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Chapter Three

                menl as a Trucial Ruler, as an incentive to granting landing right  s on
                an emergency air-strip. But he died suddenly at the end of April 1937
                during a visit to Khaur Fakkan, while his eldest son Hamad was still
                a minor. His daughter 'A’ishah bint SaTd look immediate steps to
                 protect the shaikhdom from usurpers. Even before her seriously-ill
                father had actually died she rushed back to the fort in Kalba,
                 organised its defences, put the slave Barut in charge, and sent a
                message to her husband Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmad (ex-Ruler of
                 Sharjah), who had become the most powerful member of the Qasimi
                clan, and who was visiting Ra’s al Khaimah at the time.
                   The question of succession in Kalba soon developed into a drawn-
                out dispute involving everybody who was anybody in politics north
                and east of Dubai: the Ruler of Ra’s al Khaimah, Sultan bin Salim,
                (brother of SaTd bin Hamad’s widow); the Ruler of Sharjah, Sultan
                 bin Saqr; the ex-Ruler of Sharjah, Khalid bin Ahmad; the wali of
                Dibah, Rashid bin Ahmad; the leader of the Naqbiyln, Salim bin
                'Abdullah;3*1 the wali of Suhar in Oman and the Sultan of Muscat; all
                the notable residents of Kalba and its neighbourhood, and last but
                not least the representatives of the British Government: the Re­
                sidency Agent in Sharjah, Khan Bahadur Sayyid 'Abdul Razaq al
                Razuqi, his superiors, the Political Agent in Bahrain, the Political
                Resident in Bushire, and the Senior Naval Officer.
                  At the insistence of the British Government, the notables of Kalba,
                who had already stated that they wanted to have the twelve-year-old
                boy Hamad bin SaTd as successor, were required to choose a Regent
                for him. In the presence of the Residency Agent they selected in June
                1937 the slave Barut, a choice which was not acceptable to some of
                the British officials.35 Eventually a compromise was achieved by the
                election as Regent by the notables of Kalba of Khalid bin Ahmad, ex-
                Ruler of Sharjah, husband of the deceased's daughter.
                  He was allowed to keep his previously allocated fiefdom of Daid
                and he accepted that Barut was in charge of the day-to-day affairs of
                Kalba. The Regent Khalid bin Ahmad set about sorting out the many
                differences and disputes which had been absorbing the entire tribal
                population of Shamaillyah and the other eastern tracts of the Qasimi
                realm. Since he did not have enough funds to pay off tribal leaders he
                had to rely on his diplomacy. When he succeeded in gaining influence
                over  most of the tribes of that area, even over the Sharqiyln, his
                relatives and rivals in Sharjah and Ra’s al Khaimah did not support
                him for fear of his becoming too powerful. During the 1940s Khalid

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