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100-562: The scholarly consensus of the Jumblatts' origins is based on the history of the local, 19th-century chronicler Tannus al-Shidyaq , with some variation. Shidyaq cited genealogical records and oral traditions, sourced mainly to the Druze chief Sheikh Khattar Talhuq. Kamal Jumblatt , the head of the Jumblatt family in the mid-20th century, generally accepts this narrative to be authentic. In

200-433: A "gift from God", they were the main food source and method of transportation for many Bedouins. In addition to their extraordinary milking potentials under harsh desert conditions, their meat was occasionally consumed by Bedouins. As a cultural tradition, camel races were organized during celebratory occasions, such as weddings or religious festivals . Some Bedouin societies live in arid regions. In areas where rainfall

300-712: A "world without time". Recent scholars have challenged the notion of the Bedouin as 'fossilized,' or 'stagnant' reflections of an unchanging desert culture. Emanuel Marx has shown that Bedouin were engaged in a constantly dynamic reciprocal relation with urban centers. Bedouin scholar Michael Meeker explains that "the city was to be found in their midst." At the time of World War I , a Qays Bedouin tribe from Harran , not far from Urfa , settled in Lüleburgaz in East Thrace under their last Sheikh Salih Abdullah. It

400-399: A Bedouin. Ottoman authorities also initiated private acquisition of large plots of state land offered by the sultan to the absentee landowners ( effendis ). Numerous tenants were brought in order to cultivate the newly acquired lands. Often it came at the expense of the Bedouin lands. In the late 19th century, many Bedouin began transition to a semi-nomadic lifestyle. One of the factors was

500-457: A centuries-long process that continuously occurred since the 7th century. The initial waves of migration from the 7th to the 10th centuries mostly involved sedentary Arabs who established communities in cities, towns and surrounding rural areas. However, the Arab migrations from the 11th to the 15th centuries involved a significant influx of a great amount of nomadic Bedouin tribes to the region. In

600-820: A clerk for the Shihab emir Salman Ali and assisted him in conscription efforts in Shahhar , near Beirut. In 1813 Tannus was sent to learn at the Maronite monastic institution of Ayn Warqa , the most prestigious Maronite school at that time whose pupils included Butrus al-Bustani . Several bouts of headaches compelled him to end his studies there before the end of the year, after which his brother As'ad took his place. After As'ad graduated in 1818 Tannus studied ethics with him. Tannus began his career in commerce in 1818, engaging in business in Damascus where he also represented

700-605: A decade marked by strife between the Druze and Maronites of Mount Lebanon, Tannus advocated for the Maronite notables. Tannus began writing historical works in 1833, starting with Tarikh al-ta'ifa al-Maruniyya (History of the Maronite Sect), a now lost summary of the Maronite historian and patriarch Istifan al-Duwayhi 's 17th-century history of the Maronites. He also wrote a Lebanese colloquial Arabic dictionary, which

800-651: A hierarchy of loyalties based on the proximity of some person to oneself, beginning with the self , and proceeding through the nuclear family as defined by male kinship, and then, in principle at least, to an entire genetic or linguistic group (which is perceived as akin to kinship in the Middle East and North Africa generally). Disputes are settled, interests are pursued, and justice and order are dispensed and maintained by means of this framework, organized according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility (Andersen 14). The individual family unit (referred to as

900-507: A hundred. A clan was composed of a number of families, while a number of clans formed a tribe. Tribes would have areas reserved for their livestock called dirahs, which included wells for their exclusive use. They lived in black goat-hair tents called bayt al-shar, divided by cloth curtains into rug-floor areas for males, family and cooking. In Hofuf , they bartered their sheep, goats and camels, including milk and wool, for grain and other staples. Al-Naimi also quotes Paul Harrison's observation of

1000-588: A living herding sheep and goats. The largest Bedouin clan in Syria is called Ruwallah who are part of the 'Anizzah' tribe. Another famous branch of the Anizzah tribe is the two distinct groups of Hasana and S'baa who largely arrived from the Arabian peninsula in the 18th century. Herding among the Bedouin was common until the late 1950s, when it effectively ended during a severe drought from 1958 to 1961. Due to

1100-541: A man from the Bani Hassan tribe, who rode continuously for over 30 hours to reach Mithqal before their plot matured. Mithqal, using the information, prepared a trap for them, which resulted in the imprisonment of one of the Sardieh warriors. William notes that although the warrior was a prisoner, he was nonchalant and was not treated aggressively, and that the ghazzu wasn't a war, but a game in which camels and goats were

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1200-711: A natural ally. In sum, most sources, except for Abu-Husayn's attempt at deconstruction and unsuccessful, inflated reinterpretation of Jumblatt's role in the history of the Lebanese Emirate, points out the "outsider" status of this Kurdish Sunni family in the Lebanese history and their later initiation into Lebanese aristocracy by Emir Haydar al Shihabi after the Battle of Ain Dara to balance the older Druze families such as Abu Nakads, Arslans and Imads. Today, Walid Jumblatt

