The Challenge to Power: Brother, Nephew and Son

Abstract

One of the most distinctive features of the history of the Trucial shaykhdoms is the frequency with which their rulers have been challenged by ambitious members of their own families in unmasked struggles for power. The result has been that all but one of the shaykhdoms have witnessed devastating internecine quarrels in their ruling families. Much of this turmoil has been owing to the absence of the law of primogeniture, and of any other fixed procedure for the peaceful succession of rulers. The struggle for power has thus been almost a natural adjunct to the death, natural or otherwise, of a ruler, and successors have had to make sure of wresting complete control of the shaykhdom from their relatives before beginning to exercise absolute power. To survive, rulers have had to display a remarkable combination of fearlessness, fairness, honesty, intelligence and generosity, and to make sure that none of their relatives become disaffected in any way. Not to do so has often proved itself fatal. Only in Dubai, where all the rulers in the last century and a half have died a natural death, have more sophisticated methods prevailed.