Based on interviews and field research,the authors explore the sets of ideas Arab tribespeople from Ras Al-Khaimah had about tribe and community; social and economic networks, and jural contracts for livelihoods and profits; their uses of their environments; the moral relations of credit, debt andlabour; ruling; economic and political transformations; and ideas of regional history where conflicts were regarded as disputes over sets of ideas, and informal accounts of tribal and local histories.Published sources give a wider context to these ideas and events which show the great complexity and differing perspectives of “life before oil” in the Gulf.