Avamir

The Avamir tribe roamed the entire Oman Peninsula: from Muscat and Nazva to Abu Dhabi and Liva . In the region of Abu Dhabi, it was considered an allied tribe of Bani Yas and often supported them in conflicts ^[2] . Avamir came from the steppes north of Hadramaut and migrated north for over 500 years ^[3] . Its branch, the Afar tribe, was associated with the Zafra area. By the beginning of the 20th century, about 4,000 representatives of the Avamir tribe lived outside Oman, and their total number at that time was about 10,000 people, 3,500 of whom were nomadic Bedouins ^[4] .

The British historian and diplomat John Gordon Lorimer described the Avamir tribe as "known for their courage and militancy, but cunning, insidious and predatory; robbing everyone indiscriminately in their way ...".

In 1848, Sheikh Saeed ibn Tahnun al-Nahyan recaptured the oasis of El-Buraimi from the Wahhabis , capturing its two fortresses with the help of the Avamir tribe, which was part of the military tribal alliance. Then it participated in establishing control of the oasis and protecting it from the army under the command of Saad ibn Mutlak, who sought to conquer the oasis. By 1850, Said’s large tribal alliance cleared the Wahhabi oasis of Al-Buraimi. Subsequently, he received a reward from the Sultan of Muscat for the protection of Al-Buraimi ^[5] .

The tribe of Avamir also supported the successor of Said, Sheikh Zayed ibn Khalifa al-Nahyan, in his great war with Qatar in the 1880s, a series of conflicts that protected the western borders of Abu Dhabi ^[6] . By the 1920s, Avamir played a leading role in a number of conflicts around the Al-Buraimi oasis and the city of Abu Dhabi, fighting the tribes of Manasir, Duru and Bani Kitab ^[7] .

In the 1930s The decline in pearl mining on the Omani coast led to a general crisis in the region. Demand for camels and the services of the guides of the Avamir tribe fell, which forced him to resort more often to raids to rob. Their raids in Dubai were part of a general unrest (during the crisis and general impoverishment) against their ruler, Sheikh Saeed ibn Maktoum ^[8] . So, for example, in 1931 raids on camel caravans, settlements and date groves were recorded. In one case, robbers only out of revenge on the ruler who had previously punished them, cut down 20 immature date palms in Umm al-Qaiwain during an outbreak of looting ^[9] . These raids led to an open bloody conflict between the tribes and Abu Dhabi. For the first time, the British were forced to intervene in internal affairs and conclude an agreement between Abu Dhabi and Dubai on their borders and the conditions of peace between tribes ^[10] .

Avamir was in a long conflict with the Duru tribe. During it, the leader of the Bedouins, Avamira Salim ibn Hamad bin Rakkad attacked Al-Hasa in 1943. In 1948, they repeated their raid, but in subsequent years their attacks on Al-Hasa successfully fought off ^[11] . The bulk of the tribe remained in the oasis of Al-Buraimi and defended it on behalf of the Al-Bu-Falah clan . One of the sheikhs of the latter, Zayd ibn Sultan Al Nahyan , having been proclaimed a Wali Al Ain, first called Salim ibn Mussalam ibn Hamm and appointed him leader of the Bedouins Avamir. That part of the tribe that moved south under the rule of Salim ibn Hamad became Saudi citizens. This split in the Avamir tribe became part of the arguments in the territorial dispute over Al-Buraimi.

By the 1950s, about 50 families of the Avamir tribe had acquired date plantations in Al-Buraimi, and some settled in Liva. In 1968, 1,721 members of the Avamir tribe were identified during the census, many of them found jobs in oil companies.