Page 77 - Arabian Studies (II)

The Authority ofShaykhs in the Gulf: 67

remained on good terms for many years after the conquest of
Bahrain, and indeed the A1 Bin ‘AIT played an effective part in
helping the A1 Khalifall to retain possession of their new territory in
the early days. A wife from the A1 Bin ‘AIT married Shaykh‘Abdullah
bin Ahmad, the third ruler of Bahrain, and became mother to three
of his sons. This very alliance drew the A1 Bin ‘AlT into trouble.
Having become maternal kin to some of the A1 Khallfah, the A1
Bin ‘AIT also became involved — or involved themselves — in the
internal rivalries of the family. NabhanI describes the beginning of
the trouble in the following terms:

The mother’s brothers of Muhammad, Ahmad and ‘AIT [sons of
Shaykh ‘Abdullah, who ruled Bahrain] were of the A1 Bin ‘AIT,
who were famed for their courage, their persistence and their
abundant wealth. The three sons tried to wrest the government
from their father’s hands, relying on the abundant economic and
political power of their mother’s brothers. Angry with their father,
they left Bahrain and settled at Huwailah. I 0

Huwailah is on the northern coast of Qatar near Bahrain and appears
to have been the home of the A1 Bin ‘AIT. After trying without
success to conciliate his sons, Shaykh ‘Abdullah told another member
of the family to launch an attack on them and the A1 Bin ‘AIT at
Huwailah. The attack succeeded. The sons of Shaikh ‘Abdullah were
forgiven and permitted to return to Bahrain, but the A1 Bin ‘All left
the jurisdiction of the Shaykhs of Bahrain.
Several factors produced by the life of towns exercised a
concerted influence towards increasing the authority of the principal
shaykhs. The tribal system itself, within which the role of a bedouin
shaykh was defined, had to change with settlement. In the desert, for
most of the year, bedouin live in extended kin groups, and the
neighbours of each such group, already some physical distance away,
are people with whom they regard themselves as having the most
intimate moral and political ties. Those with whom the bonds of
common interest are less strong, although they are still fellow
tribesmen, are further away. Contact with them is only occasional. In
successive stages, political remoteness is matched by physical
separation. The possibilities of friction are limited by spatial
distance. Here the shaykhs pacify and reconcile their followers, but
they do not keep order.
In a town it cannot be so. Groups may live separately, but they are
no longer spatially remote from others towards whom they regard
themselves as owing only very limited duties. Everyone is in potential
daily contact with everyone else. But since family and sectional

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