Topic: Bedouin

[Jennifer-]

Poetry

Storm in the Desert

But come, my friends, as we stand here mourning, do you see the lightning?
See its glittering, like the flash of two moving hands, amid the thick gathering clouds.

 

Its glory shines like the lamps of a monk when he has dipped their wicks thick in oil.
I sat down with my companions and watched the lightning and the coming storm.

 

So wide-spread was the rain that its right end seemed over Quatan,
Yet we could see its left end pouring down on Satar, and beyond that over Yazbul.

 

So mighty was the storm that it hurled upon their faces the huge kanahbul trees,
The spray of it drove the wild goats down from the hills of Quanan.

 

In the gardens of Taimaa not a date-tree was left standing,
Nor a building, except those strengthened with heavy stones.

 

The mountain, at the first downpour of the rain, looked like a
giant of our people draped in a striped cloak.

The peak of Mujaimir in the flood and rush of debris looked
like a whirling spindle.

 

The clouds poured forth their gift on the desert of Ghabeet, till it blossomed
As though a Yemani merchant were spreading out all the rich clothes from his trunks,

 

As though the little birds of the valley of Jiwaa awakened in the morning
And burst forth in song after a morning draught of old, pure, spiced wine.

 

As though all the wild beasts had been covered with sand and mud,

like the onion's root-bulbs.
They were drowned and lost in the depths of the desert at evening.

 

Imr-Al-Quais

 

[Jennifer-]

Age and Wisdom

I have grown weary of the troubles of life; and he
who lives eighty years will, may you have no father
if you doubt, grow weary.

 

And I know what has happened to-day and yesterday,
before it, but verily, of the knowledge of what will happen
tomorrow I am ignorant.

 

I see death is like the blundering of a blind camel—him
whom he meets he kills, and he whom he misses lives and will
become old.

 

And he who does not act with kindness in many affairs
will be torn by teeth
and trampled under foot.

 

And he who makes benevolent acts intervene before
honor, increases his honor;
and he who does not avoid abuse, will be abused.

 

He who is possessed of plenty, and is miserly with his
great wealth toward his people, will be dispensed with,
and abused.

 

He who keeps his word, will not be reviled;
and he whose heart is guided to self-satisfying benevolence
will not stammer.

 

And he who dreads the causes of death, they will reach
him, even if he ascends the tracts of the heavens
with a ladder.

 

And he who shows kindness to one not deserving it, his
praise will be a reproach against him, and he will repent of
having shown kindness.

 

And he who rebels against the butt ends of the spears,
then verily he will have to obey the spear points joined to
every long spear shaft.

 

And he who does not repulse with his weapons from his
tank, will have it broken; and he who does not oppress the
people will be oppressed.

 

And he who travels should consider his friend an enemy;
and he who does not respect himself
will not be respected.

 

And he who is always seeking to bear the burdens of
other people, and does not excuse himself from it,
will one day by reason of his abasement, repent.

 

And whatever of character there is in a man, even though
he thinks it concealed from people,
it is known.

 

He who does not cease asking people to carry him, and
does not make himself independent of them even for one day
of the time, will be regarded with disgust.

 

Many silent ones you see, pleasing to you,
but their excess in wisdom or deficiency
will appear at the time of talking.

 

The tongue of a man is one half, and the other half is his
mind, and here is nothing besides these two, except the shape
of the blood and the flesh.

 

And verily, as to the folly of an old man,
there is no wisdom after it,
but the young man after his folly may become wise.

 

We asked of you, and you gave, and we returned to the
asking and you returned to the giving, and he who increases
the asking, will one day be disappointed.

 

Zuhair

[tangerine dream]

 

[Jennifer-]

Bedouins mark their graves with exceptional simplicity, placing one ordinary stone at the head of the grave and one at its foot. Moreover, it is traditional to leave the clothes of the deceased atop the grave, to be adopted by whatever needy travellers may pass by.

[Jennifer-]

The national culture and its symbolism include performances such as the ardah, where men dance waving swords in the air; the recitation of epic poems about historical events related to tribal affairs; and national sports competitions. The distinctive clothing worn by both men and women conforms with Muslim dress codes that prescribe modesty for both sexes but especially women.

Saudi Arabia's most powerful cultural symbols are those linked to Islam. The ritual celebrations that have the strongest hold on people's imaginations are the holy month of Ramadan, the holy pilgrimage (haj) to Mecca, and the Muslim feasts of Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha, which occur after the end of Ramadan and in conjunction with the pilgrimage, respectively. Other important rituals are the more private social celebrations of weddings, visits (especially among women) for joyous and sad occasions, extended family and clan reunions and other kin-based socializing, and the expression of condolences and participation in funerals.

