Page 106 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

Chapter Three
Administering a Tribal
Society

1 The “decentralisation” of the administration
in the wali system of tribal shaikhdoms

General
At a time when communication was slow between the scattered
settlements of the shaikhdoms, each Ruler maintained permanent
representatives, usually called wali, in the more important popu­
lation centres of his shaikhdom.1 The fact that his representative was
in control in that place meant that the Ruler’s authority was at least
de jure recognised by the population of that remote area and by the
neighbouring shaikhs. But often enough control over the representa­
tive himself slipped from the Ruler’s hand and he declared himself an
independent Ruler.
The institution of a wali carried more political weight, the more a
shaikhdom was geographically spread out. Cars and motorboats
were first brought in any number to the Trucial States by the oil
companies and became the predominant means of transport only in
the early 1960s.2 While camels and sailing boats were still the
principal means of communication, the administration of a large
shaikhdom such as Abu Dhabi or the Qasimi realm could not easily
be centralised. The extent to which a Ruler’s personal influence was
felt in the distant settlements under his sovereignty depended on the
geographical and economic situation as much as on his choice of a
wali. The closer the ties of genuine mutual trust between Ruler and
wali, the more it was possible to delegate authority without running
the risk of secession. This is a reason why most Rulers put a brother
or a son in charge of an important “dependency”,3 but this was not
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