2.1 A Large Step Back in Time

H.R.P. Dixon, who lived in Kuwait from 1919 to when he died in 1959 and studied the Bedouin, wrote “Raiding is the breath of life to the Badawin. Prevent him from raiding and he becomes the most melancholy of men.” And “Desert raids do not as a rule entail much bloodshed.” Dixon was Political Agent in Kuwait for several years before working for the Kuwait Oil Company. Another Political Agent, Julian Walker, wrote “The Bedu, certain of his innate superiority over villages and townsmen, jealous of their independence, accepting no lord but Allah, often poor but unbelievably generous, dominated the desert.”

Dixon and Walker were writing of the days when many, if not most in some areas, men in the desert carried a rifle. It was a symbol of his manhood and useful for hunting; it was fired on occasions of celebration and ready to be used in self-defence. Many of the rifles were old and had suffered over the years, indeed according to some reports they were as great a danger to the owner as to his foe. Even in 1963 when I gave a lift for a short distance in the desert in my Land Rover to two men returning to the Liwa, they both carried rifles. When the oil company, PD(TC) first sent men from London to the Trucial Coast, the British Government (HMG) His (Her) Majesty's Government and the rulers were all concerned about the safety of the geologists and surveyors and security for their equipment. In those days poverty among some of the tribes and the people living in the desert encouraged some of the less law-abiding among them to practise the ancient ‘sport’ of raiding (gazzu). The possibility of company personnel meeting a raiding party or falling victims to this activity, or suffering material loss was neither acceptable to HMG nor to the rulers. Among the most active, daring, and notorious, were some men from the Awamir who are reported to have even entered Dubai town from time to time. The Awamir is a very large tribe and in those days their people were found in several lands including the Trucial Coast. Some men from other tribes too, such as the Bani Kaab and the Bani Kitab were also active, if only for the purpose of revenge.