The emirate also has a thriving private-sector middle class, but it consists almost entirely of foreigners.
While the UAE is relatively liberal among Gulf nations, Sharjah is its most conservative emirate.
If push comes to shove, the emirate surely has the means to satisfy many of them.
The Islamic Emirate is the name the Taliban gave to Afghanistan when they took control in 1996.
He wants an Islamic emirate of Somalia, taking in the mainly Somali parts of Ethiopia and Kenya.
The friendly neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi, which has been bailing Dubai out, is still flush with petrodollars.
It is another blow for the Emirate where other projects have been subject to difficulties in recent times.
Sharjah is the only emirate in the UAE that stretches along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
The three are suspected of being ringleaders of a regional cell of the North Caucasus-based terrorist group Caucasus Emirate.
But bankers who deal with the wealthy emirate say it is taking longer to get deals done of late.
The official Taliban position is that the group's pre-2001 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan remains the country's only legitimate government.
If you are going to own one of these cars, it would be handy to have your own emirate.
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They were arrested in the neighboring emirate of Ras Al-Khaima seven-and-half months ago.
As Dubai's boosters point out, the emirate is well situated midway between Europe and the booming markets of Asia.
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Qatar's winning bid reflects the emirate's talent for using its vast gas-fuelled wealth to win friends and influence people.
Yet, unlike its neighbour, the emirate pursues modernising and tolerant social policies, especially via its first lady, Sheikha Mozah.
Since liberation, the emirate's old city-dwelling elite has sensed a loss of influence to newer arrivals from tribal backgrounds.
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Even such unlikely-sounding events as the emirate's annual Shopping Festival seem to work.
Sharjah's government funds the biennale, as well as the Emirate's well-preserved heritage areas, its authentic bazaars and its 16 museums.
He was sitting beside soccer legend Pele, who was chatting in front of television cameras with a young Emirate boy.
Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news channel based in the Emirate of Dubai has been running the ads frequently for several months.
Luckily for Al Jazeera, its backers include the ruler of Qatar, the tiny Gulf emirate where the network is based.
But now, in a notable territorial advance, they also control several towns, which they proclaim to be an Islamic emirate.
Many secular-minded Libyans such as Mr Tarhouni have spent much time in the emirate and have benefited from its largesse.
One of the star performers has been Qatar, a tiny rich emirate that sticks out of Saudi Arabia like a sore thumb.
That has boosted the emirate's position in what has become a race among wealthy Gulf states to woo prestigious seats of learning.
Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may not have had direct links with al Qaeda's offshoot in Chechnya, the Islamic Emirate in the Caucasus.
He also traveled to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, which has imported tens of thousands of workers to build its burgeoning megalopolis.
Earlier this month, audiences in the emirate flocked to watch Faten al-Helw, a lion-taming Egyptian grandmother, put her big cats through flaming hoops.
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Mohammed Salem al-Zumer was reportedly detained by state security officers in the emirate of Sharjah on Wednesday and taken to an unknown destination.
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