Page 30 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

(i The Origins of the United Arab Emirates

interior. The emphasis on the coast became an established feature
of Trucial politics in the twentieth century, and was not challenged
until the 1930s, when exploration for oil began; the divergence
between the coast and the interior then became glaringly obvious,
especially when local tribal opposition prevented geologists from
entering certain inland regions that the coastal de jure ruler of
the territory had given them permission to enter.
Thus, despite the power and prominence of the coastal area,
the role played by the hinterland cannot be overlooked. The foremost
measure of a coastal ruler’s strength and prestige was his ability
to command the tribes of the interior; his rise or decline in coastal
politics could usually be measured by his ability to enforce his
authority over the tribal chieftains in the area he claimed as his
territory. Conversely, the extent of a ruler’s territory was governed
by the extent to which the tribes roaming the area would support
him in time of need.
There was thus an important interaction between the coast and
the interior, and this directly affected the political structure of
the area. One example is the persistence in the coastal districts
of the bedouin custom of exacting diyah, or blood-money, that
was the accepted form of compensation for the murder of a man
where the ties of blood relationship were connected with the substitute
of blood revenge. Another is the attempts that have been made
during the present century, mostly without success, at exactly defining
the boundaries of the shaykhdoms and their frontiers with neighbour­
ing states.
Until it became known that oil might be found in the eastern
part of Arabia, little attention had been paid to the delineation
of boundaries in the Western sense. The desert law that governed
societies throughout most of the Arabian peninsula did not concern
itself with fixed boundaries: ‘The Arabian desert has sometimes
been compared to the high seas. Caravans come and go like ships
and nomads roam at wall in search of grazing . . . .’6 One of
the few accepted tests of the extent of a ruler’s territory was his
ability to enforce the payment of zakat (a tax in return for the
payment of which he promised his protection)7 on the tribes whose
dir ah was adjacent to his territory. Another was his capacity to
protect these same tribes, and avenge any raids against them occurring
within his precincts. Boundaries, therefore, fluctuated according to
pastoral and political conditions, and could never achieve any degree
of permanence—a consideration that is central to any understanding
of the Arabian peninsula in the twentieth century.
Until the 1930s, when they began to receive regular payments
resulting from oil and air agreements, the rulers’ revenues were
restricted to customs duties (which in places like Dubai and Sharjah