Page 122 - UAE Truncal States

Administering a Tribal Society

Hamriyah, Khan and HIrah
The three remaining Sharjah dependencies, Hamriyah, Khan and
HIrah have always had a quite different relationship with the
Qawasim Rulers from that of the more distant fiefdoms. As shown
above, the latter depended in their economy on cultivation, and, with
the exception of Daid, on fishing and some pearling. But Hamriyah,
Khan and HIrah, all in the immediate neighbourhood of Sharjah
town, had too similar a geographical situation, were too near, and
had too much in common not to be a threat to Sharjah’s economy.
Therefore it was very important to the Ruler of Sharjah that he
should control these towns.
Khan is situated on a sand-spit beside a creek three kilometres
west of Sharjah and eight kilometres east of Dairah (Shaikhdom of
Dubai); HIrah is on the eastern outskirts of Sharjah and a short
distance from the Shaikhdom of 'Ajman. Hamriyah, also on a sand-
spit, lies between 'Ajman and the next shaikhdom to the north east,
Umm al Qaiwain. The four shaikhdoms and the three Sharjah
dependencies therefore shared a strip of coast not more than 35
kilometres in extent. Their economies were based primarily on the
pearling industry, which in itself generated a fair amount of
interdependence between these neighbouring ports, not least be­
cause time and again debtors absconded and took refuge with a
neighbouring shaikh. The three Sharjah dependencies were ob­
viously very much part and parcel of the constantly changing
political scene of an intricately interwoven pattern of economic
rivalry and vacillating alliances. The backdrop to this 35-kilometre-
long stage, where so much of the Trucial States’ day-to-day politics
were acted out, was the sporadic interest shown by the beduin tribes
of the interior in these ports. The majority of the settled population
there was after all either related or allied to them.
In dealing with his three nearby dependencies, every Ruler of
Sharjah could even less than elsewhere regard these matters as
purely domestic affairs. Every dispute, attempted secession or new
agreement brought neighbours on the scene, and not infrequently the
representatives of the British Government too. A brief account of the
history of the relationship between Sharjah and these dependencies,
therefore, is inevitably more than just an account of their relative
economic importance and of how each was administratively tied into
the Shaikhdom of Sharjah.
The dependency which was most frequently bent on secession and

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