Page 136 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Tribal Rebellion, Marxist Revolution 133

Dhufar is somewhat remote from the rest of the sultanate of Oman, both in
distance and in character. It is also quite distinct, despite its physical
proximity, from the Hadramaut and the Mahra country. Geographically it
consists of a coastal plain and a mountain range, the Jabal Qara, both of
which are watered by the south-west monsoon. Beyond the mountains, the

najd, a barren stony plateau broken by ravines, stretches northwards to the
southern rim of the Rub al-Khali. The people of Dhufar are of South Arabian
stock, with admixtures of eastern Arabian tribes, Africans, Ethiopians and
Indians. They speak a language derived from ancient Himyarite. It has no
written form, although it is akin in many respects to Arabic, from which it
has borrowed extensively. The Dhufaris are Sunni Muslims (mostly Shafi),
although their religious beliefs and practices are riddled with animistic

superstitions, fetishes and tabus. No accurate figures are available for the size
of the population, but a decade ago it would seem to have been between
30,000 and 40,000. The Dhufaris mostly earned their living from pastoral-
ism, agriculture, trade, fishing and seafaring. Like Hadramis, they have a
tradition of migrating in search of work and fortune. There are two major
tribal confederations: the dominant Qara, who live on the mountain plateau
and raise cattle, and who once cultivated frankincense on a large scale; and
the Al Kathir, who dwell in the coastal plain and are mainly cultivators and
fishermen. (They are distinct from the Bait Kathir who roam the najd and the

sands to the north of the Jabal Qara.) Mahra, originating further westwards,
also inhabit the eastern and western reaches of the jabal. Two smaller but
important tribes are the Bait Qatan of the western region and the Awamir of
the western jabal and the western najd. Another, rather amorphous, tribal
group is the Shahara, descendants of the original inhabitants of Dhufar

before the Kathiri and Qara migrations, who exist today in a condition of
virtual servitude to the Qara. Dhufari society is divided by other than tribal
affiliation. There is a caste system, derived from centuries of intercourse with
India, where the Dhufaris went to trade or, like the Hadramis, to enlist as
soldiers in the service of Indian princes. Again, as in the Hadramaut, there is
also a class of sada, or Hashimis, who constitute a religious aristocracy
revered by most of the population.
Dhufar came under the nominal sway of the Al Bu Said rulers of Muscat in
the second quarter of the nineteenth century, but it was not until the last
quarter of the century that the Al Bu Said made any effective display of

authority there. Even then successive sultans ruled Dhufar in perfunctory
fashion through a series of walis, who administered the province by the
time-honoured method of setting tribe against tribe. From the time that he
took up more or less permanent residence at Salalah, the principal town, in the
early 1950s, Saiyid Said ibn Taimur tended to treat Dhufar as his personal
domain and its people very much as serfs. Tribal factionalism was encouraged,
to make the tribesmen more tractable, and their shaikhs were reduced to mere