Al-Nahyan was educated at The Royal Academy in Rabat until the age of 10, where he was a classmate of King Mohammed VI of Morocco. His father Sheikh Zayed sent him to Morocco intending for it to be a discipline experience. Since Mohammad was a brat boy and loitering around girl schools driving his customized car, many complaints and reports forced his father Shaikh Zayed to send him abroad. He gave him a passport showing a different last name, so that he wouldn't be treated like royalty. Al Nahyan spent several months working as a waiter in a local restaurant. He made his own meals and did his own laundry, and was often lonely. Al Nahyan described his life back then by saying “There’d be a bowl of tabbouleh in the fridge, and I’d keep eating from it day after day until a kind of fungus formed on the top".