'Extracts from Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia by J G Lorimer CIE, Indian Civil Service' [‎41v] (87/180)

72
Settlement Ok
the Marar
case.
1893-94.
Bedouin
raids.
1895-97.
Great fires,
1896-97.
Ihe Zora
case, 1895-
1905.
The migration of the Marar from Dibai to Sharjah, where they permanently
settled, continued however to be a source of quarrel between the two principalities
so long as the claims arising from the affair remained unadjusted. In November
1893 war was again declared between Sharjah and Ras-al-Khaimah on the one
part and Dibai on the other, and the Shaikh of 'Ajman was subsequently drawn
into the fray on the side of his Qasimi allies. In March 1894 a partial reconciliation
between the disputants was effected by the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi, but the Marar
question remained unsettled; in the end it necessitated a special visit by the
Resident to the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. , in the course of which, at a meeting held under
the superintendence of Mr. J. C. Gaskin, Assistant Resident, the dispute was
finally laid to rest. The Shaikh of Sharjah on this occasion tried to avoid meeting
the Resident, and the usual complimentary gifts were in his case consequently
withheld.
In January 1895 Manasir and A1 Morrah nomads from a distance commenced
raiding the whole of the inland districts between Abu Dhabi and Ras-al-Khaimah
and were reported to have captured some 400 camels and 100 horses. The Bani
Qitab, who were perhaps the principal sufferers, then appealed to the Shaikhs of
Abu Dhabi and Dibai; and, on these chiefs calling out their Bedouins, the scourge
was temporarily abated. In the following season marauding Manasir from Qatar
again made their appearance in Trucial 'Oman; but, finding the inhabitants
prepared to resist them, they changed their tactics and paid visits of courtesy to
the Shaikhs of Dibai, Sharjah and Umm-al-Qaiwain, whom they thus obliged to
entertain them. From Hamriyah, however, the people there not being sufficiently
upon their guard, they carried off a number of animals and a few slaves. Before
the end of the winter of 1896-97 a check was inflicted on the Manasir by the Bani
Qitab, for that tribe, warned by the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi, with whom they had
then recently been reconciled, and assisted by the people of Sharjah, defeated the
marauders with loss in a sharp engagement.
The towns of Trucial 'Oman, consisting to a large extent of huts of dry date
fronds and other inflammable materials, are at all time very liable to damage by
fire; but the year 1896 was rendered memorable by an extraordinary series of
conflagrations. In the town of Sharjah 400 houses w r ere reported to have been
destroyed, and the loss of property was estimated at Rs. 30,000; at Dibai half
of the town proper was said to have been wasted by the flames, together with the
whole of the Dairah quarter; while at Abu Dhabi 170 houses were burned, and
such property as the owners succeeded in rescuing from the blaze was pillaged by
Bani Yas Bedouins. In 1897 there were several fires at Dibai, and a slave-woman
caught in the act of incendiarism was put to death.
The next political incident of importance arose from designs conceived by
the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi in regard to Zora, a sandy tract upon the sea extending
from 'Ajman to Hamriyah, but cut off from those places and from the mainland
between them by a creek never fordable at more than two places; the advantages
of the insular position of Zora had been fully realised by Shaikh Zaid-bin-Khalifah,
who aspired to the headship of all the Bedouin tribes of Trucial 'Oman and saw
in Zora a safe asylum for the flocks and herds of his allies and an excellent base
for operations by himself, in case of hostilities with tribes lying at a distance from
Abu Dhabi. In 1895 the Shaikh obtained from the British Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , to which
the full significance of his action was not as yet apparent, permission to send stores
by sea for the use of Bedouins whom he had collected at Zora in support of the
Bani Qitab, then at war with their neighbours; but, the other Trucial Shaikhs
having thrown difficulties in the way, he found himself unable to turn the authority
thus granted to account. In 1897 a section of the Sudan tribe under Sultan-bin-
Nasir requested the leave of the Resident to colonise Zora; and in 1900, on the
Shaikh of Abu Dhabi offering to protect the settlement and promising to assist
the inhabitants with non-military stores sent by sea, the desired permission was
given: Shaikh Zaid, it may be observed, was himself a Suwaidi on his mothers'
side, and a daughter of the Suwaidi Shaikh Sultan-bin-Nasir was among his wives.
The Zora scheme was however alarming to the Ghafiri Shaikhs; the Shaikh
of 'Ajman at once took steps to protect himself by building a fort near one of
the fords connecting Zora with the mainland; and the Shaikh of Sharjah, in
September 1900, appealed to the Resident to prevent the establishment of a non-
Qasimi stronghold in the midst of Qasimi country. The permission given to
colonise was accordingly revoked, to the intense annoyance of Shaikh Zaid, who
saw himself thus deprived of one of the chief means on which he had counted
for the extension of his influence over all Trucial 'Oman, Ruus-al-Jibai,