1300-456: A new regional council was formed, unifying a number of unrecognized Bedouin settlements— Abu Basma Regional Council . This resolution also regarded the need to establish seven new Bedouin settlements in the Negev, literally meaning the official recognition of unrecognized settlements, providing them with a municipal status and consequently with all the basic services and infrastructure. The council

1400-515: A non-hereditary governmental position. Furtheremore, Abu-Husayn's narrative is self conflicting as he previously claims that the family was already in Lebanon before in his work. Thus, his claim that the Jumblatts, as descendants of this family, would have regarded themselves as emirs, which was not recognized by the local aristocracy at any point in history, rather than holding the inferior title of 'sheikh' seems to be due to well-known protectorship of

1500-526: A policy of sedentarization in the early 20th century, which was initially linked with the establishment of the Ikhwan . As a result of this policy and subsequent modernization, the number of bedouin that retain their nomadic lifestyle has decreased rapidly. According to Ali Al-Naimi , the Bedouin, or Bedu, would travel in family and tribal groups, across the Arabian Peninsula in groups of fifty to

1600-472: A prominent Arabic author from Mount Lebanon. Unlike his better known brothers As'ad, who became a Protestant , and Faris, who converted to Islam and adopted the name Ahmad, Tannus remained a devout Maronite. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to dissuade As'ad from embracing Protestant teachings; As'ad eventually died in the custody of the Maronite Church for his beliefs. In his career during the 1840s,

1700-689: A result of the Syrian Civil War , some Bedouins became refugees and found shelter in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and other states. Palestinian Bedouins were originally from the Negev Desert . In the course of the 1948 Palestine war , they fled or were displaced from their land. Other Bedouins were expelled from the Negev in 1953 and had relocated to the West Bank , which at the time belonged to Jordan . Today, there are 40,000 Bedouins in

1800-636: A rival Druze sheikh of the Chouf, Fakhr al-Din's close ally Yazbak ibn Abd al-Afif, during that year, when the governor of Damascus , Hafiz Ahmed Pasha , was leading a campaign against the Ma'ns. Khalidi hints that the Junblat-Yazbak conflict, which may have been tribo-political in nature, preceded Ahmed Pasha's campaign, however scholarly consensus dates the emergence of this conflict after the battle of Ain Dara. Fakhr al-Din's brother Yunus imprisoned Junblat in

1900-482: A system of standardizing the contemporary Classical Arabic for maximal intelligibility across the Arabophone areas, believed that the Bedouin spoke the purest, most conservative variety of the language. To solve irregularities of pronunciation, the Bedouin were asked to recite certain poems, whereafter consensus was relied on to decide the pronunciation and spelling of a given word. A plunder and massacre of

2000-457: A tent or bayt ) usually traditionally comprised three or four adults (a married couple plus siblings or parents) and any number of children. The Bedouins' ethos comprises courage, hospitality, loyalty to family and pride of ancestry. Bedouin tribes were not controlled by a central power, like a government or empire, but rather were led by tribal chiefs. Some chiefs exercised their power from oases, where merchants would organise trade through

2100-457: Is a prominent Lebanese politician and the leader of the Druze of Lebanon. His son, Taymoor, is being prepared to succeed his father. After the assassination of the Lebanese prime-minister Rafik Al-Hariri , Walid Jumblatt sent his children to France. Although Walid is presently the best known and most influential figure of the family, there are other Jumblatt family members who contribute to the cultural, economic and social life in Lebanon. Besides

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2200-594: Is a relocation of some 30.000-40.000 Negev Bedouin from areas not recognized by the government to government-approved townships . In a 2012 resolution the European Parliament called for the withdrawal of the Prawer plan and respect for the rights of the Bedouin people. In September 2014, Yair Shamir , who heads the Israeli government's ministerial committee on Bedouin resettlement arrangements, stated that

2300-414: Is inhabited by the prominent Liyathnah tribe alongside the smaller Bedul community, believed to have Jewish or Nabataean ancestry. The Jordanian government provides the Bedouin with different services such as education, housing and health clinics. However, some Bedouins give it up and prefer their traditional nomadic lifestyle. In the recent years, there is a growing discontent of the Bedouin with

2400-487: Is said that this tribe was originally from Tihamah . Ghazzu was still relevant to the Bedouin lifestyle in the early 20th century. After a 1925 stay with Sheikh Mithqal Al-Fayez of the Bani Sakher , William Seabrook wrote about his experience of a ghazzu from the Sardieh tribe on Mithqal's 500 Hejin racing camels. The ghazzu was intercepted by Mithqal when he was notified about the Sardieh tribe's intentions from

2500-453: Is very unpredictable, a camp will be moved irregularly, depending on the availability of green pasture. Where winter rainfall is more predictable in regions further south, some Bedouin people plant grain along their migration routes. This proves a resource for the livestock throughout the winter. In regions such as western Africa, where there is more predictable rainfall, the Bedouin practice transhumance . They plant crops near permanent homes in

