'Extracts from Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia by J G Lorimer CIE, Indian Civil Service' [‎48v] (101/180)

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Zaid and his sons, especially by his eldest son, Khalifah, who has recently founded
a new settlement, Mas'udi, on the north-western edge of the Oasis.
In 1904, a year in which Shaikh Zaid spent several months at his estate of
Jahali, hostilities nearly arose from the purchase by Shaikh Khalifah of a share
in an old disused Falaj, belonging to Ghaliris, at Baraimi; for, on some of the
co-owners objecting to the intrusion of the Hinawi Bani Yas, Shaikh Zaid at first
prepared to enforce his son's right by arms. At a meeting held at Samaih near
Khor-al-Ghanadhah, however, he was induced, by the advice of the Shaikhs of
Dibai and 'Ajman and of his friend Muhammad, the chief Na'aimi Shaikh of
Baraimi, to abandon forcible measures. About the same time he proved the
strength of his influence in the Baraimi neighbourhood generally by obliging the
Bani Qitab to pay blood money for two citizens of 'Ibri town in Dhahirah, whom
they had slain.
General After the attack on Abu Dhabi town in 1856 the internal history of the
matters, principality was, apart from the affairs of 'Odaid and Baraimi described above,
1857-1907. wholly uneventful. The wars of the Bani Yas with the A1 Thani Shaikhs of Dohah
will be more appropriately related, though the interior of the Abu Dhabi Shaikh-
dom did not entirely escape their effects, in the history of the Qatar promontory.
Shaikh Zaid performed the Hajj in 1880-81, and in 1904 he received a fine mare
with trappings from the Sharif of Makkah.
ANNEXURE No. 3.—INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE DIBAI
PRINCIPALITY.
[pp. 772-775]
Of the early history of Dibai town little is known. It existed already in 1799;
and in 1825, as appears from the general history of Trucial 'Oman,* its possession
was an object of ambition to the ruler of Masqat. Notwithstanding the separate
signature on behalf of its chief Hazza'-bin-Za'al, then a minor, of the General
Treaty of Peace in 1820, Dibai appears to have existed until 1833 as a dependency
of the Abu Dhabi Shaikhdom; but in that year, as related elsewhere,t on the
arrival of a body of 800 seceders from Abu Dhabi belonging to the A1 Bu Falasah
section of the Bani Yas tribe, it attained indisputably to the status of a separate
principality.
Shaikh Maktum-bin-Buti, 1833-52.
Accession
of Shaikh
Maktiim to
sole power
1836.
Administra
tion and
character.
The leaders of the exodus of the A1 Bu Falasah from Abu Dhabi were
Obaid-bin-Sa'id and Maktum-bin-Buti, who seem, according to a practice common
among the Bani Yas, to have been recognised as joint chiefs; but on the death on
the 9th of June 1836 of 'Obaid, who was regarded as the senior of the two, the
undivided power devolved upon Maktum, at that time a haughty and inexperienced
youth.
The new principality was exposed for a time to considerable danger, both from
the jealousy of the Shaikh of Abu Dhabi, the former suzerain of Dibai, and from
the ambition of the Qasimi Shaikh of Sharjah, between whom a combination was
more than once formed for its suppression; but the personal courage and the ability
of Shaikh Maktum were equal to every emergency, enabling him to play off with
success the one enemy against the other; and it is probable that the peril from
outside was not without advantage in strengthening his authority at home. The
internal history of Dibai under Shaikh Maktum was in any case singularly
uneventful, but in 1843 he lost an eye in battle with the Ghafalah Bedouins. As has
often happened in the case of an Arab ruler refractory at the beginning of his reign
in his relations with the British Government, Shaikh Maktum showed in later life
a sincere appreciation of the objects and advantages of British policy in the Gulf;
and he ultimately acquired, in a high degree, the confidence and respect of the local
British authorities.
* Vide page 686 ante. [See p. 37 of these Extracts.]
t Vide page 765 ante. [See p. 81 of these Extracts.]