Page 178 - UAE Truncal States

The Islamic Basis of Society

done.51 I3ul when ihe boom in the pearling industry began to wane
the slaves still depended on their master to provide for them, while
the free men who had to rely exclusively on their share in the annual
dive became destitute. In the later 1930s it became increasingly
difficult for the few households where there was a considerable
number of slaves to provide for them; to liberate them seemed a ready
solution to the master’s problem. In the bigger population centres of
the coast quite a few people thus suddenly found themselves without
a home or any means of support, and work was not easy to come by.52
In most cases families had only one or two slaves as domestic
servants, whose status changed very little when they were liberated.
They were then free to go and seek employment elsewhere, but
hardly any of them ever did. They remained in the families of their
former masters where all their daily needs were still cared for as
before, even if it meant tightening the belt for the entire family. Before
and after they were liberated most domestic servants of slave origin
were part and parcel of the family, and as such were also part and
parcel of the same tribal affiliation. The difference in status usually
mattered only when it came to marriage; the tribal Arab did not
normally marry a slave girl, but the head of the family could quite
legally become the father of a female slave’s children, who were then
brought up with the other children and treated as equal—except,
again, when they came to marry.
It has been mentioned above how in the Trucial States, as
elsewhere in Arab countries, slaves could rise to important positions
on the political scene, as trusted servants of Rulers or as important
individuals.53 Being Muslims and often very devout indeed, the
descendants of slaves were easily integrated into the Arab society
through their integration into their master’s family.

Local Muslims at home
The ordering of one’s family life in the way described above was the
norm and was therefore hardly ever questioned. If it were ques­
tioned, people would have been quick to observe that this was the
way in which a Muslim was expected to live. For the majority of
people it was quite inconceivable that any other social order or any
other type of relationship between the individual in his family and
the outside world could be at all in keeping with the spirit of Islam.
This absolute certainty that there is no conflict between their concept
of life and the spirit of Islam precluded the need to reflect on how and

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