The Rubʿ al-Khali

An honor society policed by word of mouth and tracks in the sand

This paper is an attempt to reconstruct the governing structure of the Rubʿ al-Khali prior to technological

and bureaucratic advances made possible by the exploitation of oil in Arabia allowed the state to efficiently project

power into the desert, perhaps for the first time in history. I will argue that the Bedu who lived in the Rubʿ al-Khali

were governed primarily by a set of norms; that these were enforced through the oral repetition of failure, success, or

excellence in maintaining them; and that reward and punishment operated through the concept of honor. A very

serious limitation of this paper is that I do not have access to the very orality at the heart of the structure I wish to

describe. As a result, this paper must remain to some extent conjectural. That is, this effort represents a best guess as

to how governance could function in this desert, without a state, based on the materials immediately available, and is

intended to function as a guide for future oral research. I rely primarily on the accounts of British explorers as

intermediaries, as a means of tapping the oral culture of the Rubʿ al-Khali secondhand. These explorers alone

witnessed life in the desert and wrote down their observations in English. The use of these sources,

however, raises some issues and I will discuss these at length.

IntroductionSEPTEMBER 28, 2013

09/28/2013

The Rubʿ al-Khali comprises the largest sand desert in the world. From the beginnings of

European contact with Arabia in the 16th century until the crossings of Bertram Thomas and H.

St. John Philby in 1932-1933, Europeans believed it to be a wasteland which could not be

traversed by land. Indeed they might, for even into the early 20th century, the long arm of state

power held no sway in the desert. Nevertheless, perhaps since the centuries following the

domestication of the Bactrian camel in the late 2nd millennium BCE, there existed a pastoral

camel culture exploiting the scarce grazing and scattered wells of the great desert for a

livelihood. These nomadic camel pastoralists, the Bedu, possessed extremely specialized

knowledge and skills, allowing them to cross vast expanses of desert in search of grazing for

their camels. For them, the Rubʿ al-Khali was not a great monolithic wasteland, but was rather

composed of distinct regions associated with geological features, wells, and zones of different

kinds of grazing. They did not wander aimlessly about the desert – to do so would have been

suicide – but moved in flexible patterns dictated by the spotting of rainclouds and other means of

predicting future grazing. They developed a sophisticated oral culture which enabled them to

spread news of rain, of war, of alliance and peace across vast expanses of desert. But this oral

culture was not limited to the carrying of such weighty content. It was also a channel for the

communication of intimate news of relatives and of strangers. One’s reception at another’s tent,

the tracks of an acquaintance’s camel which has come into milk, the price of ammunition or rice

in a far-flung market, marriages, circumcisions, births and deaths, dalliances and failures of

character – all these were newsworthy to the Bedu; all these were remembered and repeated and

argued over for generations in the course of long journeys across the sea of sand. And above all,

it was these stories, these exchanges between passing travelers, which governed the lives of the

Bedu. For there were said to be no secrets in the desert, and honor was a precious commodity.

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Nor was honor a concept limited to the individual. Rather, the concept of honor operated

at the level of the family and tribe as well, and tribes were responsible for the honorable behavior

of their members. In fact, I will show that punishment for wrongdoing was often directed to the

tribe, rather than the individual responsible, a point to which I will return. But first, the use of the

term tribe itself merits discussion. I use the term tribe here to refer to institutions of political,

social, and economic organization organized according to real or fictive kinship ties. Though the

term has been used by other authors to imply political backwardness in the past, I use the term in

rejection of these connotations, and I hope that this paper will show some of the political and

social complexity of this institution. Nevertheless, the term presents practical difficulties due to

its lack of specificity, as it has been used – and will be used in this paper – to describe

organizations which vary greatly in size, in political organization, and in the degree of perceived

kinship ties. For example, I will refer to the al-Rashid as a tribe, even as I use the term for the al-

Kathir, of which al-Rashid is a branch. I do so because the transliteration of the Arabic terms

(qabilah, fakhithah, a’ilah) would be confounding to most readers; because the source material in

most cases does not distinguish between tribes and sections of tribes, rendering it exceedingly

difficult to determine which Arabic term would apply; because in many cases the Arabic terms

themselves are applied inconsistently or there is disagreement about which term would apply to

which group; and most of all because this level of specificity is not necessary for the purposes of

this paper.

