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200 The Origins of the United Aral) Iunirates

of this fact. Since the only foreign community that seriously concerned the
British authorities was that of the Indians, it was with some relief that the
Political Resident in 1936 noted that ‘I believe that the Shaikhs are under
the wholesome impression that they cannot touch British subjects'
(^/I5/2/1 ^65, Political Resident to Political Agent Bahrain, 5 July 1936).
When negotiations for oil concessions were underway two years later, the
British authorities brought up the question of extra-territorial jurisdiction
before foreign employees of oil companies began to arrive in sizable
numbers. The officiating Political Resident urged that the concessions
proceed without any legal complications, arguing that the matter could be
settled if and when the oil company started drilling and foreign em­
ployees arrived. It was not until December 1946 that Ordcrs-in-Council
for the Coast were enacted; they provided extra-territorial jurisdiction for
British subjects, British-protected persons and non-Muslim foreigners.
6. Sir Rupert Hay, ‘The Persian Gulf States and their Boundary Disputes’,
Geographical Journal, exx (1954) 435.
7. One of the principal obligations of Islam, zakat is an alms tax levied
on different kinds of property and distributed amongst the needy.
Its evolution into the form referred to above has its roots in the
initial reluctance of the bedouin to pay it, as a result of which payment
had to be enforced.
8. See Sir Charles D. Belgrave, ‘Pearl Diving in Bahrain’, Journal of
the Royal Central Asian Society, xxi (1934); Richard le B. Bowen, Jr,
‘Pearl Fisheries of the Persian Gulf’, Middle East Journal v (1951),
and ‘Marine Industries of Eastern Arabia’, Geographical Review xu
(>950-
9- In 1939, it was estimated that about 20 per cent of the population
of Dubai was made up of Persians and Baluchis, excluding the Hindus
and Khojahs. In Abu Dhabi foreign merchants made for 4 per cent
of the total population, but for Sharjah there arc no available figures.
(L/P&S/20, C242.)
10. John B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf iygg-1880 (Oxford, 1968)
p. 834.
11. L/P&S/18, B407, ‘Slavery in the Persian Gulf, Sep 1928.
12. Major-General Sir Percy Cox, ‘Some Excursions in Oman’, Geographical
Journal, lxvi (1925) 200.
13. After Nuhayyan, ancestor of the Al-bu-Falah.
14. The Mazari1 arc sometimes considered a separate tribe. Bertram Thomas
regarded them in this light, but qualified the consideration by adding
that they were a ‘section of the Minasir with whom they arc in
close touch’ (L/P&S/i 1/294, P6690/28, Thomas to Political Resident,
13 June 1927). In 1934, the Residency Agent counted them as a
secuon of the Bani Yas (R/i5/2/544> Residency Agent to Officiating
Political Resident, 9 Jumada 11 1353 (19 Sep 1934). Lorimer, in his
Gazetteer, vol. 11, p. >933> also placed them within the Bani Yas, but
said that the Mazari4 outside Abu Dhabi town and Liwa ‘may or
may not be identical with this section of the Bani Yas’.
15. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. 11, pp. i932"4-
16. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 1164.
17. Ibid., vol. n p. 4°5-