In the Middle East there have always been three mutually dependent population groups: The nomads (Bedouin), the settled farmers (Fellahin, Hadhar), and the urban city dwellers. Because they are often on the move, the Bedouin traditionally had few material goods, their main possessions being their animals and their tent. The Bedouin lived off their herds and were employed as guides and drivers for the trading caravans. They were also paid safe conduct money for pacifying the desert trade routes. The Bedouin are excellent trackers, recognising animal and human tracks and are able to find their way without compass or map in the desert. This has made them valuable as scouts for various armies.
The largest social unit amongst the Bedouin is the tribe (qabila) which is divided into clans (qawm). Each clan owns its own wells and grazing grounds, and it was the raiding unit of past generations. Clans are divided into family groups (Hayy, Fakhida) which consist of all those related back to five generations (having the same great-great-grandfather in the paternal line). The Hayy is the herding unit, its member families camping together most of the year. It is subdivided into kin groups, (extended families), which consist of the relatives through three generations. The kin group is responsible for all its individual members in matters of morals and honour, including blood vengeance.
Family ties are very strong and are reinforced by intermarriage within the tribe, preferrably to cousins (father's brother's daughters). Each unit has a strong sense of collective honour and loyalty which it defends against all other groups.
Bedouin society is patriarchal, all members of a tribe claiming descent by male line from a common ancestor. The Sheikh as leader of the tribe has considerable power but is limited by custom, precedent and the advice of the council of tribal elders. Age is respected as it has the experience crucial for survival in a difficult environment. The Sheikh is elected from a noble family, any member of that family being eligible for the position when he dies. The eldest male is accepted as ruler of each family unit.
The Bedouin have kept their lifestyle through the centuries, controlled by a strict code of rules which it is shameful ('Eib) to break. It stresses the values of loyalty to the tribe, obedience, generousity, hospitality, honour, cunning and revenge.
Each tribe has inherited rights to carefully defined grazing lands which include a summer and a winter camping ground. Bedouin in the past spent much time in raiding, hunting and war in the pursuit of which they were capable of enduring severe physical hardships. Today smuggling often is a substitute for these forbidden "manly" activities.
Although there are loose tribal confederations, there has rarely been a large scale political organisation into anything like a state. Bedouin history is a repeated cycle of inter-tribal warfare giving way to some sort of centralised rule, and then disintegrating back into chaos. Feuds, warfare and instability have always characterised desert life.
The noble tribes are those who can trace their ancestry back to either Qaysi (northern Arabian) or Yamani (southern Arabian) origin. There are also "ancestorless" vassal tribes living under their protection who make a living by serving them as blacksmiths, tinkers, artisans and entertainers.
The Salubba are one such special client tribe of tinkers and trackers who exist as separate families attached to other tribes. They are at the bottom of the Bedouin social scale, mending pots, making saddles, acting as guides and as entertainers. The Salubba have only a rudimentary knowledge of Islam. They are monogamous and their women are relatively free. They have a non-Semitic appearance and traces of foreign roots in their Arabic. Some think they are descendants of Crusaders (their name means little cross, and they use a cross as their brand mark). Others think they are Gypsies, and some see them as descendants of aboriginal Arabian stock.
Other aborigine tribes are the Qara, Mahra and Harasis of the south, in the border regions between Oman and Yemen.
In Arabia and the adjacent deserts there are around 100 large tribes of 1,000 members or more. Some tribes number up to 20,000 and a few of the larger tribes may have up to 100,000 members.
