Page 72 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

4« The Origins of the United Arab Emirates

a wali at Hi rah whom ‘Abel al-Rahman then arrested and deposed.
By January 1924, preparations were under way for another combined
attack on Hirah by Khalid and Humayd bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. Before
long, Khalid’s guns were turned on Hirah, and his forces had
surrounded the village, waiting for the signal to attack. ‘Abd al-Rah­
man barricaded the town so well that it became impregnable.
The people of Sharjah town, however, were worried about and
disapproving of the possibility of an armed conflict, and general
unrest and fear prevailed in the area. In the meantime, the Residency
Agent had written to Humayd of Ajman40 and to Sa‘id bin
Maktum of Dubai,41 warning the former not to interfere, and asking
the latter not to allow Sultan bin Saqr to join in the impending
battle. Aware of the deadlock he faced, and afraid of the conse­
quences, Khalid asked ‘Isa to intervene for peace. The Residency
Agent complied, peace was established, and ‘Abd al-Rahman was
forced to leave Hirah; this time he went to Dubai, where he
joined his son-in-law, Sultan bin Saqr.42
By then, Khalid’s unpopularity in Sharjah was complete. The
people regarded him as oppressive, especially in view of the high
customs duties he levied, and his prestige had waned enormously.
Khalid was also resented for his mistreatment of Saqr’s sons, exiled
in Dubai and deprived of their inheritance, so it was the inhabitants
of Sharjah who, on 1 November 1924, brought Sultan bin Saqr
and his brothers back to Sharjah. It did not take Sultan long
to seize power from Khalid. With the help of his father-in-law,
and ably assisted by a force he brought with him,43 he managed
to break the ruler’s resistance in only eleven days. On 12 November
Khalid admitted defeat and agreed to step down in favour of
Sultan bin Saqr; both men signed covenants44 that Shaykh Sultan bin
Salim of Ras al-Khaimah, in Sharjah for the purpose, helped to
draw up, and that ‘Abd al-Rahman bin Sayf of Hamriyyah, ‘Abdallah
bin ‘Ali bin Huwayydin of the Bani Qitab, and the Residency
Agent and his uncle Haj Yusuf bin ‘Abdallah also signed.
Khalid first went to live in Dubai, but then settled in Umm
al-Qaiwain. He could not, for a year at least, be reconciled to
his deposal, and repeatedly petitioned the British authorities to
help him reclaim the shaykhdom. By 1925 he seemed to have
given up hope, and to be resigned to remaining at Umm al-Qaiwain;
but two years later he was roused to anger by Sultan bin Saqr,
who, contrary to the terms of the 1924 agreement, had confiscated
Khalid’s property in Sharjah. Khalid gathered strength to attack
his nephew for this breach of promise, and in May 1927 he and
his brother ‘Abdallah went to Sharjah and there barricaded them­
selves in the house of a notable, Ahmad bin Darwish. Sultan and
his brother Muhammad collected some bedouin of the Manasir