Is it true that hr in uae is lagging behind than other countries and has become merely a recruitment and personnel department?

I have no experience of HR in UAE companies but you must see the functions it is performing. Either the are just doing recruitment or performing all pre-requisites.

To some extent, Yes!. because a lot of local organizations have just restricted their HR department to these functions, but there are other organizations in UAE (Specially Multinational Organizations) who have fully functional HR Department. This similar situations prevails throughout the middle east as per my information.