The United Arab Emirates

A Modern History

Mohammad Morsy Abdullah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138184268
• eBook ISBN: 9781000156355
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The British withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971 brought to an end the British Imperial era in the history of the Trucial States and marked the birth of the United Arab Emirates. This book, first published in 1978, establishes the political, social, economic and cultural heritage of the UAE and explains the formative issues in the development of the new state. From 1892 to 1971 the history of the Gulf was determined by the British presence. Initially the region was regarded by the British as no more than a part of the strategic defence of India, but by 1945 oil and international air communication had given the region a new strategic importance. This volume examines both the early India Office policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the region and the circumstances after 1947 which prompted the Foreign Office to interfere in certain internal issues. The second half of the book seeks to explain the development of Arab nationalism, the growth of Iranian activities and the relations of the Trucial States with their Western neighbours, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The last chapter provides an historical explanation for the present interstate boundaries and political geography of the region.

1 The Trucial States and British Imperial Interests

I British Diplomacy in the Period of International Challenge, 1892-1918

II The Growth of British Interests between the Two World Wars

III The End of the British Imperialistic Era

1 The Trucial States and British Imperial Interests

I British Diplomacy in the Period of International Challenge, 1892–1918

The Exclusive Treaty of 1892

The British first came to the Gulf at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They came as traders, representing the East India Company, and for two centuries were entirely involved in peaceful commercial activity, centred mainly on Bandar ‘Abbās and Bushire on the Persian coast, and Basşrah in the Wilāyet of Baghdād. The military and political presence of the British in the area began only as an indirect result of the attack on their ships by Qawāsim zealots at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This brought about the British expedition of 1819 against Qawāsim ports on the coast of ‘Omān, followed by the conclusion of the General Treaty of 1820 with the shaikhs of this coast, who undertook to refrain from piracy.¹

In 1823 the first local Residency Agent was appointed in Shārjah to report to the British Political Resident in Bushire on affairs on this coast.² The conclusion of several treaties (1839, 1847, 1856) to abolish the slave trade on the Coast of ‘Omān increased British involvement in the affairs of this area. In 1853 the British concluded the Perpetual Maritime Peace with local rulers, and the area, which had hitherto been referred to as the ‘Pirate Coast’, now became known in British official documents as the Trucial Coast.³

From this foothold in ‘Omān British political and military power during the second half of the century extended northwest to Bahrain and Kuwait. The principal purpose of British vigilance and control in the Trucial States was to secure a peaceful passage for their trade, which was concentrated mainly on the Persian coast, and in the 1870s the trade flourished after telegraph lines, postal and steamer services had been established there. During this period the supply of Indian goods to the Trucial Coast depended mainly on the port of Lingah, where the British steamship lines called regularly. Here, and particularly at Shārjah, Dubai, Rās al-Khaimah and Abū Dhabī a few Indian traders who were British subjects began to settle.⁴

The gradual development of British supremacy in the Gulf in the second half of the century elicited an antagonistic reaction from the two local powers, Persia and Ottoman. This did not disturb the British unduly, but when in the 1890s the French, the Russians and the Germans entered the field the British were for the first time aware of a threat to their long-standing supremacy. Lorimer, in his official Indian Government Gazeteer, connected the treaty of 1892 with Ottoman designs against the British in the Gulf after 1871, with Persian activities in 1887 and in particular with French interference in the Trucial States in 1890.⁵

In May 1871 the Ottomans had occupied al-Ḥasā and extended their influence to Qaṭar. Although the Turks had defined the aim of this expedition as only to restore the Sultan’s power over Nejd, the British authorities in India were made increasingly uneasy by the Ottoman claims and by rumours of their sovereignty over the Trucial Coast, which had preceded and now followed this invasion. These suspicions were confirmed in June 1871, when the latest issue of the official Baghdād Gazette listed Bahrain and eight towns in Trucial ‘Omān as being part of the province of Nejd.⁶ It was not only Turkish expansionism and the presence of Ottoman warships in the Gulf which disturbed the British; the Turkish attitude towards the Indian Government’s engagements and treaties with the Trucial Coast also gave cause for disquiet. In the same month the British Ambassador in Constantinople, in response to a request from the India Office, furnished the Turkish Government with a copy of British treaties with the Arab chiefs of the Gulf, and the Turks refused to recognise or be bound by them⁷ (an attitude which continued until 1913, when the Anglo-Ottoman Convention was signed). The troubles which ensued over al-‘Udaid between the Shaikh of Abū Dhabī and the Shaikh of Qaṭar, who was encouraged by the Ottomans, in addition to an increasing tendency on the part of the latter to correspond directly with Shaikh Zāyed b. Khalīfah, ruler of Abū Dhabī, convinced the British of the need to review their previous relations and treaties with the Trucial shaikhs and to establish closer ties with them.⁸