[Jennifer-]

Rituals and Holy Places. The major everyday rituals are related to the five daily prayers that constitute one of the five pillars of Islam. Those who pray face Mecca, ideally in a mosque or as a group. The haj (pilgrimage) is another of the five pillars and should be performed at least once in one's life. Visits also take place to the mosque and tomb of Muhammad in Medina. The other three pillars of Islam are witnessing that there is no God but God and Muhammad is His Messenger, fasting during the day throughout the month of Ramadan, and the giving of alms.

Death and the Afterlife. The dead are washed, wrapped in seamless shrouds, and buried in graves facing Mecca without coffins or markers. Burial takes place before sunset on the day of death. The dead go to heaven or hell.

[Jennifer-]

THE HAJJ: PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA

One of a Muslim's duties, as described in the Five Pillars of Islam, is to go on Hajj at least once during his or her lifetime. This is a pilgrimage to Makkah (Mecca) in Saudi Arabia. Approximately two million Muslims went in 1999, of which about one million were from Saudi Arabia, and 6,000 were from the U.S. 1 Council on American-Islamic Relations estimated in 2006 that "some 10,000 American Muslims go on Hajj each year." 7 The number of American pilgrims is increasing yearly. Followers of Islam who cannot go on a Hajj because of ill health or lack of money are excused from the obligation. If one assumes that Muslims go on Hajj a maximum of once during their lifetime, that the number of Muslims in America are about 6.5 million, and that the typical age span for pilgrims is 60 years, then fewer than 10% of American Muslims take part in the pilgrimage.

The Council on Islamic Education states:

    "The Hajj consists of several ceremonies, meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of prophet Abraham and his family...Prophet Muhammad had said that a person who performs Hajj properly 'will return as a newly born baby [free of all sins].' The pilgrimage also enables Muslims from all around the world, of different colors, languages, races, and ethnicities, to come together in a spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to worship the One God together." 2

Many Islamic terms have multiple spellings when translated into English. We indicate alternative spellings below with (brackets).

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Preparation for the Hajj

Each pilgrim first enters into ihram. This is a spiritual state of purity during which the person must not quarrel, commit any act of violence or engage in sexual activity. Men signify the state of ihram by bathing, and wearing two pieces of unsewn white cloth: "one covers the body from waist to ankle and the other is thrown over the shoulder." 4 Women usually wear a simple white dress and "a head covering, but not a veil." 4 "The white garments are symbolic of human equality and unity before God, since all the pilgrims are dressed similarly." 2 The pilgrim will then repeat the Talbiyah (Talbeeyah) prayer. One English translation is:

     "Here I am, O God, at Thy Command! Here I am at Thy Command! Thou art without associate; Here I am at Thy Command! Thine are praise and grace and dominion! Thou art without associate."

The pilgrim enters the Holy Mosque at Mecca, right foot first, and recites the prayer: "In the name of Allah, may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. Oh Allah, forgive me my sins and open to me the doors of Your mercy. I seek refuge in Allah the Almighty and in His Eminent Face and in His Eternal Dominion from the accursed Satan." The pilgrim performs the tawaf. This is a counter-clockwise procession which circles, "the Ka'aba, the [cube-shaped] stone building Muslims believe was originally built by Abraham and his son Ishmael... It is a symbol of unity for Muslims because all prayers, wherever they are performed, are oriented in the direction of the Ka'aba." 4,6

The pilgrim then performs the sa'i. He hurries seven times between two small hills near the Ka'aba, called Safa and Marwah. This commemorates the desperate search for water and food by Hagar, one of Abraham's wives.

The Hajj:

The Hajj formally begins on the eighth day of Dhul-Hijjah (Zul-Hijjah) - the 12th month of the Muslim lunar calendar. Dr. Monzur Ahmed writes:

    "Islamic months begin at sunset on the day of visual sighting of the lunar crescent [following the new moon]... Although it is possible to calculate the position of the moon in the sky with high precision, it is often difficult to predict if a crescent will be visible from a particular location... Usually the moon has to be at least 15 hours old before it can be seen from somewhere on earth." 3

On this first day of the Hajj, the pilgrims walk a few miles to Mina and camp there overnight. This will occur about 2000-MAR-14. It falls on a date about 11 days earlier each year.

The pilgrims spend the "Day of Arafah" (ninth day of Dhul-Hijjah) in Arafah, an empty plain. They commit the entire day to supplication and devotion. In the evening, they move to Muzdalifa. They camp there overnight and offer various prayers.

