Politics in an Arab Oasis

This book is a study of tribal relations and state formation, and an important political history of central Arabia in the period preceding the establishment of the modern Saudi state. It examines the Rashid Emirate, which emerged in the nineteenth century among the camel-herding Shammar tribe, making the oasis of Hail a capital rivaling Mecca and Medina in fame and prosperity, and attempting to unify central Arabia into a single entity. The author explores the reasons that made Shammar politically susceptible to centralization at that particular moment, the internal and external factors that contributed to the emergence of their emirate, the changes that occurred in the political system, and the developments that led to the subsequent instability and collapse of the Shammar political entity in the twentieth century. Finally, while establishing the international historical context of the emergence of the Emirate in Hail, the book discusses the importance of the Ottoman Sultanate and its rivalry with Britain in shaping the course of events at the regional level.+++ Drawing on archival material, travelogues, and rich interviews that would not have been given to a stranger, Madawi Al-Rasheed reconstructs the social history of an emirate that attracted the attention of Western officials and European travelers such as Wallin, Palgrave, Doughty, and Blunt.