A second factor which underlined the need for a new treaty with the Trucial States emerged in 1887, when the British authorities in the Gulf were annoyed by vigorous Persian political activities at Baḥrain, Qaṭar and the Trucial Coast. It was one of the major plans of the newly appointed Derya Begi (the Governor-General of the Gulf ports), Amīn al-Sulṭān, and carried out jointly by his representative at Bushire, Ḥājjī Aḥmad Khān, and his tax collector, Malik al-Tujjār. At the beginning of August 1887, Ross, the Political Resident, was engaged, on instructions from the British Minister to Tehran, in observing the visit of Baḥrain of Malik al-Tujjār, who informed him that Malik’s superior, Amīn al-Sulṭān, was an ambitious man and that Malik’s visit to Baḥrain could create trouble for the British. Whilst in Baḥrain, Ross received information that Hājjī Aḥmad Khān was visiting the Trucial Coast in the steamer Khalder of the Bombay & Persian Navigation Company. The Political Resident’s steamer Lawrence was immediately despatched with the first Assistant Resident to Abū Dhabī, to observe the movements of Ḥājjī Khān in an attempt to ascertain his purpose. Ḥājjī Aḥmad remained with Shaikh Zāyed b. Khalīfah for a few days, after which he went to Dubai to express his condolences at the death of Shaikh Ḥashr and then returned to Abū Dhabī. He sailed directly to Lingah and arrived there on 13 September.⁹

The Residency Agent, Ḥājjī Abū al-Qāsim, was unable to give the captain of the Lawrence any details of Ḥājjī Aḥmad Khān’s meetings with the shaikhs of Abū Dhabī and Dubai, which had been held in complete secrecy; it was revealed afterwards that they had sworn on the Qur’an to keep them highly confidential. It was not until the end of September that the first intimation of what had taken place came to the attention of the British authorities through the Sultan of Muscat, who passed it on to the British Political Agent. According to a letter about the visit from Shaikh Rāshid b. Maktūm to the Sultan of Muscat dated 14 September 1887, Ḥājjī Aḥmad Khān persuaded the Shaikh to accept a Persian agent on the same footing as the British Residency Agent. Hājjī Aḥmad’s intention was that the chiefs of Abū Dhabī and Dubai would denounce the influence of the Christians, meaning the British, and bring their people under Persian authority. Shaikh Rāshid refused absolutely to discuss this with him and declined to give him an interview even in the private house of b. Dalmūk, an eminent and rich merchant in Dubai.¹⁰ These facts provoked Ross’s suspicion, but the probability of a Russian design behind the visit caused great concern. Precautions had been taken by Colonel Ross in December 1887 against Ottoman and Persian activities, obtaining from the shaikhs of the Trucial coast a written assurance that they would on no account correspond with or enter into an agreement with any government whatsoever, except the British, and that they would not, without the consent of the British Government, allow an agent of any other government to reside in their land.¹¹

However, immediate provocation made it a matter of urgency to attach the shaikhs of Trucial ‘Omān to the British Government by new and more stringent obligations. Two Frenchmen appeared on the Coast in 1891, whose motives were suspected of being political: one of them, a M. Chapuy, was described by Lorimer as ‘half adventurer, half merchant and wholly intriguer’. The two Frenchmen visited the Shaikh of Umm al-Qaiwain three times, bringing gifts; the Shaikh was convinced of the advantages of flying the French flag, as did the Banī Bū-‘Alī’s tribe in Ṣūr, and he agreed to write a letter to the French Government, promising a good reception in his land for French citizens. Responding to this critical situation, Major Talbot, the new British Political Resident in the Gulf, suggested to the Government of India in November 1891 the conclusion of a formal agreement on the lines of the written assurance of December 1887, and this having been approved by the Government, an Exclusive Treaty was signed on various dates in March 1892 with the Trucial Shaikhs. The shaikhs bound themselves, their heirs and their successors to abide by the assurances of 1887, and undertook on no account to cede, sell, mortgage or otherwise give for occupation any part of their territory save to the British Government.¹² This treaty became the main pillar of British authority on the Trucial Coast and was to serve as a model for agreements signed in due course by the Shaikhs of Baḥrain, Kuwait and Qaṭar. (Turkish, Sa‘ūdī and Persian activities on the Trucial Coast during this period will be discussed in detail in Chapters 3 and 4.)

