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The Tribal Structure of Society

distribution at the time before the discovery of oil changed all these
patterns.

2 The Bani Yas, their associates, and the
development of Abu Dhabi into a
“territorial state”

The tribes of Abu Dhabi

Bani Yas
The Emirate of Abu Dhabi is now, as it was in the days of the author
of the Gazetteer,17 co-extensive with the habitat of the Bani Yas.
Among the originally tribal population of the UAE the Bani Yas are
still the most numerous single tribe, although their numbers have
decreased steadily since the beginning of the century. Lorimer
estimated their numbers at 12,000 people, 2,000 of whom were
nomadic but usually spent all the year in Abu Dhabi territory. Of the
10,000 settled Bani Yas about half lived in the Liwa, 2,800 lived in
Abu Dhabi town, about 2,000 lived in Dubai, and the remainder lived
in the Abu Dhabi villages of the Buraimi oasis, on the islands, and in
small scattered settlements on the coast and in the hinterland.18 In
the early 1950s, the total number of Bani Yas on the Trucial Coast
had decreased to 8,000 of whom some 1,700 were beduin.19 In the first
population census carried out in Abu Dhabi in spring 1968 only 5,884
Bani Yas were counted in the shaikhdom of Abu Dhabi.20
Since they are a confederated tribe, the numbers of genuine
subsections and of allied tribes of the Bani Yas have been stated
differently by different observers. Lorimer counted 15 sections in
1907; J.B. Kelly lists 14 major and 6 minor sections. The changing
attitudes of the associated tribes to the Ruler of Abu Dhabi at times
led them to want to integrate completely into the Bani Yas, while
other political constellations in the area induced them to declare
some sort of independence. At present the leading members of the
Bani Yas in Abu Dhabi name over 20 sections as being considered
part and parcel of the Bani Yas.21
The A1 Bu Falah have always been a small subsection numbering,
according to Lorimer, only 15 to 20 houses. The section is also known
as the A1 Nahyan and traditionally provided the paramount shaikh
of the Bani Yas, who was the Ruler of Abu Dhabi. The A1 Bu Falah
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