The terms of the Exclusive Agreement of…

The terms of the Exclusive Agreement of 1882 convey the most representative sense of the relationship between Britain and the gulf states.

This text specifies that the signatory gulf states (members of the present-day UAE) can not make any international agreements or host any foreign agent without British consent.

Because of these concessions, gulf leaders recognize the need for Britain to protect them from their more powerful neighbors.

The main threat comes from the Al Saud in central Arabia.

A major provision of these treaties, negotiated with families who have risen to the position of tribal leadership in their respective enclaves, is the recognition of sovereignty.

The British are concerned that rulers of the weaker gulf families might yield some of their territory under pressure from more powerful groups, such as the Al Saud or the Ottomans.

Accordingly, the treaties signed from 1820 on recognize the sovereignty of these rulers within certain borders and specify that these borders may not be changed without British consent.

Such arrangements help to put tribal alliances into more concrete terms of landownership.

This means that the Al Nuhayyan of Abu Dhabi, for example, not only command the respect of tribes in the hinterland but also own, as it were, the land that those tribes use-in this case, about seventy-two thousand square kilometers of Arabia.

The sheikhdoms along the coast now become known as the Trucial States.