On the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah, they return to Mina and throw seven pebbles at a pillar that symbolizes Satan's temptation of Abraham. (The Qur'an describes how Satan tried to persuade Abraham to not ritually murder his son Ishmael, as commanded by God). The pilgrims then sacrifice a sheep, recalling how Abraham sacrificed a sheep that God had provided in place of his son. The meat is distributed to friends, relative and the poor. Afterwards, they return to Mecca and perform a final tawaf and sa'i. They symbolize the completion of the Hajj by cutting their hair.

Muslims worldwide gather for communal prayers on the first day of Id al-Adha (Eid-ul-Adha) -- the Feast of Sacrifice or Day of Sacrifice. The first day of this celebration is held on the 10th day of Duhl-Hijja, the last month of the Muslim year. This is the second of the two major Muslim annual holidays. In most areas, this event is celebrated over several days.

[Jennifer-]

Ramadan (pronounced "rom-a-don") is the holiest period in the Islamic year. It commemorates the month in the year 610 CE when revelations began from God, via the angel Gabriel, to the Prophet Muhammad. These revelations memorized by Muhammad and were later written down as the Qur'an.

During this month, almost all Muslims over the age of 12 are expected to "abstain from food, drink and other sensual pleasures" from the first light of dawn until sunset. 1 Muslims may opt-out of observing Ramadan for health reasons. The Qur'an states:

    "O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint...Ramadan is the (month) in which was sent down the Quran, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting ..." Chapter 2, verses 183 and 185.

[Jennifer-]

Veiled Woman, Saudi Arabia, 1986



Photograph by Jodi Cobb
"Veiled to all men beyond her family, a young Bedouin woman wears the classic face covering of her people. Given only passing mention in the Koran, Islam's holy book, the veil is an ancient custom traced to India and Persia; it was adopted by Arabia's nomadic tribes, which enforced a strict code of female modesty. The tradition lives on in today's oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—a male-dominated culture in which a man's personal and family honor depends on the conduct of females under his care."

—From "Women of Saudi Arabia," October 1987, National Geographic magazine

[Jennifer-]

Bedu, the Arabic word from which the name bedouin is derived, is a simple, straightforward tag. It means "inhabitant of the desert," and refers generally to the desert-dwelling nomads of Arabia, the Negev, and the Sinai. For most people, however, the word "bedouin" conjures up a much richer and more evocative image--of lyrical, shifting sands, flowing robes, and the long, loping strides of camels.

For several centuries, such images were not far from the truth. In the vast, arid expanses of the Sinai, as in the Negev and the deserts of Arabia, the many tribes of the bedouin journeyed by camel from oasis to oasis, following a traditional way of life and maintaining a pastoral culture of exceptional grace, honor, and beauty.

Most of the bedouin tribes of the Sinai are descended from peoples who migrated from the Arabian peninsula between the 14th and 18th centuries, making the bedouin themselves relatively recent arrivals in this ancient land. Today, many of the bedouin of the Sinai have traded their traditional existence for the pursuits and the conventions of the modern world, as startling changes over the last two decades have irrevocably altered the nature of life for the bedouin and for the land they inhabit. Nonetheless, bedouin culture still survives in the Sinai, where there is a growing appreciation of its value and its fragility.

[Jennifer-]

Sinai

There are moments in Sinai when one feels as if the history of all the world can be read in its stones. Indeed, the land here is a monument to the antiquity of life on Earth, from the fossilized reef animals of Ras Mohammed to the mines of El Maghara, whose copper fueled the Bronze Age. In many places visitors from thousands of years ago literally recorded their passage in stone, as at the Rock of Inscriptions near Dahab. And at Serabit El-Khadem, near ancient mining sites, archaeologists have discovered carvings that record the very earliest emergence of our alphabet.

All three of the West's great religious traditions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--know Sinai as a holy land, a vast expanse traversed time and again by prophets, saints, pilgrims, and warriors. Sinai is most familiar to many as the "great and terrible wilderness" through which the Israelites wandered for forty years. However, it was also the path by which Amr swept down into Egypt in 640 AD, bringing Islam in his wake. Even after the muslim conquest, the monks of St. Catherine Monastery (founded in 547 AD) continued to greet pilgrims to the site of the Burning Bush.

Many of the most memorable conquerors have passed through Sinai as well. Alexander the Great crossed at the head of a great army, as did Ramses II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and (in the opposite direction) Salah el-Din. The Arab-Israeli conflicts of this century raged across the Sinai as well, their passage still evident in the ghostly wreckage that marks certain parts of the Suez coast.

