The current edition of The Entrepreneur’s from The Monocle stable, is on entrepreneurship in the Emirates, which is really the start up hub of the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. May be the history of the Trucial States has to do with it, as Dubai became a Free Port in 1905, prompting the first wave of migration of Persian Merchants from the rule of the Shah who had raised taxes for merchants from southern Persia, to increase revenue.

A lot of the trade in gold in South Asia was mediated through Dubai until the 1990’s. Culture is downstream of History and is vital for turbocharged entrepreneurship.

A good reference is Prof Todd Reisz ‘s Showpeice City and Temporary City by Prof Yasser Elsheshtawy

I was missing Masqat and the fare at the Arab World and the Mandi places in Al Khuwair, Ghala and Azaiba, so what does as ‘Desi Khaleeji’ do in such circumstances? Head to Wadi Hadramout, for Adeni Tea and Mandi Rice in Jalan Ampang. The place feels somewhere out of Dakhliyah, with a space-time compression identical out of Oman.

KL has a large Arab student diaspora and refugee communities, and I often speak Arabic here with Malaysians and Indonesians, and is a lingua franca of the Nusantara. The jawi script is Arabic and Indian Ocean circulations dominate.

The sensory scapes of the place, is deeply familiar and satisfying.

On the business end, this edition of The Entrepreneur’s from the Monocle stable is on entrepreneurship in the Emirates, which is the embodiment of the free port ethos of Dubai since 1905, which prompted the migration of Persian merchants, traces of which can be found in current day Al Fahidi in Bur Dubai.