Page 92 - UAE Truncal States

The Tribal Structure of Society

A new aspect of the old question of allegiance
The period from the end of the Second World War, when the search
for oil was taken up in earnest in the Sultanate and on the Trucial
Coast, until the end of the war between the Sultan and the Imam in
1959, was a time when the question of the allegiances of the tribes in
the hinterland of the Trucial Shaikhdoms and on the western fringe
of the Sultanate rose again almost to unprecedented importance.
When war broke out between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 1945, there
were again the usual bids for the allegiance of the beduin of the entire
area.
Unlike Abu Dhabi, Dubai had no large beduin population within
the State, and had to recruit some as mercenaries, at the same lime
hoping that others would adopt the cause of Dubai of their own
accord. After the end of the war in 1948 the oil company began to
make use of its pre-war agreements. In the hinterland, where the
various interests of the region’s powers merged, the shaikhs of non-
aligned beduin tribes now saw an opportunity to become in­
dependent Rulers. The authority of the Ruler of Abu Dhabi in the
Buraimi area was well-defined, but the Sultan of Muscat and Oman,
with whom the pre-war agreement was negotiated, was not in a
position to guarantee that the exploration parties of the oil company
could proceed with their work undisturbed in the territory of the
NaTm and A1 Bu Shamis. The Sultan did not accept their virtually
independent status but nevertheless encouraged the company to
negotiate directly with some of the local shaikhs. There was after all
a real possibility that the shaikhs of the Buraimi area might sign
agreements with another company, and the Sultan and the British
Foreign Office, whose responsibility it would have been to see that
the 1920 agreement with the Trucial Rulers107 was enforced, would
have found it difficult to slop such a move by the shaikhs. When the
“Buraimi Dispute” became fairly acute in August 1952, the attitude of
the “independent” tribes in and around the oasis was again a matter
of great interest to all parties. The death of the Imam Muhammad bin
Ahmad bin 'Abdullah al Khalili in 1954, and the deterioration of
relations to the point of open warfare between the new Imam and the
Sultan in Oman108 again brought to the fore the question of allegiance
of the tribes in the territory west of the Imam’s mountain stronghold.
The establishment of a boundary in the (abal Hafit area recognised
by both the Sultan and the Ruler of Abu Dhabi in May 1959 put an
end to the independent tribes’ opportunities to tip the scale of local
politics to any large extent.
67