ABSTRACT
In this study we have tried to look at Gulf and Arab Peninsula society from a perspective different to what is customary, that is which varies from the perspective of a random succession of events, accompanied by the appearance of shaykhs and sultans in a monotonous manner, as seen in Table 4.3 in Chapter 4 of this book. This traditional perspective does not lead to a precise understanding of the social structure, but rather to a blind alley represented by the strange conclusion which Serjeant reached that Arab Peninsula society is ‘habitually in a state of anarchy’. The traditional viewpoint, in fact, logically leads to this conclusion, owing to its lack of conceptual tools to analyse the succession of events and to interpret the alarming tribal, sectarian and social fragmentation of society in the Peninsula.
