"She was very brave. She was the only one in the family who decided to leave Iran. Everyone was against her decision. But she wanted her children to grow up in a safe and open country."
"At the time, it was a simple city with a low-rise skyline: a mix of old Arabian markets, construction zones, and large swaths of desert. As a city in the United Arab Emirates, an Islamic Arab country, it felt culturally familiar to them, coming from the Persian world. But it had an openness-and a sense of safety and possibility-that made it distinct from Tehran."
In 1999, Fatima Nedaei, a widow from Tehran, made the courageous decision to relocate her family to Dubai despite family opposition, seeking a safer and more open environment for her children. Dubai, then a modest city with low-rise architecture and desert landscapes, offered cultural familiarity as an Islamic Arab nation while providing the openness and security absent in post-revolutionary Iran. Nedaei established a cosmetics-trading business, importing and distributing beauty products regionally. After her death in 2010, her son Mohammad expanded the business into broader investments. Dubai subsequently transformed into a globally prominent metropolis with iconic structures like the Burj Khalifa. However, recent Iranian military actions against the UAE are eroding the protective distance and stability that initially attracted Iranian migrants to the city.
Read at The New Yorker
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