2600-481: The Balkan and Caucasus among areas predominantly populated by the nomads in the regions of modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, and also created several permanent Bedouin settlements, although the majority of them did not remain. The settlement of non Arabs in the traditionally Bedouin areas was a big cause of discontent. This became even severe because every Arab tribe, including the settled ones, have ancestry as

2700-617: The Fertile Crescent . Bedouins have been referred to by various names throughout history, including Arabaa by the Assyrians ( ar-ba-ea ), being a nisba of the noun Arab , a name still used for Bedouins today. They are referred to as the ʾAʿrāb ( أعراب ) "aɛrāb" in Arabic . While many Bedouins have abandoned their nomadic and tribal traditions for a modern urban lifestyle, others retain traditional Bedouin culture such as

2800-576: The Hashemites did not see a revolt similar to turbulence in other Arab states. The main reasons for that are the high respect to the monarch and contradictory interests of different groups of the Jordanian society. The King Abdullah II maintains his distance from the complaints by allowing blame to fall on government ministers, whom he replaces at will. The Arab migration to the Maghreb had been

2900-459: The Judean caves of Qumran in 1946. Of great religious, cultural, historical and linguistic significance, 972 texts were found over the following decade, many of which were discovered by Bedouins. Successive Israeli administrations tried to demolish Bedouins villages in the Negev. Between 1967 and 1989, Israel built seven legal townships in the north-east of the Negev, with Tel as-Sabi or Tel Sheva

3000-488: The Persian Gulf and Libya , as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. Governmental policies pressing the Bedouin have in some cases been executed in an attempt to provide service (schools, health care, law enforcement and so on—see Chatty 1986 for examples), but in others have been based on

3100-467: The West Bank to land outside of Jerusalem for better access to infrastructure, health, and education. Officials stated that a "forcible transfer" of over 7000 Bedouin people would "destroy their culture and livelihoods." Most of the Bedouin tribes migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to what is Jordan today between the 14th and 18th centuries. They are often referred to as a backbone of

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3200-919: The " Mardaite " rulers of the northern parts of the mountain before proceeding in separate chapters, not in chronological order, with the rule of the Buhturids of the Gharb , the Ma'nids of the Chouf , the Assafs of Keserwan, the Sayfas of Akkar , the Shihabs, the Abi'l-Lamas and the Arslans of the Gharb. Tannus cited as his sources the Maronite historian Ibn al-Qila'i (d. 1516),

3300-461: The "tribe" as a formal unit of administration. The goal of these early reforms was to weaken local Bedouin magistrates and limit what she terms as "rural mobility", the ability of these local Bedouins to, independently of the Ottoman state, accumulate wealth through the wheat trade and other means. At the end of the 19th century, Sultan Abdülhamid II settled Muslim populations ( Circassians ) from

3400-655: The 11th century, the Bedouin tribes of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym , who originated from central and north Arabia respectively, living at the time in a desert between the Nile and the Red Sea , moved westward into the Maghreb areas and were joined by the Bedouin tribe of Ma'qil , which had its roots in South Arabia, as well as other Arab tribes. The 11th century witnessed the most significant wave of Arab migration, surpassing all previous movements. This event unfolded when

3500-548: The 1757 raid represented the peak of such attacks which was also likely prompted by the major drought of 1756. Under the Tanzimat Land reforms of 1858, a new Ottoman Land Law was issued, which offered legal grounds for the displacement of the Bedouin ( Turkish : Bedeviler). As the Ottoman Empire gradually lost power, this law instituted an unprecedented land registration process that was also meant to boost

3600-453: The 17th-century Aleppine historian Abu Wafa al-Urdi. As an apparently well-established chief of the Druze, the most closed off religious group in the Levant, Sheikh Junblat would likely have been from a Druze family rather than a recent convert from Sunni Islam, according to Abu-Husayn. Historical documents, chronicles, material culture and the oral histories holds that the Shihabs conferred on

3700-561: The Bani Hasan (Mafraq, Zarqa, Jarash, Ajloun and parts of Amman) Bani Ṣakher (Amman and Madaba) Banū Laith (Petra), and Banū al-Ḥuwayṭāt (they reside in Wadi Rum ). There are numerous lesser groups, such as the al-Sirḥān, Banū Khālid, Hawazim, ʿAṭiyyah, and Sharafāt. The Ruwālah (Rwala) tribe, which is not indigenous, passes through Jordan in its yearly wandering from Syria to Saudi Arabia. The region encompassing Wadi Musa and Petra

3800-456: The Bedouin , Bedouin systems of justice . Livestock and herding , principally of goats, sheep and dromedary camels comprised the traditional livelihoods of Bedouins. These were used for meat, dairy products, and wool. Most of the staple foods that made up the Bedouins' diet were dairy products. Camels, in particular, had numerous cultural and functional uses. Having been regarded as

3900-633: The Bedouin, "There seems to be no limit at all to their endurance." The Syrian Desert was the original homeland of the Arab Bedouin tribes which have been mentioned as far back as the Neo-Assyrian era where they're referred to by Tiglath-Pileser III as being among the Syrians integrated into the Assyrian administrative system. Today there are over a million Bedouin living in Syria, making

