Page 302 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 6 -10

328 EL-QATAll

officers. There are no data from which the numbers of the El-
Qatar nomads can be deduced. Almost the entire population,
sedentary and nomadic, is in religion Sunni of the Maliki sect ; the
fow exceptions are the Bahurinah and Persians, who arc Shiahs,
and the Wahabi Arabs from Nejd.

Products and Trade
The chief occupation in El-Qatar is pearl-fishing, supplemented
in some places by the breeding of camels, The interests of the
peninsula are essentially maritime ; the men live by the sea, and for
much of the year upon it ; the towns and villages turn their backs,
as it were, on the barren land. There is hardly any agriculture, and
date-groves appear to be confined to half a dozen towns and villages.
Little live stock is owned by the settled inhabitants, but the Bedouins
have the average amount possessed by nomadic tribes. Boat­
building is carried on by carpenters from Bahrein and Persia,
and the scanty foreign trade is with Bahrein (see p. 314), and with
Lingeh on the Persian coast. Pearls form almost the only export,
but until quite recently (see Chap. VIII, p. 247) the arms traffic
provided a profitable re-export, rifles and ammunition from Muscat
being shipped by El-Qatar boats on the Trucial Coast for Dohah,
which was an important centre of distribution for Nejd and Persia.
Apart from maritime relations, communication with the rest of
'.•i
Arabia is chiefly maintained by the route from Dohah to Hofuf, and
its connexion with Nejd (see Routes Nos. 75 and 11), but little
traffic goes this way.
i
Recent History and Present Politics

Prior to 1S68, the Eheikli of Bahrein claimed suzerainty over
El-Qatar, and was represented at Dohah by a member of his family.
But in that year, as a result of negotiations conducted by the
••••«
British Government, the interest of this Sheikh was limited to the
receipt of tribute, and this ceased on the occupation of Dohah by
the Turks in 1872. The Ottoman troops consisted of about 300
men under a major, with a few guns, quartered in the fort; but .
the authority of the commander did not extend beyond the town,
and was always precarious even there. In 1904 Burchardt, here
an unimpeachable witness, noted that upon his request for permis­
sion to take photographs, he was referred by the Turkish com-
mandant to the local Sheikh, and that posts were carefully placed
at night because the Arabs were well armed, not only with Martinis,

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