"ملف 38/17 تخطيط حدود الساحل المتصالح ومناطق امتياز شركة امتيازات النفط المحدودة في الساحل المتصالح" [و‎‎٣‎٧] (٢٢٥/٧٤)

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over territory is largely inapplicable to the Trucial
Sheikhdoms. He ^"Sovereign State” is primarily the city
or the settlement. To it may belong tribes which travel
in ereas far from the city to which they owe allegiance,
but the existence of such tribes does not necessarily
entitle the ruler to claim sovereignty over the areas
which they habitually traverse. Their presence, however,
may soratimes serve as an indication of the extent of
influence,if not the jurisdiction,of a particular ruler,
4 * Likewise, wells present no absolute indication
of sovereignty} whereas the Falaj (or underground water
channel) is generally regarded as private property,the
well is common property. In the desert, outside the
metropolitan area, almost anyone may dig wells and their
construction is called M khairat"(i.e., "good works for the
benefit of all”). Only in time of war, is it considered
legitimate to deny the use of wells to any man. Thus, one
Shaikh may dig wells in a neighbours territory, e.g., Tawi
Muhammad bin Saqr, a Sharjah well dug in Dubai territory.
5# In the area under dispute, it would appear that
grazing and hunting rights are likewise more or less held
in common. It is true that they tend, in different places,
to be exercised mainly by the inhabitants of whichever
town is nearer, but such rights are no means exclusive.
6 * lt would seem, therefore, that the empty desert
lying between the city States may be compared with the high
seas, in so far as it forms a sort of no-mans-land which
ail may use, but over which, being uncultivable and
uninhabited, actual jurisdiction has never been claimed.
I would venture to suggest that such a conception of
sovereignty may be peculiarly Arab, as would seem to be
the case from the way in which the Arab uses the name of
the city (being the kernel of the country to den6te the
whole State, (e.g., ”Sham” for Damascus or Syria, "London”
for the Capital or for the whole of England.)