Page 80 - Arabian Studies (II)

70 Arabian Studies II
nineteenth century, two powers in particular exerted pressure on
most of the coastal people. From the landward direction came the
Wahhabis and from the direction of the sea the British. Both of these
powers treated the shaykhs as representatives of the people of the
coast, not simply as leaders. The British in particular made
agreements with the shaykhs which were held to bind the people of
the coast, and they required the shaykhs to see that the agreements
were observed by everyone they claimed as followers. If their
followers broke the agreements, the shaykhs themselves could be
obliged to pay heavy indemnities. These they had to collect from
their followers. And they knew that their towns and shipping were
vulnerable to naval attack if they tried to shirk the responsibilities to
which the British said they had committed themselves. Nevertheless,
within this shaykhly style of government, leadership still generally
appears in association with solidarity, whereas the concomitants of
authority are more often disunity and instability.
One of the things the British obliged the rulers to do was to
prevent or punish acts which the British counted as piracy. In 1828
the Shaykh of Shaijah found himself obliged to have an important
man put to death for piracy and murder. The care taken by this
particularly astute, devious and long-surviving shaykh, Shaykh Sultan
bin §aqr, to act in accordance with consensus opinion suggests his
own awareness of the hazards of authoritarian behaviour. Right
down to the present day, execution has been a punishment used only
rarely in the Gulf states — an indication of the absence of any
authoritarian tradition.
The man whom the Shaykh of Shaijah put to death in 1828 was
called Muslim b. Rashid. He was described as ‘one of the principal
QasimI shaykhs’, but it is not clear whether he was a kinsman of the
Shaykh of Shaijah or came from some other family in the QasimI
confederation. The British Agent’s account of the situation suggests
that apart from being nervous of the reactions of the Bombay
Government and the Ruler of Muscat, the Shaykh of Sharjah was
afraid of being implicated himself in Muslim b. Rashid’s crimes. The
Agent reported that, when captured, Muslim had sent the Shaykh ol
Shaijah a message asking why the Shaykh had put him in prison
when he had been acting in accordance with a letter of instructions
sent to him by the Shaykh himself. The letter in question had been
lost during the capture of Muslim’s boat, but Muslim had asked the
Shaykh, if he disclaimed responsibility, to swear an oath to the effect
that his wives were automatically divorced if he lied.
The Shaykh of Shaijah had thereupon sent for his brother and
what are described as ‘some of the principal men’ and formed them