'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [‎36] (51/148)

36
POLITICAL CONDITIONS
Pirate Coast " is repudiated by the other four Chiefs,
and not recognised by us. Of the others, Abu Dhabi
claims a considerable territory on its north-west,
reaching to Khor Odeid, and including all that lies
between the intervening Gulf shore and the Great
Desert; but this is a lean and sparse region of no social
or political importance. Dibai, Ajman. and Um el-
Kjaiwein have each a small zone of territory behind
the town, in which we recognise the undivided autho
rity of its respective chief. All the Five Chiefdoms
have acknowledged, under the treaty of 1892, their in
clusion in the same sort of British semi-protectorate as
Bahrein and Koweit.
Oman; the Sultan of Muscat
In Oman proper, which, from the commercial point
of view, is potentially, though not actually, the most
important district in the peninsula after the Yemen,
we encounter a complicated political problem. Nowhere
in Arabia does greater discrepancy exist between the
sovereignty officially recognised by us and the actual
sovereignty recognised in the country itself—between,
that is to say, the pretension and the exercise of rule.
The Sultan (or Seyyid) of Muscat claims to be overlord
of all Oman territory, except the Trucial Chiefdoms
just discussed and two comparatively small districts
isolated in the north-west—the oases of Bireimi and
Mahadha. With these exceptions, his claim extends
over all the habitable south-eastern part of Arabia,
continued by a strip 500 miles long, on the south coast
of the peninsula, which includes the Dhofar district.
In actual fact, however, he controls nothing beyond the
coastal districts of Muscat and the Bathina. Every
where else practical independence has been the rule,
except at rare intervals, ever since the present A1 Bu
Said dynasty established itself; and since 1913 it has
been patent, inasmuch as the southern hinterland has
formulated it under an elective Imamate. T^ie heredi
tary dynasty of Muscat has never satisfied, and does