4000-689: The Bedouins switched side and fought against the Ottomans. Hamad Pasha al-Sufi (died 1923), Sheikh of the Nijmat sub-tribe of the Tarabin , led a force of 1,500 men who joined the Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal . In Orientalist historiography, the Negev Bedouin have been described as remaining largely unaffected by changes in the outside world until recently. Their society was often considered

4100-586: The Chouf, the family has a visible presence in mansions and villas within the distinguished Clemenceau area of Beirut and in the north-west upscale area of Sidon . Samir Habchi's 2003 documentary film Lady of the Palace examines the history of the Jumblatt family from the 17th century onwards. The film focuses on the life of Nazira Jumblatt and the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Tannus al-Shidyaq Tannus ibn Yusuf al-Shidyaq ( c.  1794 – 1861), also transliterated Tannous el-Chidiac ,

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4200-556: The Druze historian Ibn Sibat (d. 1520), al-Duwayhi, Haydar al-Shihabi (d. 1821), the biography of Fakhr al-Din II by al-Khalidi al-Safadi (d. 1624), Father Joseph Assemanus (d. 1782), Father Hananiyya al-Munayyir (d. 1820) of Zouk Mosbeh , the Melkite poet Butrus Karami of Homs (d. 1851), and oral and printed histories and court registers of the Shihab, Jumblatt , Khazen , Hubaysh and Talhuq genealogies. The first and second parts of

4300-708: The Galilee and 10,000 in the central region of Israel. All of the Bedouins residing in Israel were granted Israeli citizenship in 1954. As of 2020, there are 210,000 Bedouins in Israel: 150,000 in the Negev, 50,000 in Galilee and the Jezreel Valley , and 10,000 in the central region of Israel. Galilee Bedouins have been living in the northern part of Israel for four centuries. Today, they live in 28 settlements in

4400-606: The Hajj caravan by Bedouin tribesmen occurred in 1757, led by Qa'dan Al - Fayez of the Bani Sakhr tribe (Modern-day Jordan) in his vengeance against the Ottomans for failing to pay his tribe for their help protecting the pilgrims. An estimated 20,000 pilgrims were either killed in the raid or died of hunger or thirst as a result including relatives of the Sultan and Musa Pasha. Although Bedouin raids on Hajj caravans were fairly common,

4500-549: The Jumblatts the status of ' sheikh ', second to that of 'emir' in the ranking system of Mount Lebanon's feudal nobility. Abu-Husayn also considers this implausible, as the Kurdish Janbulads held administrative titles, which Abu-Husayn erronously cited as "princely," such as bey or beylerbey ( Turkish , which were not equivalent to the Arabic princely title of Emir and bestowed by the Ottoman government to official as

4600-595: The Kingdom, since Bedouin clans traditionally support the monarchy. Most of Jordan's Bedouin live in the vast wasteland that extends east from the Desert Highway. The eastern Bedouin are camel breeders and herders, while the western Bedouin herd sheep and goats. Some Bedouin in Jordan are semi-nomads, they adopt a nomadic existence during part of the year but return to their lands and homes in time to practice agriculture. The largest nomadic groups of Jordan are

4700-404: The Ma'nid fortress of Shaqif Arnun for attacking Yazbak; according to the account of a local Maronite sheikh, Shayban al-Khazen, Junblat's specific offense was physically beating Yazbak. After a short period, Yunus released Junblat, whose partisans are mentioned by Khalidi as having answered summons by a victorious Ahmed Pasha and then returning to their villages with "striped robes of honor". In

4800-470: The Muslim, Christian and Druze nobility of Mount Lebanon and its environs from the early 17th century. Their education and relationships with the leading nobility placed them in the second strata of the local aristocracy and as such their members held the title of shaykh , a local rank below emir and equal to that of the feudal chieftains of the area. Tannus's grandfather Mansur left Keserwan to serve

4900-542: The Palestinian historian Abu-Husayn by Jumblatt family. Furthermore, Abu-Husayn's interpretation fails to explain societal station of the Jumblatt family in the local tribal and aristocratic context as the princely title Emir Shihab family used was due to their origins from the Quraish tribe, which was enforced with their marital ties to Ma'ans, as well as their leadership of the tribal Qaysite tribal confedariton, whereas

5000-603: The Shia emir of Baalbek , Haydar al-Harfush in 1741 for two years, and then moved to Hazmiyeh near Beirut in 1755 where he served the Shihab emir Qasim ibn Umar, the father of Bashir II . He eventually settled in Hadath , continuing to work for Qasim until the latter's death in 1768, after which he worked for two other Shihab emirs. Tannus's father succeeded Mansur and later served the Shihab emir Hasan ibn Umar, who moved him back to

5100-402: The Shidyaq ancestral village of Ashqout in Keserwan. Tannus was about 10 years old when his family relocated to Ashqout and there is no information about his early education; the modern historian Kamal Salibi presumes he was homeschooled. He was taught rudimentary Arabic and Syriac by teacher Yusuf al-Hukayyim in the nearby village of Ghosta in 1809. His studies were interrupted before

