Page 33 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

The Trucial States in 1919: Rule by Tradition 9
a parallel expansion of de facto rule in a desert society where
boundaries were flexible and depended on political conditions for
their verification. By the latter part of the nineteenth century,
Shaykh Zayid was unquestionably the most powerful of the rulers
on the Trucial Coast, thus supplanting the hegemony held by
the Qawasim for close on a hundred years. But, as one Political
Resident remarked, the relative positions of the shaykhdoms on
the Coast depended largely on the personalities of their rulers,12
and with the death of Shaykh Zayid in 1909 the succession became
the subject of ruthless competition among his sons, whose unremitting
power struggles plunged Abu Dhabi back into the chaos that it
had experienced before Zayid’s succession. For a decade, fratricide
decided the claims of Zayid’s sons, and gradually much of*what
he had strived to build in Abu Dhabi was destroyed. It was not
until the accession, in 1928, of Zayid’s grandson, Shakhbut bin
Sultan, who went on to reign for almost forty years, that it became
possible to restore the political structure on which the Trucial
shaykhdoms hinged.
The ruling family of Abu Dhabi belongs to the Al-bu-Falah
or Al-Nuhayyan13 section of the Bani Yas, a loose tribal grouping—
made up largely of settled elements but also including a small
bedouin population—that is distributed throughout the coastal and
inland areas of Oman, and makes up about half the population
of Abu Dhabi. Although the Al-bu-Falah is one of its smallest
sections, the leading role it has played within the Bani Yas has
been out of all proportion to its size, for the various sections
of the Bani Yas have always looked to the ruler of Abu Dhabi
as paramount shaykh; likewise, the Bani Yas form the basis of
the power of the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Other sections of the Bani
Yas include the Al-bu-Falasah, who in 1833 broke away from
Abu Dhabi and founded the shaykhdom of Dubai; the Qubaysat,
who live along the coast and in Liwa, and who in the nineteenth
century made a scries of unsuccessful attempts to secede from the
authority of the Al-bu-Falah in order to establish themselves in
Khawr al-‘Udayd at the foot of the Qatar peninsula; the Mazari4,14
who are principally bedouin and who roam from Liwa in Dafrah
east to Abu Dhabi, where some live in Dalmah island; and the
Al-bu-Hamir, another bedouin section, who live around Abu Dhabi
town. Of the other sections, the Hawamil and the Maharibah
live in Abu Dhabi town and Liwa; the Al-Sultan, the Qasal,
the Bani Shikr and the Qanaysat live principally in Liwa; and
the Qumzan and the Rumaythat are inhabitants of Abu Dhabi
town.15
The other principal tribe of Abu Dhabi is the Manasir, who
arc bedouin with headquarters in Dafrah. Their range extends