British Explorers as Sources

The explorers of the Rubʿ al-Khali spent years in the region and provide

some great information, but the accounts they left behind document their

travels in the region. Their experiences reflect genres appropriate to travel

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and the entertainment of guests. The limitations of the authors’ experiences

extend to constrain almost any topic of interest to the historian – save,

perhaps, an account of Western travelers in the region. For example, with all

the detailed stories in Thesiger’s account of his time with the Bedu, there is

very little information about their day-to-day lives. It must be remembered

that his journey was unusual. While there are anecdotes of the Bedu

travelling long distances, for seemingly what seemed to observers to be little

gain – one example comes to mind of a Bedu who travelled from

Hadhramaut to the court of Ibn Saud hoping to receive a gift of a few Maria

Teresa dollars – one can scarcely imagine them undertaking such a

dangerous trip for no reason at all; and most journeys would surely have

been from grazing to grazing, in larger groups than the dozen or so men

Thesiger preferred to travel with, more homogenous than Philby’s group. And

unlike the journeys of any of these travelers, seasonal migrations would have

included women and children. To drive the point home further, the normal

pattern seems to have been to spend months at a time in a particular area of

grazing, as well, living off milk while the camels get fat. Travel was frequent,

therefore, but far from the whole of Bedu life. And British explorers

understandably have little to say about these periods of settled life among

the Bedu.

In addition, each of these explorers experienced the oral culture of the

Bedu they interacted with in a specific context, and with particular

motivations. Bertram Thomas, the first European to cross the Rubʿ al-Khali,

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travelled as wazir of Sultan Taimur bin Faisal of ʿOman, his top advisor. He

would have been perceived not only as a Christian, but as a representative of

the Sultan’s government. He made efforts to maintain a distance from his

travelling companions as well, preferring to sleep apart from them. He

insisted on using the heavier saddle common to northern Arabia, to the

consternation of his companions who were constantly concerned with their

camels’ burdens “for the camel is her master’s dearest dear, and he will

cease fighting her battles only with his latest breath.”1 By implication, he

maintained himself as not only apart, but somewhat above them. Likewise,

Abdullah Philby was an advisor to King Ibn Saud, the most powerful figure in

the desert at the time and much feared; he travelled with his blessing and

under his protection.2 Thomas and Philby also travelled with personal

servants, slept apart from their companions, and Thomas even slept with a

pillow (unthinkable). He, at least, knew enough to leave his tent behind.3

Thesiger is the exception amongst this group, in that he travelled without

official sanction and sought to minimize any sense of distance between

himself and his companions; his account is all the more valuable for the fact.

He was not associated with any ruler and he took pains to travel as his

companions did, adopting the light southern saddle, though he was

unfamiliar with it, and sleeping on the bare sand.4 But Thesiger’s approach

1 Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix: Across the “Empty Quarter” of Arabia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), xxiv-xxvii, 116, 193.2 H. St. John B. Philby, The Empty Quarter: being a description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rubʿ al-Khali, (New York: Henry Holt and company, 1933), xviii-xxiv.3 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 119-120; Philby, The Empty Quarter, 5-6, 10, 13, 17. Philby traveled with a sizeable baggage train and his entire party slept in tents. He seems to have had his own.4 Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands. London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne and Co Ltd, 1959, 36, 38-39, 106-107. Thesiger also compares the journeys of Thomas and Philby – Philby took the more difficult route,

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was not perfect. While Bertram Thomas and Abdullah Philby may have

created distance between themselves and their companions through their

positions, or by implicitly reinforcing status differences, Thesiger could be

outright argumentative and irritable. His very closeness with his companions

could cause problems as well. When, as a show of affection, he placed his

hand on his companion bin Kabina’s neck, the latter “asked furiously if I took

him for a slave.”5

Additionally, Thomas, Thesiger and Philby paid these men generously

to lead them across the desert and, universally, the Bedu did most or all of

the essential work of the journey – packing, gathering firewood, grazing the

camels, gathering the camels in the morning, making a fire, cooking the

food, grinding the coffee. A recurring complaint early in each explorer’s

journey is that their companions make excuses to stop after a few hours’

march to allow the camels to graze. To a man, they would later learn the

necessity of these short marches – which ensured that camels entered the

Sands healthy – when their camels nearly died from the scarce grazing in the

Sands.6 The very fact that these Bedu – expert as they were in desert travel

and engaged specifically for their expertise – felt the need to justify the early

halts at all shows their consciousness of distance and a power dynamic

between themselves and these explorers. This had an impact on explorers’

experiences of oral culture. For example, in the early stages of Philby’s

but Thomas was the first and Thesiger credits him with gaining personal acceptance from the al Rashid tribe.5 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 147-148.6 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 118-119; Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 50.

