Page 62 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 1,2

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v 30 vSOCIAL SURVEY
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r outer belts, that on the western side is British in the extreme south,
an
i and, until recently, was Ottoman in all the rest, except roi■
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,r independent state in South Asir; while that on the eastern Mile is
ii British in the north and south (Koweit, Bahrein, and coastul Oman) 3
and for the rest independent, except in so far as.British influence
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is exerted on the Pirate Coast and in Bl-Qatar, and the protected
i
I Sultan of Muscat can make good his pretensions to inland Oman.
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The political organization of each larger province will be discussed
i in the special section devoted to it. But it may be%as well,#both for
comparative purposes and in order to obtain a conspectus of those
political divisions, which include more than one province, to set
forth at once the character and range of the chief political powers
in the peninsula, distinguished as Native a*ad Foreign, and sub­
divided into Independent and Mediatized.
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i t
I. Native <
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! (A.) Independent Princes.
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These, if every Sultan south of the great Dahanahror on the Gull
Coast, who rules little more than one town or large Village with
i
: its immediate neighbourhood were to be reckoned in, would be
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numerous. But here it is only necessary to take account of those
who exert effective and wholly independent jurisdiction over con­
siderable territories. These are the princes of the Central Emirates
and of a part of Asir. Besides these, the paramount chiefs of the
greater nomad tribes, and even the sheikhs of some sub-tribes,
exercise jurisdiction wide enough to be worth consideration ; but
they will be deajt with in connexion with the nomad organization
in Chapter III.
(1) The Central Emirates.—These are two, that of Nejd, with
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capital Riyadh, and that of Jebel Shammar, with capital Efa’il.
The one established in the southernmost group of central oases
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and the other in the northernmost, have long disputed control over
an intermediate group (Qaslm) ; and each has, at moments
become paramount over the other in the course of an inter­
mittent struggle which has lasted for more than two generations
and is far from being decided yet. At this moment (1916) the
Emir of Nejd controls the larger territorial area, but is hardlv Lro
powerful, in effect, than his rival. ^

Both, as sovereign Emirates, are comparatively modern N*eid
the elder, reckons its history back to the middle of the eighteenth
century ; while the younger, Jebel Shammar, dates its independence

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