society. Therefore parents, guardians & the ruler of the day have the power to impose restrictions to ensure that the young men do not disrupt social norms thru acquiring Muslim partners who are otherwise considered less suitable .(Not my definition but opinion of one the advisors of the ruler of Fujairah)
Part of the reason is that such relationship was never fully accepted to begin with and considered something less than whole, watered down or impure.This could be because majority of the families are very conservative, and want to keep their traditions alive. They think that by getting their children to marry someone from within the family circle they can ensure this happens. They might also be afraid that if their child marries a foreigner their offspring may have divided loyalties.
Here is a link to a relevant article written by UAE women of mixed parentage.
A new generation of Emiratis speaks out about mixed parentage | The National