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journey, travelling near the Gulf coast, he asked his guide ʿAli the name of a

distinctive depression: “It has no name…it is one of the jiban but it has no

name.” Doubting that such a prominent feature could be nameless, Philby

pressed his companions, loudly questioned the competence of his guide, and

started a heated argument. When the situation cooled down, a group of his

companions took him aside and told him the name – Jaub al Hirr. Hirr was a

vulgar term for a vagina, and his guide had not wished to offend him. It had

seemed inappropriate to his status to mention it.7 Each of the travelers

describes his companions as initially reserved, even mistrustful. As their

journeys progressed, however, these distinctions broke down. Within a

couple weeks, Philby’s companions were regaling him with tales of his other

guide Salih’s impotence, of circumcision practices, and which tribes had the

most beautiful and lustful women.8

In these trends, which are not always so explicit, we encounter as well

the issue of Arabic proficiency. This was a non-issue for both Philby and

Thomas, each of whom had lived in Arabia for years prior to their journeys.

Thomas worked as wazir for the Sultan of ʿOman and dabbled in linguistics,

while Philby had converted to Wahhabism and lived closely with the Arabs in

Saudi Arabia.9 Thesiger, however, was admittedly a poor linguist. He refers in

several places to the mental strain from so frequently communicating in

7 Philby, The Empty Quarter, 41-42. This is Philby’s interpretation, at any rate. But it is plausible, as his companions had been living in and around Dammam, Ibn Saud was much feared, and Philby was known to be among his favored counselors.8 Philby, The Empty Quarter, 81-82, 110.9 Thomas, Arabia Felix, xxiv, 47-48; Philby, The Empty Quarter, xix-xxii; Thesiger, Arabian Sands,33.

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Arabic and he complains on later journeys that his Arabic had improved to

the point that he could no longer tune out his companions’ constant

bickering and talk, explaining that previously it had taken a conscious effort

to understand them.10 This is reflected in his book Arabian Sands, as the

content of speech is glossed over on his first couple journeys. He reported

the fact of their speech, but not the details of the subject. He focuses, in

these passages, on the journey itself, the landscape, and his own state of

mind as he struggled to adapt to the cultural context of a traveling party in

Arabia. It is his later journeys that are rich with details of daily life as they

traveled across the desert or rested after a voyage and it is at this point in

the book, near the midpoint, that it becomes truly valuable to the historian.

Another key issue in assessing these traveler’s accounts is what

purpose these were intended to serve. It should be evident, given the

extraordinary difficulty and danger of these journeys, that each of these men

was extremely motivated to undertake this expeditions. Their motivations

differ, however, and these differences impacted their attitude toward their

companions, their conduct on their journeys, and ultimately their experience

of Arabian orality. If there is a common denominator for these three men, it

is the challenge presented by what they perceived as one of the last

unexplored frontiers in the world at that time – meaning it was unexplored

by Europeans, a blank spot on their maps. Bertram Thomas and Abdullah

Philby were planned their trips when many European scholars of Arabia did

10 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,37, 233-234.

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not believe the desert could be crossed without the benefit of machines.11

From this common motivation, however, the three diverged noticeably.

Thesiger’s time in Arabia was about escape and self-discovery. He despised

civilization, machines and settled life. He saw the Great Desert as a place

where he might escape these annoyances and that needed to be explored in

full before it was spoiled by the inevitable advance of civilization. He was not

interested in scientific study, in preserving stories, or in cataloguing the plant

and animal life he encountered – though he did so, as part of his agreement

with the Locust Research center that sponsored his trip.12 His account feels

intimate, literary, and he was far more interested than his predecessors in

the way of life of the Bedu. Thomas, in contrast, saw himself as advancing

scientific knowledge and this was a central concern for him in his travels. The

same can be said to some degree of Philby. Among Thomas’ concerns, for

example, was establishing whether the Arabs south of the desert truly

belonged to the same race as northern Arabs. He theorized that they were

more closely linked to Abyssinians and he passed time by measuring the

heads of people he encountered in his travels.13 He paid his companions, and

anyone else he encountered, to gather local plant specimens and catch local

animals, which he catalogued meticulously, skinned, and preserved. In

addition to course traverses and the like, he very carefully measured the

altitude wherever he was, in attempt to establish the relative slope of the

11 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 259-260; Thomas, Arabia Felix, xxiv-xxv; Philby, The Empty Quarter, xviii-xix.12 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 41-42, 181-182, 203.13 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 22-27, Appendix I.

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peninsula as a whole. He alone of the travelers recorded the stories told to

him, and the songs his companions sung as they marched or cleared a well,

supposedly verbatim, and translated these into English in one of several

appendices in his book.14 His approach conformed to the scientific methods

of his time and focused primarily on anthropological observation and

geographical concerns. He was thorough and systematic, but he must have

seemed odd and this surely would have colored his interactions with the

Bedu. Nevertheless, over the great distances travelled and time spent with

their Bedu companions, many of his quirks were overcome, or at least the

Bedu were willing to look past them. Thesiger reports that Thomas’ travelling

companions, one of whom travelled with Thesiger, thought him a worthy

companion, if a little eccentric. Their only complaint was his heavy saddle.15

Likewise, contemporaries of Thesiger confirmed the remarkable closeness of

Thesiger to his companions.16

Perhaps the most significant shortcoming in the accounts of these

desert explorers is the almost complete absence of women from the story,

and this is a limitation too pervasive to be overcome in the present study.

