Not to argue, but I know four or five people who went to Dubai in the past couple of years.
OK,fair enough.I suspect that they told you...among other things...that it's a 13 hour non-stop flight from the East Coast.And I'll wager that they also told you that there's a mosque on every corner and that the city's transit system (which is kinda cool,actually) shuts down on Friday mornings for "prayers".
Did they,by chance,tell you *why* they were there? Business,perhaps? I've been there three times simply because Emirates Airlines has offered damn cheap fares to several places I've visited in the last few years (East Asia and Africa) and they offer free stopovers in Dubai on even those cheap fares.I tried it on my first trip with them and found the place to be fascinating...so I re-booked a couple of more times.
No interest in their gutter religion.
If it turns out he'd gone to Pakistan or Yemen, then that would be a different story.