Rishta in Ajman

How to read an Ajman profile properly

The cheapest rent in the country, and what it costs in hours

Almost nobody moves to Ajman for Ajman. They move for the rent, which for the same flat can be a fraction of what Dubai asks, and the emirate exists in its present form because of that one fact. It is a perfectly sensible decision and a great many good families have made it. But the saving is not free; it is paid for in time, and the time comes out of a marriage.

So the first question on an Ajman profile is not where he lives. It is where he works. Ajman to Sharjah is a short hop. Ajman to Dubai is forty-five minutes on an empty road and routinely an hour and a half to two hours in the morning peak, with the same again coming home. Ajman to Abu Dhabi is not a commute at all; it is a relocation that some men attempt anyway. A man working in Dubai and living here leaves before six and gets back after eight, five or six days a week. That is his life, and after the nikah it becomes hers.

Ask it plainly and without any suggestion of criticism. Which emirate is the job in, and where exactly. How long does the journey take in the morning, on an ordinary day rather than a good one. Does he drive, share a car, or take the inter-emirate buses. Six days a week or five. Is there any prospect of the work moving closer, or of the family moving nearer the work later.

Then the question that belongs to her and that nobody thinks to ask. If he is out of the house for thirteen or fourteen hours, what is her day. Is there a car, and can she drive — a Pakistani licence usually has to be converted or retaken here, which takes time and money, so ask whether that is budgeted for. Who does she know in the building and on the street. Can she get to a grocer, a clinic and a mosque on foot. And will she be able to study or work herself, which needs his agreement and a work permit through an employer rather than just a decision. A bride who arrives into a flat where she knows nobody and cannot leave it unaccompanied is in for a very hard first year, and the honest version of this conversation prevents most of that.

He has his own company in Ajman — ask what the licence actually is

Business ownership comes up more often on profiles from this emirate than from almost anywhere else in the country, because licences here have long been among the cheapest in the UAE and thousands of small Pakistani traders hold one. That is a real and respectable way to make a living. It is also a phrase that covers an enormous range, from a genuine trading company with stock, staff and customers to a licence and a shared desk.

There are two broad kinds and they behave differently. A free zone licence is issued by the free zone authority, is comparatively cheap, often comes with a small office or desk facility, and allows a set number of residence visas tied to it. A mainland licence comes from the emirate’s economic department and allows trading directly in the local market; foreign nationals can now own many mainland activities outright, which was not true a few years ago. Either way, if he lives on an investor or partner visa rather than an employment visa, that visa is attached to the company — so the company lapsing, or the licence not being renewed, takes the family’s residence with it.

So ask, once and without apology. Is the licence free zone or mainland, and in whose name. What does the business actually trade in, and who are the customers. How long has it been running. Is there a shop, a warehouse or an office, and can he show it on a video call. Is his residence visa issued through the company or through an employer. What does the licence cost to renew each year, and what happens to the family if a bad year means it cannot be renewed. And the kind question underneath all of them: is there a salary coming out of this business every month, or does the household live on what is left after the business has taken what it needs — because those are two very different homes.

The bill that lands before the first month’s salary

This is the part of a Gulf marriage that families in Pakistan almost never budget for, and it causes more quiet resentment in the first year than anything else.

Setting up a household in this country costs a great deal before anybody has lived in it. Rent is commonly paid a year at a time in one, two or four cheques rather than monthly, so a year of rent may be due at once. On top of that there is usually an agency commission and a refundable security deposit, both normally reckoned as a percentage of the annual rent, plus a deposit for electricity and water and the cost of connecting them. Then the flat has to be furnished from nothing: beds, a cooker, a fridge, an air conditioner service, curtains, kitchen things. Then her side of the paperwork — the entry permit, the medical fitness test, the Emirates ID and the residence stamping, with the attestation of the nikah nama before any of it. And if there are children, school admission and the first term’s fees, which in this country arrive as a single large number.

None of this is a reason not to marry. It is a reason to have one honest conversation across the two families before the date is fixed: what the setup will cost in total, who is paying for which part of it, and whether the money exists now or is being hoped for. A couple who have had that conversation start their marriage without a debt, and in a country that lends freely — our United Arab Emirates page explains what debt can do to a family here — starting without one matters a great deal.

A small emirate with a very large Pakistani community

Now the part of Ajman that nobody writes on a biodata and that a bride’s family should weigh properly, because it is a genuine advantage.

The Pakistani community here is dense in a way it is not in a smart tower in Dubai. On the streets of Al Nuaimiya and Al Rashidiya there are Pakistani families on every floor, Urdu and Punjabi in the shops, grocers who stock what she actually cooks with, tailors who know how to make a shalwar kameez properly, clinics with Urdu-speaking staff, and mosques within walking distance. For a young woman arriving from Lahore or Gujranwala into a foreign country, that is worth more than a better address. Brides very often settle faster here than in a more expensive emirate, because there are people to settle among.

The other side of the same coin should also be said. In a community this close, everybody knows everybody, and a family’s reputation travels through Ajman, Sharjah and the villages back home with remarkable speed. That cuts in your favour when you are checking a proposal — ask around, and somebody will know the family, which is a verification route you do not have in Dubai. It cuts the other way when a marriage is unhappy and a young couple feel watched. Both things are true; go in knowing them.

And use the first of them. The strongest check available on an Ajman proposal is not a document. It is a phone call to somebody in the same building or the same trade, and in this emirate that call is almost always possible. Our guide to verifying a proposal sets out the rest of the checks worth doing, in the order worth doing them.

The northern emirates are one town

Do not search Ajman on its own; nobody lives that way. Sharjah runs straight into this emirate with no real break in the buildings, and Dubai is forty-five minutes beyond it on a clear road. Umm Al Quwain is twenty minutes up the coast and Ras Al Khaimah about forty-five. Those are all one labour market and one social world, and a match between any two of them is a short drive rather than a move. Open the whole northern strip, then Abu Dhabi and Al Ain an hour and a half or two down the coast.

Then the Gulf, which all lives the same way: Doha is a little over an hour by air, Manama and Dammam around an hour and a half, Riyadh about two. A residence permit, a sponsor, a ticket home once a year and school fees — two Gulf families understand each other without explaining anything.

And Pakistan is unusually close from here. Sharjah and Dubai airports are both within easy reach and between them fly direct to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Quetta, most of them in two to three hours and several times a day — which is exactly why so many families from the smaller Pakistani cities ended up in this corner of the country. The UAE runs one hour behind Pakistan with no clock change, so the evening call lands at a reasonable time in both houses. Set your own city to Ajman and the partner preference country to Pakistan, settle the commute and the setup costs above first, and arrange to meet in person early — from here, that is a long weekend.