Each explorer encountered women occasionally – as they met some Bedu

living with his wife in a small tent, or saw a woman as they watered camels

at a well – but there was very little interaction and these encounters yield no

more than a passing remark. Rather, to the extent that we learn anything of 14 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 59, 105, 146, 226, 293Appendices II-VI. Thomas narration of animal catching and plant collecting is too exhaustive to go point-by-point. One cannot read five pages without some mention of it. Likewise, he was preoccupied with his aneroid.15 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 38-39.16 Henderson, Arabian Destiny, 75-76.

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women, it is when the authors report the talk of their Bedu companions

about women – and if there is one thing I am confident is universal to all

cultures, it is the unreliability of this sort of talk – or when the authors ask

about some detail of women’s lives. Thus we get Abu Ja’sha explaining,

partially as a friendly dig at Philby’s Manasir guide, that the Manasir “let their

women come to puberty with clitoris intact and…make a feast for her

circumcision a month or two before the wedding….Thus their women grow

up more lustful than others, and fine women they are too and that hot! But

then they remove everything to cool their ardour without reducing their

desire.”17 Likewise, we have Thesiger’s guide al Auf explaining how to

approach desert women “Next time, Umbarak, you see a girl that pleases

you, sit down next to her in the dark, push your camel-stick through the sand

until it is underneath her, and then turn it over until the crook presses

against her. If she gets up, gives you an indignant look, and marches off, you

will know that you are wasting your time. If she stays where she is, you can

meet her next day when she is herding goats.” Of course, this was

uncommon amongst the women of his own tribe. There are other small clues

as to the status of women, or the affection men felt for them. Among bin

Kabina’s purchases after the first crossing of the Rubʿ al-Khali is twelve yards

of deep-blue cloth, for his mother.18 Some of the Bedu used their sisters’

names as battle-cries.19 But this tells us little of their lives.

17 Philby, The Empty Quarter, 81.18 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 202.19 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,

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There is a real issue, a central issue, of access here. These authors had

very little access to women. Thesiger points out that Bedouin women were

not secluded, but were expected to herd goats, fetch water, and perform

other chores, and that the Bedu lived under trees, and in tents with one side

always open. Nevertheless, it was customary for them to eat separately, to

sit somewhat to the side when coffee was being taken and men were

speaking.20 In short, it was customary for men and women to have at least

nominally separate social spheres, and it would have raised more than a few

eyebrows for the European explorers to seek out the company of women to

gather their talk. Moreover, Thesiger states bluntly that he is not interested

in women.21 To form a complete picture of Southeast Arabia at midcentury,

therefore, oral histories conducted within the lifetime of living memory are

absolutely essential.

As a final note before turning to the topic of governance, I use the

account of Wilfred Thesiger with great frequency in illustrating my

arguments and largely omit that of H. St. John Philby. In most cases, there

are examples illustrating my points in all three accounts. Thesiger, however,

goes into greater detail, his examples are therefore more instructive and, for

that reason, I use his account more frequently for illustration – but not

20 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 177-178.21 There has been debate about Thesiger’s views on women, and Thesiger’s sexuality (I’ve only scratched the surface of the debate). He has been accused of being a misogynist and some believe he is a homosexual, due to his vivid descriptions of male beauty. I will not delve too deeply into this here, as I have not read his other work, but his expressed views in Arabian Sands are not misogynist, and I find it equally likely that Thesiger was simply not interested in sex and preferred male company (ie the topics of conversation, their pastimes, etc). He seems to recognize the beauty of women, young men, and landscapes alike in this book. It is plausible that he was attracted to men, highly implausible that he acted on any such attraction while in the desert, and therefore almost irrelevant.

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necessarily in the formation of my analysis. Philby’s account, in contrast, has

some special limitations. The men accompanying Philby were from the

northern tribes – al-Murra, al-Manasir, al-‘Ajman – and most of them had

been living a relatively settled life. That is, while his guides especially had

experience in the desert, they had been living in and around Dammam.22

And Philby alone among these explorers resorted to threats and passive-

aggressive sulking to gain the cooperation of companions, who were loathe

to cross the Empty Quarter.23 Much of his account is of limited utility for

these reasons, an unfortunate side effect of which is that the present effort

probably reflects the southern tribes like al-Rashid disproportionately. Many

of the norms and practices I discuss are mentioned throughout the literature

on Southeast Arabia, however, and were probably quite widespread.

