Page 25 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

i The Trucial States in
1919: Rule by Tradition

The United Arab Emirates occupies the southern shores of the
Gulf, an area that has long been known either as the Trucial
Coast, because of the treaties under which the tiny shaykhdoms
scattered along the coast concluded a maritime truce with Britain;
or as Trucial Oman, since it was from Oman, the territory occupying
the south-eastern portion of the Arabian peninsula, that these treaties
separated it. Its eastern extremity, a narrow strip of mountainous
land known as the Shimavliyyah, cuts off from the rest of the
present state of Oman (formerly known as the Sultanate of Muscat
and Oman) its northernmost part, the Musandam peninsula. The
UAE is thus bordered on the west by Qatar, on the south-west
by the Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, on the south by the great
sands of the Rub‘ al-Khali, on the north by the Arabian Gulf
and Oman, and on the east by Oman and the Gulf of Oman.
The UAE has an area of about 30,000 square miles, which
may be divided into three geographical sections. First, there is
the land lying along the coast of the Arabian Gulf. The coast
itself is characterised by numerous islands, reefs and shoals, making
navigation hazardous; and the land along it is for the most part
low-lying, barren and monotonous, especially in the south, around
Abu Dhabi. Further north, however, around Ras al-Khaimah, it
docs support a degree of cultivation. Second, there are the inland
plains, which are made up almost entirely of sandy desert. These
run into the Rub‘ al-Khali on the south, and into a hilly area
on the north, near Ras al-Khaimah. Third, there are the mountains