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5200-451: The Shidyaqs). The most important of Tannus's works was Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan (The History of the Notables in Mount Lebanon), which he completed in 1855. The printed work was 770 pages and divided into three parts. The first part centered on the natural and political geography of Mount Lebanon and its surroundings and consisted of five chapters: the first chapter defined the boundaries of Mount Lebanon and surveyed its population;

5300-578: The Shihabs in a minor political embassy that year. He continued his mercantile career until his death and was also employed by the Shihabs as a political agent and spy, giving him significant insight into the political intrigues of his age. He participated with Bashir II's forces in battle against the Ottoman governor of Damascus in 1821. As a result of the death of his father in 1821, Tannus became financially responsible for his mother, his two younger sisters, Adla and Wardiyya and his brother Faris. Sometime afterward he married and had two sons, Faris and Naja,

5400-463: The assessment of Abu-Husayn, Junblat had used Ahmed Pasha's campaign against the Ma'ns as an opportunity to act against their ally Yazbak and "embarrass" them, for which the Ma'ns temporarily imprisoned him. In his chronicle, Shidyaq changed the facts of this event into Fakhr al-Din appointing Janbulad ibn Sa'id to guard Shaqif Arnun for one year against the Bedouin ruler and governor of northern Palestine , Turabay ibn Ali , in 1631. Seeking to bridge

5500-421: The book were published on 13 June 1855 by the American Press under the oversight of Butrus al-Bustani. The third part was published on 26 May 1859. According to the historian Youssef Choueiri, Tannus's "reputation as a chronicler largely rests on his Akhbar al-a'yan ". Salibi interprets Akhbar al-a'yan as the work of a Maronite layman, who wrote "as a Lebanese rather than a Maronite", without consideration to

5600-411: The conflicting narratives, Hichi proposes that Sheikh Junblat was an emigrant from the Janbulad family who arrived in the Chouf before his other relatives, the Janbulad ibn Sa'id and Rabah of Shidyaq's chronicle. The historian William Harris notes that there is "no information on the origin" of Sheikh Junblat "or any link" to the Kurdish Janbulads of Aleppo, but that the name 'Junblat' does not surface in

5700-407: The conventional narrative, however this had been due to his pronounce bias against the historical Lebanese polity due to his Palestinian nationalist stances. He cites the existence of a leading Druze sheikh in the Chouf named 'Junblat' around 1614, who is mentioned by Ahmad al-Khalidi , the contemporary chronicler and court historian of Fakhr al-Din. This Junblat and his following were in conflict with

5800-484: The decisive Battle of Ain Dara in 1711 and thus became part of the Qaysite confedaration, albeit without historical ties. The modern sources offer variant dates for the events of Ali's life, with Shidyaq claiming Qabalan died in 1712, Rondot claiming Ali died in 1712, the historian Selim Hichi claiming Ali married Qabalan's daughter in 1712, and Kamal Jumblatt claiming Rabah had married the daughter. The historian Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn has cast doubt about every aspect of

5900-419: The desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula , North Africa , the Levant , and Mesopotamia ( Iraq ). The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert but spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam . The English word bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī , which means "desert-dweller", and is traditionally contrasted with ḥāḍir ,

6000-449: The desert. Scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reported that in 1326 on the route to Gaza , the Egyptian authorities had a customs post at Qatya on the north coast of Sinai . Here Bedouin were being used to guard the road and track down those trying to cross the border without permission. The Early Medieval grammarians and scholars seeking to develop

6100-407: The deserts are still popular leisure activities for urban Bedouins who live in close proximity to deserts or other wilderness areas. A widely quoted Bedouin apothegm is "I am against my brother, my brother and I are against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger" sometimes quoted as "I and my brother are against my cousin, I and my cousin are against the stranger." This saying signifies

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6200-552: The desire to seize land traditionally roved and controlled by the Bedouin. In recent years, some Bedouin have adopted the pastime of raising and breeding white doves , while others have rejuvenated the traditional practice of falconry . The Arabian Peninsula was one of the original homes of the Bedouin. From there, they started to spread out to surrounding deserts, forced out by the lack of water and food. According to tradition, Arabian Bedouin tribes are descendants of two groups: Qahtanis , also known as Yaman , who originate from

6300-436: The drought, many Bedouin were forced to give up herding for standard jobs. Another factor was the formal annulling of the Bedouin tribes' legal status in Syrian law in 1958, along with attempts of the ruling Ba'ath Party regime to wipe out tribalism. Preferences for customary law ('urf) in contrast to state law (qanun) have been informally acknowledged and tolerated by the state in order to avoid having its authority tested in

6400-480: The empire's tax base. Few Bedouin opted to register their lands with the Ottoman Tapu , due to lack of enforcement by the Ottomans, illiteracy, refusal to pay taxes and lack of relevance of written documentation of ownership to the Bedouin way of life at that time. Some scholars, such as Nora Elizabeth Barakat, believe the displacement of the Bedouin had its roots in events even earlier than the 1858 Land Reforms, for example in an 1844 Anatolia-specific decree recognizing

