Page 47 - UAE Truncal States
P. 47

V



                  Chapter Two

                  easily ruled and administered even from a distance. The desert and
                  the coasts beyond the mountains were under nobody's rule but that
                  of transient nomadic communities.
                    From the second century AD, groups belonging to an Azdite
                  subdivision of the Qahtani (or Yamani) half of the Arab genealogy
                  moved together with Quda'ah groups north-eastwards along the
                  southern coast of Arabia. They first occupied the area south-west of
                  the settled part of the Hajar range. These Azdite groups claimed as
                  common ancestor the legendary Malik bin Fahm. They spread his
                  name far and wide in south-eastern Arabia while they took
                  possession of many of the pastures and much of the irrigated land. By
                  the middle of the 6th century the new arrivals from South Arabia
                  dominated the south-western and western slopes of the Hajar range,
                  leaving the eastern slopes of the Jabal al Akhdar and the Batinah to
                  the Sassanid maritime interests for the time being.10 The oases of the
                  al 'Ain area, then called Tu’am or Taw’am, were well within this
                  Azdite territory,11 and Tu’am was at times even the main Arab centre
                  of the interior, while Dibah was the main Arab port.12
                    Thus, a connection was established with another main Arab
                  migration route which also brought people through central Arabia to
                  the countries bordering the Gulf. From then on the major population
                  influx into south-east Arabia came from the North. The first such
                  northern waves brought people who either claimed to be of direct
                  Azdite ancestry or were distantly related to these groups. Most of
                  them passed through the coastal region of the UAE which is called by
                  Arab geographers al Bahrayn.13 Using the Tu’am area as a gateway
                  to the mountain passes to the east and south, they seemed to have
                  been made welcome by those Azdites who were already in control of
                  the greater portion of the well-watered wadis. Some tribes of other
                  origin, notably the 'Abd al Qais, who had very amicable relations
                  with the Azdites, came to dominate al Bahrayn itself. Other new
                  arrivals from the north were seen as unwanted intruders. They were
                  of 'Adnani (Nizari) extraction, which is the second of the two
                  branches of Arab genealogy. In south-eastern Arabia, as elsewhere
                 in Arabia, this rather legendary, but to the tribesmen themselves very
                 significant division between Qahtani (Yamani) and 'Adnani (Nizari)
                 groups resulted time and again in some very real political conflicts.14
                 The Nizari new arrivals thus seem to have been tolerated rather than
                 made welcome by the Azdites and their befriended tribes in the
                 area.

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