The Effect of Foreign Rivalry on British Policy on the Coast

In the years from 1892 to 1914 the Gulf area became the scene of intense rivalry between the major European powers. The French, the Germans and the Russians not only sought free access for their commercial enterprises (as the Japanese and Americans were to do in the war-weary atmosphere of 1918–39 without exciting British hostility); they went further and challenged the British right to treat the Gulf politically as a ‘British lake’. What especially aroused British anxiety at home and in India was the fact that all three powers were suspected by the British of attempting to establish naval bases in the Gulf; the French at Bandar Jiṣṣah in 1898, the Russians at Shahbār on the Persian coast in the late 1890s, and the Germans at their Baghdād Railway terminus at Kuwait, or at Baṣrah, in 1900. By firmness and diplomacy, as well as some coercive measures in the Gulf, the British contrived to emerge completely victorious. France in 1904, Russia in 1907 and Germany in 1912, all signed agreements formally recognising British supremacy in the area, and in 1913 the Ottomans followed suit.¹³

This struggle had an immediate effect on British policy on the Trucial Coast. This area had always, since the early nineteenth century, been intimately bound up with the safety of the British Empire in India. Now, when major European powers were seeking naval bases in the Gulf, this 500-kilometre stretch of coast, commanding the entrance to the Gulf and with numerous islands, acquired a greater strategic importance. The task of preventing the other powers from gaining any political, or even commercial, foothold on this coast entailed an increase in vigilance and supervision. The British were represented at Shārjah by their Residency Agent, Khān Bahādur ‘Abd al-Laṭīf (1890–1919), who reported directly to the Political Resident in Bushire.¹⁴ At the turn of the century British control in the Gulf produced some confusion in British machinery since the Political Resident was corresponding with two departments, the Foreign Office and the India Office;¹⁵ as regards purely local affairs the Trucial Coast came under the jurisdiction of the Government of India, which had to consult the Foreign Office about relations of the Coast with Persia and the Ottomans. The differences of opinion and attitude between the Foreign Office and the India Office in the pre-1914 period will emerge repeatedly in this study. After 1902, when the Committee of Imperial Defence was established to form the missing link between the military and civil authorities, it also had its say; in 1904–5 it dealt with the strategic importance of the Musandam peninsula to Britain, and the Cabinet implemented its recommendations.¹⁶

During this contentious period affairs in the Gulf were influenced by three important British personalities: Lansdowne in London, Curzon in India and Cox in the Bushire Residency. Lansdowne was Viceroy in India from 1888–94 and Secretary for Foreign Affairs between 1900 and 1905.¹⁷ The ‘Lansdowne Declaration’ of 5 May 1903 was a landmark in the British policy of firmness, as a positive threat to other powers and one to which they promptly yielded, and in the House of Lords, during a debate on the Baghdād Railway, Lansdowne laid down the broad lines of British policy: ‘I say without hesitation, we should regard the establishment of a naval base or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it with all means at our disposal.’¹⁸

Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899–1905, was an expert on Gulf affairs, of whom Lorimer said that he ‘courted rather than feared responsibility’, and that his methods were ‘rapid and energetic’.¹⁹ During his five years in India he frustrated French designs in Muscat in 1899, and arranged the signing of an Exclusive Treaty with Kuwait. In 1901 he was strongly in favour of declaring the Trucial Coast a British Protectorate, but as no serious foreign interference transpired in this area the idea was not suggested to the Foreign Office and the plan did not materialise.²⁰ In the same year he requested permission to visit the Gulf as a show of power, in answer to the visits of the Russian and French warships, and was finally given approval later in 1903; he then proceeded in the cruiser Argonaut, the largest ship to visit the Gulf before the First World War, accompanied by a flotilla of seven warships. On 18 November he inspected the inlets of the Musandam peninsula, which he considered of vital strategic importance in guarding the entrance to the Gulf. On 23 November he visited the Trucial States, where near Shārjah he received the shaikhs on board and addressed them with a speech in which he outlined the British policy of maintaining the status quo;

If any internal disputes occur, you will always find a friend in the British Resident, who will use his influence, as he ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. The Trucial States and British Imperial Interests
• 2. Internal Changes
• 3. Western Neighbours of the Trucial States
• 4. Britain, Persia and the Trucial States
• 5. Britain, Muscat and the Inter-State Boundaries
• 6. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Maps and Appendices
• Index