6500-414: The feudal families of Mount Lebanon, with each family entitled to a chapter and grouped into three categories: Muslims, Maronites and Druze—the originally Muslim and Druze Shihab and Abi'l-Lama families, at least parts of which converted to Christianity, were grouped with the Maronites. The third and longest part of Akhbar al-a'yan dealt with the dynastic and feudal rulers of Mount Lebanon, beginning with

6600-696: The first of whom died in infancy. After the deaths of his brothers Ghalib in 1840 and Mansur in 1842, he also became responsible for the former's young sons Zahir and Bishara and Ghalib's son. His mercantile business reported deficits for most of the period between 1821 and 1856 and to meet the needs of his increased dependents, he earned extra income as a teacher and copyist. He also began studying medicine in 1823 and began practicing six years later. Tannus continued his education in different fields, studying logic in 1832, Turkish and Italian in 1835, natural sciences in 1848 and jurisprudence in 1849. During that last year he also studied rhetoric with Nasif al-Yaziji ,

6700-459: The first. The largest, city of Rahat , has a population of over 58,700 (as of December 2013); as such it is the largest Bedouin settlement in the world. Another well-known township out of the seven of them that the Israeli government built, is Hura . According to the Israel Land Administration (2007), some 60 per cent of the Negev Bedouin live in urban areas . The rest live in so-called unrecognized villages , which are not officially recognized by

6800-517: The government was examining ways to lower the birthrate of the Bedouin community in order to improve its standard of living. Shamir claimed that without intervention, the Bedouin population could exceed half a million by 2035. In May 2015, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees have combined forces. Both organizations called on Israel to stop its plans to relocate Bedouin communities currently living in

6900-435: The governor and tax farmer Fakhr al-Din II of the Ma'n dynasty . Shidyaq holds that after Ali's defeat, the Janbulad family was dispersed, and names two members, Janbulad ibn Sa'id and his son Rabah, as having sought shelter in Fakhr al-Din's territory, arriving in Beirut in 1630. While Shidyaq calls Janbulad a nephew of Ali, the historian Pierre Rondot speculates that he was Ali's grandson. The father and son were invited by

7000-418: The historical record before the Ma'n-backed rebellion of Ali Janbulad. Regarding their religion, Kamal Jumblatt speculated that the family had already been Druze in the Aleppo region before their arrival in the Chouf and thus did not convert to the Druze religion, which prohibits converts. Abu-Husayn considers this erroneous, as the Kurdish Janbulads were avid Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, according to

7100-442: The influence of the Ottoman empire authorities who started a forced sedentarization of the Bedouin living on its territory. The Ottoman authorities viewed the Bedouin as a threat to the state's control and worked hard on establishing law and order in the Negev . During the First World War , the Negev Bedouin initially fought with the Ottomans against the British . However, under the influence of British agent T. E. Lawrence ,

7200-453: The local notables to settle in the village of Mazraat al-Shuf . Rabah remained in the village as a reputable figure after his father's death and was survived by his sons Ali, Faris and Sharaf al-Din. The family's social status was raised when Ali married a woman of the noble Tanukh family, the daughter of Qabalan al-Qadi, the chief of the Chouf, however there had not been a solid foundation to this claim and no documentation. Ali then moved to

7300-489: The main sources for modern-day histories of Mamluk and Ottoman Lebanon. Tannus was likely born around 1794. He was the eldest of five sons of Abu Husayn Yusuf al-Shidyaq, the other four being Mansur, As'ad, Ghalib and Faris . The Shidyaqs were learned Maronite laymen originally from ancient Syria and later resident in the Keserwan area of central Mount Lebanon . Members of the family served as teachers and clerks for

7400-469: The main, the Jumblatts are regarded as descendants or relatives of Ali Janbulad , the Kurdish tribal leader and rebel Ottoman governor of Aleppo , who settled in the Chouf region of Mount Lebanon not long after Ali's defeat, imprisonment, and execution in 1607–1611. 'Jumblatt', or rather 'Junblat', is the Arabic version of the Kurdish 'Janbulad'. Ali had been an ally of the paramount Druze emir ,

7500-539: The more common forms of Arabic poetry are often in Modern Standard Arabic . The well-regulated traditional habit of Bedouin tribes of raiding other tribes, caravans, or settlements is known in Arabic as ghazw . Historically, the Bedouin engaged in nomadic herding, agriculture and sometimes fishing in the Syrian steppe since 6000 BCE. By about 850 BCE, a complex network of settlements and camps

7600-750: The mountains of Southwestern Arabia, and claim descent from a semi-legendary ancestral figure, Qahtan (often linked to the biblical Joktan ), and Adnanis , also known as Qays , who originate in North-Central Arabia and claimed descent from Adnan , a descendant of the Biblical Ishmael . A number of Bedouin tribes reside in Saudi Arabia. Among them are Anazzah , Juhaynah , Shammar , al-Murrah , Mahra , Dawasir , Harb , Ghamid , Mutayr , Subay' , 'Utayba , Bani khalid , Qahtan , Rashaida , and Banu Yam . Saudi Arabia pursued