The Physical Environment of the Rubʿ al-Khali

To discuss governance in the Rubʿ al-Khali, one must first establish the physical,

geographical realities that so greatly impacted the exercise of political power. To begin with,

navigation of the desert required a detailed knowledge of its geography. Prior to exploration of

the desert by Bertram Thomas, H. St. John Philby, and Wilfred Thesiger, there were no maps of

this desert. Rather, Bedu learned to navigate by accompanying their elders on journeys, relying

on a highly developed spatial memory to locate wells and grazing without recourse to navigation

aids like compasses. Moreover, groups of Bedu had specific areas of the desert with which they

were familiar. A tribesman of the ʿAwamir, for example, would typically be lost in the desert to

22 Philby, The Empty Quarter, 5-12. Both Wilfred Thesiger and Bertram Thomas travelled primarily with members of the al-Rashid, with elements of the Bait Kathir (another section of al-Kathir, to which the al-Rashid belonged), al-Manahil, and other southern tribes. 23 Philby, The Empty Quarter, 250-270.

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the North of the Hadhramaut – though individuals did travel with other groups, at times, and gain

a familiarity in this manner with otherwise unknown areas.24 Parts of the steppe were the

exclusive preserve – dirah – of individual tribes, while other areas were shared between a

number of groups.25

The desert, moreover, was not an undifferentiated mass of sand. In parts of the desert,

wells were fairly common. In others, one might travel weeks between wells. There were bands of

gravelly plain within the desert, which offered poor grazing and represented an obstacle for

camels with soft feet. Likewise, there were horizontal bands within the desert of different types

of grazing, and zones in which grazing was richer or poorer.26 These grazing areas were known

to the Bedu who frequented them, and named according to the color of the sands, the wells

within them - themselves often named after the man who dug the well - or the grazing within.

There were deeper and shallower wells, wells which were more or less brackish, wells which

always had water, only had water seasonally, or had water only in a good year, wells which

produced water in a trickle or a torrent, and wells which were regarded as the property of a

particular tribe – though this was less common. Deeper wells required more labor and skill to

excavate; shallower wells were generally less potable. In stretches of the desert in which the

water was nearer to the surface, the water might be suitable only for camels, and the camel

served as a mobile desalination plant. Men survived off the milk and urine of their camels in

passing through these regions. On an especially long journey, however, and with poorer grazing,

camels would produce less milk, or even cease to produce. Travel was thus limited by the

economics of transporting or locating sufficient water for the journey, without overburdening the

24 Philby, Thesiger and Thomas were all accompanied, for example, by members of several tribes and this was necessary to gain access to certain areas. This will be discussed more later.25 Henderson, Arabian Destiny, 37.26 Bertram Thomas, Arabia Felix, 229-230, 263-266.

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camels. This was in turn dictated by grazing. A camel may survive without water indefinitely

with the right grazing, and might do so in good health with occasional access to water. Without

grazing, however, a long journey was altogether untenable, as the death of one’s camel in lieu of

an extra was certain death. And if grazing was sparse, only a small group might survive. Thus the

environment imposed limits not only on who might gain access to the desert – a point to which I

will return – but on how many might gain access.27

Nor were all camels the same.28 There were camels bred to the desert, with soft soles on

their feet, which could maintain balance in the loosest sand. Again, these struggled in the hard

steppe; its sharp stones that cut their feet. There were also camels bred to the mountains, or the

steppes, milch camels, camels suited to long, dry voyages and camels bred for speed or beauty.29

These latter were a source of status for more settled peoples, but could not have endured the

long, waterless journeys achieved by the desert camel, nor could they tolerate the salty water and

shrubs these camels survived on in the most barren expanses of desert – which gave even these

specially bred desert beasts near-continuous diarrhea.30 Most tribes in Southeast Arabia preferred

female camels, slaughtering male camels soon after birth, for the milk they gave, though some

tribes bred more male camels as the transport trade in well watered areas became profitable. Nor

was breeding the only factor. Even a desert camel which had become too accustomed to green,

leafy, sweet herbage and sweet wells would turn up its nose at salt bush and brackish water – and

vice versa. Rather, they had to be acclimated to travel, force-fed and water poured down their

throats until they would accept whatever was available. All these factors and more made it nearly

impossible for state authorities to penetrate the desert, a place in which one could not only

27 Henderson, Arabian Destiny, 39.28 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 84.29 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 267.30 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 165.

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escape the power of the state, but also that of other tribes within the desert. And these same

factors made the enforcement of punishment on the responsible individual impracticable in

intertribal governance.

The Social Function of Tribal Solidarity

Relative peace and order in the desert was therefore maintained through a system of

reprisals and restitutions at the level of the tribe, the primary political unit in much of southern

Arabia before the organization of politically and technologically modern states in the region –

that is, before oil exploration necessitated the establishment of fixed borders and before oil

wealth and technological advances enabled states to project power into the desert – a process that

took place from the 1950s through the early 1980s. Thesiger relates a story in which his

companions encounter a Rashidi boy who has been shot in the hand in a raid on the Bani Kitab.

