Dubai, a sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates, is driven by commerce--and that helps explain the government-owned airline's success.

FORBES: Even during wartime, a Middle Eastern airline thrived.

This small sheikhdom of some 906, 000 people demonstrates anew that the true source of wealth is not "natural resources" but human ingenuity.

FORBES: PROSPERING THE LASTING WAY

Menon, who still shuttles between India and Dubai, has now set up his personal home in the Gulf sheikhdom, while maintaining ties to his native Kerala.

FORBES: Arabia-Asia: P.N.C. Menon's Real Estate Empire Spans India and the Gulf

Despite the arch-capitalist atmosphere, half the sheikhdom's top hotels, its airport, seaports, refinery, dry dock, aluminium smelter and two of its three banks, among other assets, are government-controlled.

ECONOMIST: The biggest and best in a patch of beach and desert

Only a small fraction of Americans had ever heard of Kuwait before Iraq invaded it in 1990, yet the U.S. sent hundreds of thousands of troops to liberate the sheikhdom.

CNN: Milestones and Millstones

Former Afghan officials say that the bribery and influence-peddling was at times florid and spectacular, with some of it unfolding in Dubai, the Vegas-like sheikhdom where many high Afghan officials maintain second homes.

NEWYORKER: The Afghan Bank Heist