7700-684: The north. They also live in mixed villages with other non-Bedouin Arabs. The Bedouin who remained in the Negev belonged to the Tiaha confederation as well as some smaller groups such as the 'Azazme and the Jahalin . After 1948, some Negev Bedouins were displaced. The Jahalin tribe, for instance, lived in the Tel Arad region of the Negev prior to the 1950s. In the early 1950s, the Jahalin were among

7800-463: The number of nomadic Bedouins is shrinking and many are now settled. Prior to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence , an estimated 65,000–90,000 Bedouins lived in the Negev desert. According to Encyclopedia Judaica , 15,000 Bedouin remained in the Negev after 1948; other sources put the number as low as 11,000. Another source states that in 1999 110,000 Bedouins lived in the Negev, 50,000 in

7900-620: The prizes. In the 1950s and 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout Midwest Asia started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of Midwest Asia, especially as hot ranges shrank and populations grew. For example, in Syria , the Bedouin way of life effectively ended during a severe drought from 1958 to 1961, which forced many Bedouin to abandon herding for standard jobs. Similarly, governmental policies in Egypt , Israel , Jordan , Iraq , Tunisia , oil-producing Arab states of

8000-459: The ruling monarch Abdullah II of Jordan . In August 2007, police clashed with some 200 Bedouins who were blocking the main highway between Amman and the port of Aqaba. Livestock herders were protesting the government's lack of support in the face of the steeply rising cost of animal feed and expressed resentment about government assistance to refugees. Arab Spring events in 2011 led to demonstrations in Jordan, and Bedouins took part in them. But

8100-468: The second summarized the histories of the eight principal coastal towns of the Phoenicians , namely Tripoli , Batroun , Byblos, Jounieh , Beirut, Sidon , Tyre and Acre ; the third described the mountain's nine main rivers ; the fourth detailed the feudal districts of the mountain and the fifth was a table of the population. The second part of Akhbar al-a'yan was devoted to the genealogies of

8200-403: The state due to general planning issues and other political reasons. Despite these communities often predating the state of Israel, many are considered to be located in areas deemed unsuitable by the Israeli government, including military fire zones, natural reserves , landfills , etc. On 29 September 2003, Israeli government adapted a new "Abu Basma Plan" (Resolution 881), according to which

8300-473: The suburbs of Rahat. It will have a hospital and a new campus inside. The Bedouins of Israel receive free education and medical services from the state. They are allotted child cash benefits, which has contributed to the high birth rate among the Bedouin of 5% per year. In September 2011, the Israeli government approved a five-year economic development plan called the Prawer plan . One of its implications

8400-529: The term for sedentary people . Bedouin territory stretches from the vast deserts of North Africa to the rocky ones of the Middle East . They are sometimes traditionally divided into tribes, or clans (known in Arabic as ʿašāʾir ; عَشَائِر or qabāʾil قبائل ), and historically share a common culture of herding camels, sheep and goats. The vast majority of Bedouins adhere to Islam , although there are some fewer numbers of Christian Bedouins present in

8500-450: The territory controlled by the tribe. The structure of Bedouin tribes were held together more so by shared feelings of common ancestry rather than a tribal chief atop the hierarchy. Bedouin traditionally had strong honor codes, and traditional systems of justice dispensation in Bedouin society typically revolved around such codes. The bisha'a , or ordeal by fire, is a well-known Bedouin practice of lie detection . See also: Honor codes of

8600-818: The theological activism of earlier Maronite historians such as Duwayhi and Ibn al-Qilai. The historian Philip Hitti deemed it to be the work "a judge of the Shihab amirs and compiler of the annals of the feudal families of Lebanon". Asad Rustum commented on the Akhbar al-a'yan : "in a way, Shidyak's history is scarcely anything but an account of the Emir [Bashir]'s efforts to rid himself of his rivals". Bedouin The Bedouin , Beduin , or Bedu ( / ˈ b ɛ d u ɪ n / ; Arabic : بَدْو , romanized :  badw , singular بَدَوِي badawī ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited

8700-532: The title "Beylerbey" was only an administrative title in the Ottoman context. Abu-Husayn further notes that neither Khalidi nor the prominent 17th-century Maronite historian, Istifan al-Duwayhi , mentions members of the Kurdish Janbulads moving to Mount Lebanon. Abu-Husayn claims it to be unlikely that Sheikh Junblat, had he been a descendant of Janbulad, would have been a major local opponent of Fakhr al-Din, as presented by Khalidi. Rather, as an outsider living under Fakhr al-Din's protection, presumably would have been