One of his group promised the boy they would find a Bani Kitab boy, “hold his hand over a rifle,

and blow it off” as soon as Thesiger returned home.31 Here, of course, the unfortunate boy they

hope to find is completely innocent of any offense, but this is unimportant. Likewise, it is

unimportant that this harm occurred in the course of a raid initiated by the al-Rashid, in which

the injured boy was presumably a participant. The body of the tribe was harmed and intended to

inflict the same harm to the tribe that caused this harm. At a later date, after accidentally

knocking out bin Ghabaisha, one of his closest companions, he asks bin Kabina, his closest

friend in Arabia, what would have happened if he’d accidentally killed bin Ghabaisha: “I should

have killed you.” It would have been an accident, but “That would have made no difference.”32

Thesiger notes that this was a lighthearted exchange, but speculates that the response is accurate

nonetheless. Once again, the harm is what is significant, and the harm must be avenged or

31 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 268.32 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 267-268.

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compensated. As a final example, one of Thesiger’s companions narrated a story in which his

son Sahail was shot in the chest during a raid against the Saar and slowly died in his arms as they

rode away. At daybreak, they found a small Saar encampment where a woman was churning

butter, a boy and a girl were milking some goats, and there were some small children under a

tree. The boy fled, but they cornered him. “He was about fourteen years old, a little younger than

Sahail, and he was unarmed.” When they surrounded him, he surrendered, and asked for mercy.

“No one answered him. Bakhit slipped down off his camel, drew his dagger, and drove it into the

boy’s ribs….and Bakhit stood over him until he died.” Thesiger was moved by the story but

“realized none the less that it alone prevented wholesale murder among a people who were

subject to no outside authority…for no man lightly involves his whole family or tribe in a blood-

feud.”33

It is not hard to imagine how this identification with the tribe could have functioned as a

deterrent to certain types of violence. In fact, Bertram Thomas encountered a group of people

living in the mountains of southern Dhofar known as the Shahara who vividly illustrate the

importance of tribal solidarity in the social order of Southeast Arabia. The Shahara as a group

were considered daʿif, weak. That is, they were not tribesmen and were not capable of the sort of

corporate, retaliatory violence of their neighbors. Thomas reports that they could be killed with

relative impunity, that they were subject to frequent raids, that no tribesmen would intermarry

with them, and that they were seen as little better than slaves – “no better than cattle, under God.

They are afraid to shed blood.”34 To kill a member of another tribe almost certainly meant that

one of your own would be killed in retaliation. And worse, war was a realistic possibility as well,

if the retaliations spiraled out of control. For this reason, outright murder was uncommon in the

33 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 107-108.34 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 67. It is not clear, however, how common such violence against the Shaharah was in practice.

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desert. Rather, violence was largely contained to feuds or wars between specific tribes, which

could have roots many generations in the past. In this pattern, there were periods of war and

negotiated peace between tr35ibes, and conflict could break out anew over any dispute. The

relationship between the supra-tribal factions known as the Hinawi and Ghafiri, or ʿAdnani and

Qahtani was an example of this sort of tension. But this sort of relationship existed between

individual tribes as well. During Thesiger’s time in the desert, the Dahm had recently broken a

truce with the al-Rashid with whom Thesiger travelled, massing between one hundred and three

hundred men and raiding the scattered al-Rashid, Bait Kathir, Bait Imani, Manahil, and Mahra

along the desert steppe of the Hadhramaut and Dhofar. Shortly after his first crossing of the

Empty Quarter, Thesiger witnessed a gathering of more than one hundred tribesmen from these

group, gathered around his camp debating whether to negotiate with the Dahm for the return of

looted camels in keeping with the truce or to retaliate.36 After a long, animated argument, they

agreed to send a representative to the Dahm who did, in fact, negotiate a truce for a period of two

years.37 Meanwhile, the al-Rashid were at war with the Bani Kitab in the Dhahirah, Thesiger’s

companions raiding them, taking many camels in his absences.38

Thesiger theorized, in his time in Arabia, that it was this constant state of war or constant

potential for war that allowed tribal law (sic) to function. With no central authority to enforce its

decisions, Thesiger reasoned, a Bedu was free to ignore any decision he did not agree with – but

the normal conditions of desert life this would mean a loss of all security for him, since he could

be killed by a member of his own or another tribe with relative impunity. There would be no one

to avenge him and no one to force his killer to pay blood money – of course, personal feelings

35 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 171.36 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 185-188.37 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 280.38 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 281.

