Page 37 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

The Trucial Stales in 1919: Rule by Tradition 13

free trade. Dubai became the main port for the entire I rucial
Coast, and the chief distribution centre for foreign goods destined
for the interior, especially the Buraimi oasis. The foreign population
grew, with Indians, Persians, Baluchis and others making Dubai
their home. Its character as the centre of a bustling and flourishing
trade community began to develop, and in 1954 the city-state
was aptly described as follows:
its suqs or markets on cither side of its broad creek are the
most picturesque I have ever seen in the Middle East and take
one back to the time of the Arabian Nights. In the narrow
lanes roofed with malting, where the gloom is flecked by spots
of sunlight, Arabs, Persians and Baluchis display their multifarious
and many-coloured wares. Wild-eyed tribesmen with their camel-
canes and daggers haggle with the shopkeepers and the wealthier
Persian merchants with their long flowing robes and gold-brocaded
headdresses pass to and fro, intent upon their business. Graceful
dhows glide into the creek, lower their sails and cast anchor
while the whole day long small craft arc busy ferrying shoppers
from one bank to the other. The rectangular houses of the Shaikhs
and merchants with their tall wind-towers cast white reflections
on the water. Conditions are no doubt primitive, but there is
an air of bustle and prosperity about the place that gives it
a peculiar charm.25

SHARJAH

The decline in the power and prestige of Sharjah that had set
in towards the end of the nineteenth century continued well into
the twentieth. Whereas its rulers had previously commanded events in
the Trucial Coast—indeed, in the whole of the Gulf region—Sharjah
now became insignificant in the power structure of the area, and
the men who ruled over it were barely able to maintain their
positions. The pattern of decline that had started during the two
decades preceding World War I continued without respite into
and beyond World War II: the bedouin upon whom the ruler
had traditionally relied for support openly flaunted their defiance
of his authority, and those parts of the shaykhdom that had previously
attempted secession now obtained official British recognition of their
independence.
In order to understand this diminution in the status of Sharjah,
it is necessary to glance back to the middle of the eighteenth
century, when its ruling family, the Qawasim, achieved fame and
notoriety as a great seafaring power in the Gulf. Their fleet was