8800-525: The traditional ʿašāʾir clan structure, traditional music , poetry, dances (such as saas ), and many other cultural practices and concepts. Some urbanized Bedouins often organise cultural festivals, usually held several times a year, in which they gather with other Bedouins to partake in and learn about various Bedouin traditions—from poetry recitation and traditional sword dances to playing traditional instruments and even classes teaching traditional tent knitting. Traditions like camel riding and camping in

8900-541: The tribal territories. In 1982 the al-Assad family turned to the Bedouin tribe leaders for assistance during the Muslim Brotherhood uprising against al-Assad government (see 1982 Hama massacre ). The Bedouin sheikhs' decision to support Hafez al-Assad led to a change in attitude on the part of the government that permitted the Bedouin leadership to manage and transform critical state development efforts supporting their own status, customs and leadership. As

9000-604: The tribes that, according to Emanuel Marx , "moved or were removed by the military government". They ended up in the so-called E1 area East of Jerusalem . About 1,600 Bedouin serve as volunteers in the Israel Defense Forces , many as trackers in the IDF's elite tracking units. Famously, Bedouin shepherds were the first to discover the Dead Sea Scrolls , a collection of Jewish texts from antiquity, in

9100-432: The valleys where there is more rain and move their livestock to the highland pastures. Oral poetry is the most popular art form among Bedouins. Having a poet in one's tribe was highly regarded in society. In addition to serving as a form of art, poetry was used as a means of conveying information and social control . Bedouin poetry, also known as nabati poetry , is often recited in the vernacular dialect . In contrast,

9200-434: The village of Baadarane and built his residence there. When Qabalan died, the Druze sheikhs of the Chouf requested and paid 25,000 piasters to the Ma'ns' successor, the Shihab emir Haydar, to make Ali the paramount sheikh and tax farmer for their region. As the inheritor of Qabalan's fortune, Ali used his newfound wealth and prestige to push older Druze aristocratic families. He backed Haydar against his Yamani opponents in

9300-700: The whole of the West Bank, including 27,000 people under Israeli military control in Area C . Unlike Negev Bedouins , West Bank Bedouins are not Israeli citizens . Bedouin communities in the West bank have been targeted with forcible relocations to townships to accommodate the growth of illegal Israeli settlements on the outskirts of East Jerusalem . Bedouins also live in the Gaza strip , including 5,000 in Om al-Nasr . However,

9400-580: The year's end when Bashir II, who had become the paramount strongman and tax farmer of Mount Lebanon, appointed Tannus's father the mutasallim (tax collector) of Shuweir in the Matn area south of Keserwan and soon after of Zahle in the Beqaa Valley as well. The family consequently moved back to Hadath where Tannus taught As'ad the Arabic and Syriac grammar he had learned in Ghosta. In 1810 he served as

9500-423: Was Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan , which was supervised by Butrus al-Bustani , and published in separate parts in 1855 and 1859. In it he described the natural and political geography of Mount Lebanon, documented the genealogies of its feudal families, and chronicled the history of its rule by families, such as the Buhturids , the Ma'ns , the Assafs , the Sayfas and the Shihabs. His chronicle has been one of

9600-539: Was a Maronite clerk and emissary of the Shihab emirs, the feudal chiefs and tax farmers of Ottoman Mount Lebanon , and a chronicler best known for his work on the noble families of Mount Lebanon, Akhbar al-a'yan fi Jabal Lubnan (The History of the Notables in Mount Lebanon). He was born in the Keserwan area of Mount Lebanon to a long line of clerks serving the Shihab emirs and other local chieftains. Tannus

9700-561: Was established by the Interior Ministry on 28 January 2004. Israel is currently building or enlarging some 13 towns and cities in the Negev. According to the general planning, all of them will be fully equipped with the relevant infrastructure: schools, medical clinics, postal offices, etc. and they also will have electricity, running water and waste control. Several new industrial zones meant to fight unemployment are planned, some are already being constructed, like Idan HaNegev in

9800-555: Was established. The earliest Arab tribes emerged from Bedouins. By the time of the Roman Empire's establishment, the Bedouin national identity had been established and they were recognizable as a single people with often warring "families, clans, and tribes". A major source of income for this people was the taxation of caravans, and tributes collected from non-Bedouin settlements. They also earned income by transporting goods and people in caravans pulled by domesticated camels across

9900-659: Was read by the American missionary Eli Smith but whose whereabouts are currently unknown. He penned an unfinished book on the Turkish language in 1835 and summarized another work of al-Duwayhi's, Tarikh al-azmina (History of the Times), in 1845. Three years later he wrote a history of Arab and Islamic rulers, which is also lost. In 1850 Tannus wrote a history of his family, the principal source of his biography, entitled Tarikh wa a'mal banu ash-Shidyaq (History and Achievements of

10000-416: Was taught Arabic and Syriac grammar and throughout his career serving the Shihab emirs and as a merchant, he pursued education in the fields of medicine, jurisprudence, logic, ethics, natural sciences, Turkish and Italian. Tannus wrote manuscripts about his Maronite sect, Arab and Islamic history, the colloquial Arabic of Mount Lebanon and his family, some of which were lost. The most important of his works

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