17

would still be a factor, and his heirs would still be owed blood money, but outside the tribe there

would be no power behind any desire for retribution. He cites the breakdown of tribal life in

northern and central Arabia at this time as evidence that tribal authority breaks down in the

presence of enforced peace and of law.39 Nor is Thesiger’s position without merit.

But there are questions that go unanswered. The only example of someone leaving their

tribe in Thesiger’s account and the other source material is of a member of the Dahm living with

the Yam, as he had a blood feud with his own tribe.40 No details are given. It is unclear,

therefore, how speculative is Thesiger’s idea of what happens to a tribesman who is ostracized

for refusing to acknowledge the decision of the group. Certainly, a man in this situation could

have sought work in one of the cities along the coast, or in the interior of ʿOman or the Trucial

coast. Likewise, one can speculate that it is possible to seek refuge with another tribe, as the

unnamed Dahm tribesman did, in certain circumstances. But, as no mention is made of

ostracization in other accounts of the desert, it remains unclear how common it was and what

circumstances would warrant such a decision. Certainly, a great deal of autonomy was respected

within the tribal framework, as evidenced by a member of the Duruʿ tribe who escorted Thesiger

through his tribe’s lands in open defiance of several of the sheikhs of his tribe. But here again,

there was an established norm that one could travel in a tribe’s lands provided one was

accompanied by a member of the tribe (rabia) – and that this rabia was honor-bound to protect

his travelling companions, even against his own tribe.41 It may or may not be the case that this

was allowed to pass because the decision of the sheikhs was in violation of a widely accepted

norm.

39 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 94-95.40 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 245.41 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 83, 104; Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 171, 173, 175, 184, 196.

18

It is likewise not at all clear that individuals were motivated by a calculated assessment of

self-interest in adhering to this system of tribal governance and solidarity. Indeed, Thesiger is

right to point out the practical necessity of adherence to the norms of tribal solidarity and respect

for tribal authority, but the reported actions of the tribesmen he encounters hardly give the

impression of people constrained by necessity to participate in this system. Rather, it is likely

that these norms and values were internalized to the extent that it simply felt right to avenge a

killed or maimed tribesmen, to rush off at a moment’s notice to intercede on behalf of an

imprisoned man from a distantly related tribe – as Thesiger reports bin Kabina and bin

Ghabaisha did during their time in Dubai.42 Moreover, it seems that tribal governance was far

from authoritarian or intrusive. Tribal leaders were typically elected, led by establishing

consensus, rather than through decree, and were subject to being replaced if they were ineffective

or unpopular.43 By and large, these were men with an established reputation within the tribe,

respected as warriors, leaders and trackers, men who were seen as honorable. No mention is

made in any of the source material of any tax paid to tribal leaders; tribesmen who followed

them on a raid could expect a share of the spoils – though the leader of the raid got extra shares –

and there were no prisons or jails. In fact, the role of the tribal leader in Southern Arabia seems

to have been primarily concerned with the foreign relations of the tribe and the settlement of

internal disputes through mediation, rather than the enforcement of law. Participation in one’s

tribe was not only an ingrained cultural assumption, backed by strong advantages, but compared

to other systems of governance, it provided little against which to rebel.

Orality and Personal Honor in the Normative Society

42 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 327.43 Henderson, Arabian Destiny, 93.

19

The tribe, then, was the unit of responsibility for offenses like murder and the theft of

livestock between tribes in the Rubʿ al-Khali – in much of Southern Arabia, in fact – and was

implicated to some degree in other sorts of violations as well. These sorts of violations, however,

were not punished with violence. They would not start a war. Rather, these were normative

violations and reflected on individual, familial and tribal honor. To the extent that the source

material is representative, these norms appear to be the most salient feature of governance in the

Rubʿ al-Khali and much of the surrounding area before the technological modernization of the

states of southern Arabia. These norms included things like the hospitality one extended to

travelers, the generosity one exhibited with others, the fairness with which meals and profits

were shared among travelling companions, manners, performance in battle or other civic duties,

bravery and other personal excellences one was expected to embody. Both adherence to and

violations of these norms are reported with great frequency by travelers and in fact, the

preoccupation of the Bedu themselves is reported, directly or indirectly, in nearly every

traveler’s account. I will argue that these norms and others in fact formed the basis for

governance in the Rubʿ al-Khali, that they were enforced through the oral repetition of failure,

success, or excellence in maintaining them, and that reward and punishment operated through the

concept of honor. Nor was honor as intangible as we like to imagine. Rather, honor effected

social relations at every level and had a real bearing on economic well-being in a society in

which every transaction was based on personal interaction. Buying a camel, finding a wife and

negotiating a bride-price, asking to graze on a neighboring tribe’s dirah in a period of extended

drought – these were entirely commonplace occurrences which would have been effected by

one’s individual reputation, and the reputation and prestige of one’s tribe.