In recent years, and for the first time, the history of Sinai seems to be emerging as a story about the land itself--its artifacts, its people, and its extraordinary natural beauty--rather than the story of those who pass through that land. Today, it is the Sinai's brilliant coral reefs, its striking mountains and deserts, and its enormous cultural heritage that hold the future--once again, though in a very different way, the history of Sinai seems to be written in the land itself.

[Jennifer-]

"In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai..." --Exodus, Chapter 19

The Mountain of Moses

By any other standards, Mt. Sinai would be just another barren peak lost among the martian landscape of Southern Sinai. It is neither the highest mountain in the region, nor the most dramatic; there is no soaring, heaven-reaching apex, and it is rare to see anything resembling a divine shroud of clouds hugging its peak. Were it not for a single, overwhelming belief that has endured for over fifteen centuries, Mt. Sinai would probably be a topographical footnote.
But this is the mountain where God spoke to Moses. That, at least, is the overwhelming belief, and the belief itself has drawn pilgrims for over a thousand years. Although no archeological evidence of Moses' presence on the mountain exists, there are abundant relics of faith throughout the eons. Ancient chapels and structures honoring saints and the Virgin Mary appear all along the main route, called Sikket Saydna Musa ("The Path of Moses"), including a stone-hewn arch where, long ago, a monk once sat and heard confession from the pilgrims. Nearing the summit, one encounters the natural amphitheater where the 70 wise men waited while God spoke with Moses, then finally a small chapel and mosque at the top.

It seems strange, almost, to speak of a mountain like Mt. Sinai in clinical terms. There is so much mystery surrounding the mountain, so much spiritual projection and adulation, that one can easily forget that it is, after all, a mountain, and climbing it requires an individual to be in moderate shape. It takes about 3 hours to climb the 7,498-foot peak following the Path of Moses, a stairway of nearly 4,000 steps. There is a longer, less strenuous route up the opposite side, though it is less scenic. In both cases, one should bring good hiking shoes and plenty of water, the latter of which Moses himself probably brought when he climbed it.
   

[Jennifer-]

In preIslamic times in Arabia and also in Mecca the goddess Al'Lat (Q're), Al'Uzza and Menat or Manat were well known. In the 'Al Haram' on the Ka'bah in Mecca - which was build also prior to Muhammad - the corners are aligned to very special Azimuths, an special object is directed to East-South East.

The goddess Al'Uzza was connected with the planet Venus as the morning star. The astrologic symbol of the conjunction of Venus and Moon is full loaded with its attributes of beauty, sensitivity and warmth. Above the eastern horizon this conjunction is placed in the 12th astrologic house and symbols with it the sensitivity, holiness and seclusion of love to a 'place of the woman' (Arab. 'Haram'). 'El Haram' is 'the holy place of the woman'. In the Hebrew language 'Beth-ha-Ram' means a "place or house east of Jordan".

A worship of this holy place is processed ever in the 12th (Moon-)month of the Islam calendar at a time when the moon builds a trigonal  aspect to the sun, this is ever exact 10 days after the Islam New-Moon event.

From this preIslamic time exist also reports about the goddess in Arabia. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, wrote in the 4th century C.E., that the Nebataens worship a virgin 'Chaabou'. He also has heard the name of kabu, ("rectangular stone"), as a symbol of the goddess "Al'Lat". An Arabian scribe had said to him, that a stone with four sides was worship as "Al'Lat", which is named in a Nebataen inscription as "Mother of gods". Epiphanius said, that the male deity 'Dusares' (dhu Saar) (Greeks call him: Dionisos) was an offspring of the virgin 'Chaabou'. The title of the goddess 'Al'lat' is "Mother of the gods". The "Great Mother of the gods" of the Babylonian was  'be Ælet ilaµni' ("Queen of gods"), and this her title was also "Mother Goddess". Epiphanius has identified 'Chaabou' also with the goddess 'Core' or 'Kore', who is called 'Ashtar' by the northern Semites and 'Ishtar' by the Babylonians.  [1].

[Jennifer-]

[Jennifer-]

Of the animals the camel is the best. It was the nomad's vehicle of transportation and his medium of exchange. The dowry of the bride, the price of blood were estimated in terms of camels. It is the Bedouin's constant companion. He drinks its milk; he feasts on its flesh; he covers himself with its skin; he makes his tent of its hair. Its dung is used as fuel. It is his shelter in the cold winter nights and protector against sandstorms. To him the camel is more than "the ship of the desert"; it is the special gift of Allah: Ata' Allah.