Page 17 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

Development or Decline of
Pastoralists

The Ban! Qitab of the Sultanate of Oman
J. S. Birks

There is a growing literature about the wider relationships of
nomads with other societies, and about how these change under
conditions of economic development.1 In most of the cases studied,
however, there has been an element of governmental interference
and, to some degree at least, a deliberate policy involved in change.
Discussions of the impact of sedentarisation schemes, for instance,
are common.2 The example of the Ban! Qitab discussed here is
different from these other evolving pastoral societies in one
important respect: there has been no government guidance or
considered influence upon change. The recent evolution of their
society, which has been far-reaching, having transformed their
whole socio-economic lives, has come about relatively quickly and
entirely spontaneously. The Government of the Sultanate of Oman
has been of especially little impact amongst these pastoralists
because the evolution they have undergone has been as a result of
their detachment from relatively remote central government and
their responses to economic opportunities in nations other than
their own.
The Ban! Qitab are quite widespread throughout south east
Arabia, members living in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
and even Bahrain, apart from within the Sultanate of Oman. This
study concerns the group living in the Wadi Jufrah area (Fig. i).
The local area of their dar studied borders that of the Duru4,
Balush (Baluch) and Ya‘aqlb.3 Whilst it : convenient to refer
loosely to these 48 nuclear families (about 270 people)4 as being
BanI Qitab (IqtabT), they are of diverse tribal origins, and include
Ban! Zufayb, A1 Tamlmah, al-Afar, Duru4, A1 Azur and al-
Hawadif. All the families living in the Wadi Jufrah are effectively
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