'ARBITRATION CONCERNING BURAIMI AND THE COMMON FRONTIER BETWEEN ABU DHABI AND SA'ŪDI ARABIA' [With maps] [‎18v] (41/541)

22
, , • ji., . t i,p last shaikh of the tribe to reside
The village which they fou ^|f ( e ^ a P I 1 s d a y w ho was murdered in 1793. Already,
chiefly in the interior was Dlayabi > the ru ^ n g house of the Bani Yas,
for some generations, the A1 bu • The Bani Yas were described in
a position which they hav ® enj ° y ^ t political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. in Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. , in the
1818 by Captain Taylor, the Assistant Political Agem
following terms :— r ^
“The Benivas are a pastoral clan, of the province of Oman. They
Ka^afesssas
Manasir and a third Owaimir [‘Awamir], Those who dwell in the interior
Manasir, anu a um , C . w uii e those on the coast have boats of a
possess camels of the finest breed , wnne muse ui f fishin? •
light construction, each carrying four persons, equipped lung
the produce of which is taken to the town of Lahsa [Hasa] for sale. Their
pearl fishery is accounted to produce yearly 10,000 Tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , liiey do not
commit piracies on the high seas but take advantage of the approach of the
smallest boats to their coast, and seize them ; for which reason their conduct
is not so openly stigmatized as that of the other inhabitants of Sir. ey have
small date groves dispersed among their sand hillocks, which yield a scanty
supply of fruit, and amidst which they live during the summer, until their
crop is consumed. In this season, the water is very brackish, 8,frd in the
wintry months the shepherds ascend Lahsa and Qutar, to find pasture for their
cattle. They can furnish twenty thousand excellent musketeers ” (1) .
This most interesting description brings out:—
(i) The very close connexion between the Bani Yas, Manasir and ^Awamir;
(ii) The dependence of the three tribes for their livelihood upon the combined
resources of the coast and its hinterland, their boats, their camels and
their palms ;
(iii) The connexion between the Bani Yas and Liwa, to which the mention of
“ small date groves dispersed among their sand hillocks ”, &c., can
only refer ;
(iv) The regular seasonal movement of the population in and out of Liwa and
their general tendency to seek their winter grazing to the north-west
of this area;
all of which to-day are precisely the outstanding characteristics of the inhabitants
of the disputed area and of their way of life.
4. The significance and extent of the Wahhabi invasions of ‘Oman, which
began in 1800, are considered in Part VII of this Memorial. Throughout the period
of these invasions of ‘Oman, the Bani Yas were consistently opposed to the Wah-
habis, who never succeeded in repressing them. At no time did the invaders
establish themselves in any part of the disputed areas, except the Buraimi Oasis,
although, m 1810, they were in temporary occupation of Bahrain and Qatar to
t e west, and had gained a foothold on the ‘Oman promontory to the east of Abu
?+• i sno the u f ° lto 1 W] ^ ^ e , ar ; the Wahhabi offensive against ‘Oman was resumed ;
but, in 1812, when the Wahhabi Amir sent ibn ’Azdakah to Buraimi to relieve his
3fnf hi^P^-t laq ’ Ya I feU upon . him in the Dhafrah, where he and
hostilitv tn ttie invaHp^L’ti! 1118 demonstrating both the determination of their
^oiwithVfmIlrnthp d n and th p + c u om P le [ eness of their control over the Dhafrah,
notwithstanding the presence of the Wahhabis in Buraimi.
SIU, %u-!'m? ad bin Shakm ' ( IS16 - IS18 )—Shaikh ' Tahniin bin Shakhbut
, A' The traditional name of the southern coast of the Gulf between Oatar and
the Musandam peninsula was the Piratp r>* u Jr Dei:ween v a t ar
by the intervention of the RritioU a r ftT r:? ast - Piracy had been much restricted
Lry uie intervention 01 me British authorities during the last venrc r>f the iRth
century. But the arrival of the Wahhabis in ‘Om-in + last j years ot the 18th
in the lower Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , in conseo ii^nce of wWh tL ^ 0 5 recrudescence of piracy
several expeditions against the Jawasim whr> > the British were obliged to direct
expeditions were successful • and in 18 ?n er c m a.inl y responsible for it. The
rSo^sconS'^
t° abstain in future from “ plunder afd piracy alISfnSiZ taw?ul wa^arn
Bombay Selections xxiv. 16: printed as Annex C, No 5
The Imams and Saiytds of Oman, p. 325. '