Page 215 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Five

trade at all levels, as jnwdw/sh, as lu/cirand as exporters, but in each
section they were nevertheless out-numbered by the local Arabs in
the trade by about 4 to 3. For Abu Dhabi, for instance, the Gazetteer
states that there were about 70 shops in the sue/, of which 40 were
kept by Persians, 19 by Hindus and 10 by Arabs;40 assuming that all
the 19 Hindus participated in the local pearl trade at one level or
another, there were then at least another 30 Arab pearl traders in the
town. Some time during the first decade of this century seven Khojah
traders also became residents in the town. Most of the Indian traders,
in particular the Hindus, had established permanent residence only
shortly before the turn of the century, a move which came in the wake
of the boom in the pearling trade. Most of them had families with
them, but they still used to take an annual leave in India and did not
consider their place of residence and work to be their home. During
the pearling season the number of Hindus in all the coastal towns of
the Trucial Stales more than doubled.

General trade
The volume of imports into the Trucial States was a reflection of the
growth of the proceeds obtained from the export of pearls, and the
bulk of the goods was bought by the pearling community and the
many people who depended on this industry for their livelihood.
Comparatively few of the imports were used by the population of the
hinterland, and some of their requirements came to them by way of
Suhar. As already mentioned, the sue/ of the village of Buraimi, which
was supplied with imported goods from Sharjah, Dubai and Abu
Dhabi, or Suhar, was the most important place upon which the
settled and nomadic communities of the hinterland of the Trucial
Coast converged to buy commodities such as rice, coffee, sugar, and
cotton cloth. There were also a few shops at Dibah, Khaur Fakkan
and Kalba which primarily served the population in the surrounding
countryside.
The total value of the goods imported through the ports of the
Trucial Coast was worth an average 2.5 million Rupees per year at
the turn of the century, the biggest items being grain and pulse from
India.47 With the exception of dates from Iraq and some piece-goods
such as pottery for cooking in and for storing water, rugs to decorate
the walls and floors of homes, wood and a few other items, the bulk of
the imports came from India or via India, as did for instance coffee
from Yemen. During the 19th century most imports were carried on

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