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The Tribal Structure of Society

         families spent the summer there while the men went to the pearl
         banks. Another 150 Za'ab families had settled on the east coast at
         Khaur Kalba. While the first group was always heavily involved in,
         and often antagonistic to, the politics of the Shaikhdom of Ra’s al
         Khaimah, the Za'ab of Khaur Kalba usually supported the shaikh of
         Kalba against the overlord in distant Sharjah. In 1968 the Za'ab
         population remaining in Sharjah territory was only 710, a very much
         larger number of 2,455 being in Ra’s al Khaimah, that is at JazTrah al
         Hamra’. However, late in 1968 the shaikh of the Za'ab had various
         disagreements with Shaikh Saqr of Ra’s al Khaimah, as a result of
         which a large part of the population of JazTrah al Hamra’ accepted the
         invitation of Shaikh Zayid of Abu Dhabi to settle there. The Za’ab of
         the Trucial States have continued to maintain close links with their
         relatives on the Batinah Coast in Oman.

         Tanaij
         The Tanaij, although numerically a small tribe, were at times of no
         small importance in the politics of the northern part of the Trucial
         Coast, because they represented by far the largest beduin element in
         that area. In the Gazetteer the total number of Tanaij is given as 4,000
         of whom 1,500 were beduin; this meant a beduin contingent of about
         500 fighting-men whose allegiance or support the Rulers coveted
         when conflict was brewing. The nomadic section of the Tanaij used
         Daid as a centre; like the NaTm community at Daid, the Tanaij too
         had a fortified tower for the defence of their quarters numbering
         about 70 houses. Other settled Tanaij lived at Rams in Ra’s al
         Khaimah; all the 400 houses of Rams were inhabited by that tribe,
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         but they had only a few houses at Hamrlyah. Most of the settled
         Tanaij on the coast used to go pearling. According to the 1968
         population census only 424 Tanaij were left in the northern Emirates
         and Dubai.
         Naqbiyin
         The Naqbiyin, who numbered about 1,800 souls in 1905 and 1,889 in
          1968, were the natural rivals of the Sharqiyin, with whom they lived
         at close quarters almost wherever they settled in Shamaillyah, the
          Wadi Ham, Khatt, and in the vicinity of Dibah. Only in Khaur Fakkan
         the Naqbiyin in 1905 constituted the tribal majority (150 houses),
          dominating a non-tribal immigrant minority from the Persian coast.
         In Kalba (earlier called Ghallah) the Naqbiyin lived with Sharqiyin,

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