Yes he died last year... If you look at that palace ..dont get carried away with the extravagent ways. All Sheiks and rulers are like this in middle east. Think of Saddam for instance and his palaces..
But this person was different. He was people's man. It is only his determination that made the whole UAE story possible. Earlier UAE was small independant states.. It was he who brought them together..and made this possible. They struck the black Gold (oil) and made most of it. But they were not stupid to live on that money. They knew that one day they will run out of oil. So they turned to such projects that will stustain it self.. Dubai is turning out to be a commercial hub of the world.. It will be the commercial capital of teh world soon in future.
One more story. Sultan was diaganosed for renal failure (both kidneys gone bad) They was an appeal for donating kidney to Sultan. It is believed they recieved thousands of applications from porobable donors. At last only two were selected. One as back up if something goes wrong. Transplantation was done. Its was success.
The person who was the back up is a millionare now... So imagine how is donor