Page 250 - UAE Truncal States

Social Aspects of Traditional Economy
attention in a garden as well as in the houses or elsewhere. In the date
gardens of the east coast, immigrants from the Persian coast, there
summarily called baluch, frequently worked in the date gardens,
drew water from wells and helped with building houses. Some of the
baluch were paid in kind but most of them earned a wage. In most
village communities baluch could not marry Arab tribal girls.

Trade in real estate
Date gardens everywhere in Trucial Oman could change hands either
through inheritance or by being sold. The beduin Bani Yas and
Manaslr bought date gardens in the Llwa; the members of the ruling
families and the families which prospered in the pearling industry
bought date gardens in /a/a/-irrigated villages. Zayid bin Khallfah’s
policy of buying up dale gardens in the Buraimi oasis before the turn
of the century was followed by his eldest son Khalffah, who, apart
from establishing the new group of date gardens called Mas'udi, also
bought many established gardens as they came on the market.65
Shaikh Muhammad bin Khalifah, following his father’s example,
became probably the individual in all of Trucial Oman who owned
the largest number of date palms. Besides buying in al 'Ain and the
neighbouring villages66 he also bought gardens on the Batinah and
Shamailiyah.
It was not uncommon for members of the ruling family or other
families of one shaikhdom to buy gardens in the territory of another
shaikh. The Rulers of Dubai have had gardens in Ra’s al Khaimah for
several generations. The entire oasis of Falaj al 'Ali, where about
5,000 date palms grew, has been the property of the ruling family of
Umm al Qaiwain for a long lime. About sixty families who
permanently live in that oasis have traditionally worked in the date
gardens for payment in kind. The Ruler’s representative in that oasis
has frequently not been the head of the tribal families who live there,
but one of the Ruler’s slaves.

Establishing new gardens
There was nothing to stop a tribesman from trying to establish a
garden anywhere in the desert if he thought that he could find
enough water in that location to sustain the young date palms. He did
not have to obtain permission from the Ruler nor from his tribe’s
shaikh. The same applied to the many still uncultivated hollows
between the dunes of the Llwa. But if someone else claimed that there
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