Page 71 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Two

fought alongside their Bani Yas allies and neighbours, and the A1 Bu
Falah Rulers in turn were often held responsible for the behaviour of
the ManasTr.05 One of many examples of this mutual responsibility
was the protracted war between Abu Dhabi and Qatar from 1876
until 1891, one of the causes of which were raids by ManasTr camel-
riders into Qatar territory as far as the immediate vicinity of Doha. In
counter-attacks by Shaikh Jasim of Qatar, ManasTr and Bani Yas
suffered alike when some 400 camels were carried off from settle­
ments in the LTwa. This special relationship, which causes any
Mansuri tribesman to call himself an Abu Dhabian in the 1980s, has
thus been in existence for several generations regardless of the fact
that some ManasTr, as some sections of the Bani Yas and other tribes
who visited Abu Dhabi territory once in a while, spent several
winters away in Qatar or al Hasa. The ManasTr are, however, still a
distinct tribe of their own, and have not become a subsection of the
Bani Yas even though at times they have referred certain disputes to
the Ruler of Abu Dhabi. The usual practice, however, was that justice
was expected first and foremost from the shaikhs of the subsections
of the ManasTr and from their own mulawwa'.06
The first stage in the establishment of the shaikhdom of Abu Dhabi
as one of the important tribal powers in the region was thus the
appropriation of all of al Dhafrah by the Bani Yas. They may not have
had exclusive domination of the neighbouring grazing areas as far as
Oman and Qatar, but even there Bani Yas influence was sufficiently
strongly felt by the middle of the 18th century that in the Bombay
Selections they are mentioned as follows: “The original seat of the
Beniyas, . . . was in Nujd, but on leaving that part of Arabia they
settled in the tract of country extending between Biddah fold name
for Doha in Qatari and Brymee."07 The standing of the Bani Yas and
their Rulers was further enhanced by the fact that the close links
which developed between the Bani Yas and the ManasTr meant not
only some increase in the tax income of the Al Bu Falah Rulers but
was a most welcome addition to the fighting force of the shaikhdom,
which was deemed by the already-quoted Captain Taylor in 1818 to
have been about “twenty thousand excellent musketeers".08

The foothold in the Buraimi area develops into the town of al
fAin
At the present time, the territory of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi is
divided into four administrative units, of which Abu Dhabi Town,
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