Page 82 - UAE Truncal States

The Tribal Structure of Society

‘’territory" were very much out of tune with the traditional conduct of
local politics. Since the sovereignly over people was far from
permanently binding, sovereignty over territory was even less
tangible in the tribal politics of which Abu Dhabi was still part in the
1950s. It is also not enough just to enumerate the tribes and sublribes
which made up the population of the state of Abu Dhabi. Their
mutual relationships, their political loyalties, as well as the extent to
which their economic pursuits depended on the use of particular
geographical locations, and how all these factors changed over the
first five decades of this century, will have to be taken into account.

3 The tribes on the fringe of the Trucial
Coast

Their role vis-a-vis the coastal shaikhdoms
The statement in the Gazetteer that “Buraimi is independent” seems
at first sight to be quite out of dale considering the expansion of Abu
Dhabi’s authority over the largest part of the oasis during the 19th
century. But a closer look at the tribes which are intimately
connected with the oasis and the country between it and the ports of
the Trucial Coast reveals that for all of the 19th century and most of
the 20th century few of them were so steadfast in their allegiance to
any one of the Rulers as to justify calling them his subjects. They
rather formed an aggregate of potential allies which each one of the
area’s Rulers tried to bring under his control. The A1 Bu Falah were
successful in the case of the Dhawahir living in the oasis; however,
the loyalty of the other important tribe in the oasis, the NaTm, to the
Sultan of Oman was at times only nominal. Many of the tribes and
tribal sections inhabiting or frequenting the mountain foreland and
the wadis between the Buraimi oasis and the oasis of Daid were
virtually independent of any of the Rulers of the Trucial Coast and
also of the remote power of the Sultan in Muscat. This fact is also
borne out time and again in the way in which the officials of the
British Government of India carefully avoided getting involved in the
tribal politics of this part of the hinterland.
Yet the disputes, alliances and ascendancies of some tribes over
others in that region greatly influenced politics on the coast. Not only
because most of these tribes, as for instance the NaTm, had both
settled and beduin sections in the hinterland as well as sections

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