20

Turning to the oral culture, the key element was the exchange of news

between travelers whenever and wherever they meet. The ubiquitousness

and importance of this practice is reported by Wilfred Thesiger, Bertram

Thomas, H. St. John Philby and Edward Henderson, each of whom spent five

or more years in Arabia. Through examples scattered throughout Arabian

Sands, Thesiger provides the most complete picture of the practice as an

institution that at once tied the desert together, enforced the social and

moral code, protected the traveler from raiders, guided him to healthy

grazing and water, passed the time, and forged bonds between people.44 As

early as his first journey along the Southern fringes of the desert in 1945,

Thesiger reports with frustration that Bedu, attracted by reports of fresh

grazing, were thick along the northern slopes of the Qarra Mountains and

that “everyone had heard that the Christian had great quantities of food with

him.” This attracted visitors to his camp every night, who shared in their

meals, which he had planned meticulously based on the size of his party –

Thesiger was not acclimated to the customs of Arabia at this point.45 Later on

the same trip, Thesiger hints at the connection between orality, the

landscape, and the skills of the Bedu themselves, as one of his traveling

companions read some old tracks – Thesiger was not even sure they were

camel tracks – and theorized that six Awamir had raided the Junuba in the

South. They had come from Sahma, watered at Mughshin, and passed by

that spot ten days ago. “We had seen no Arabs for seventeen days and we

44 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 80, 170.45 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 49-50.

21

saw none for a further twenty-seven,” Thesiger narrates. But on his return,

they exchanged news with some Bait Kathir who “told us that six ʿAwamir

had raided the Junuba, killed three of them, and taken three of their camels.”

He goes on to explain that every Bedu knew the tracks of his own camel,

some “of nearly every camel they had seen,” that the camels in different

regions had different feet, leaving different tracks and that Bedu likewise

knew the politics of every tribe on the desert inside and out, and could guess

who would raid who.46 Thus we see the connection, at least in Thesiger’s

mind, between the orality, the tracking skills of the Bedu, and politics.

Thesiger generalizes: “No Bedu will ever miss the chance of ʿexchanging

news with anyone he meets, and he will ride far out of his way to get fresh

news.” This is confirmed by examples later in the text.47

There was a specific protocol for exchanging news, a formula: ‘Your

news?’ ‘The news is good.’ ‘Is anyone dead? Is anyone gone’ ‘No! – don’t say

such a thing.’ As Thesiger reports, this formula held whatever the actual

news might be.48 They would then sit down to drink coffee and eat dates.

When this was finished, the real news was exchanged. In the example given

by Thesiger, the actual news was that the Dahm had raided the Manahil; the

Manahil had raided the Yam; the Saar had raided the Dawasir. They went

into specifics of who led what party, who had been killed and who wounded,

how successful this or that raid had been. They said there had been good

46 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 52.47 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 169-170.48 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 102. Henderson, Arabian Destiny, 27.

22

rain in the steppes – North of the Qarra Mountains, South of the Rubʿ al-Khali

– but the seven year drought held in the Jiza. Then there were specific

questions and answers between the groups, a conversation, and it was over.

This sort of news, moreover, traveled widely. Thesiger relates an example in

which his guide, Al Auf, tells him of some successful Bu Falah raids. He had

received the news from some kinsmen who had participated, making their

way seven hundred miles across the desert to return to the steppe with

three camels and a rifle. He then travelled four hundred miles to meet

Thesiger’s party in Mughshin, where some of the Bait Kathir with Thesiger

would carry the news two hundred miles to the coast, and whoever they met

would likely carry it into ʿOman.49 But these were certainly not the only

vectors for transmission of the raids, as there would have been other

witnesses. Just as the al-Rashid were connected with the Southern steppe,

any Manasir who might have participated would have connections in the

Hasa in eastern Saudi Arabia. Any Manahil or Murra who received the news

there would have transmitted it across Saudi Arabia. This is informed

speculation, but the significance is that such news would be disseminated to

the edges of the desert within months.

The Bedu were also said to have remembered the most trivial details

and passed them along. They had impressive memories, and the examples

given by Thesiger give some clue as to why that was. At one point, he

relates that his companions would constantly argue as they traveled, about

49 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 109.

23

some minor thing, and they would tell the same story to the same person,

many times over, as a way to pass the time – in one example, Bin Kabina

and Amair argued an entire day about whose grandfather was best, until Bin

Kabina said “anyway, my grandfather never farted in public.”50 Thesiger

chided them when the same argument began the next day, to which they

answered “but it passes the time.” And they had a great deal of time to pass,

with precious few ways to do so, travelling for weeks at a time across a

desert. So, not only were the smallest details repeated, but they remained in

the collective memory. And it may be the very fact that memories were so

frequently repeated and argued about that allowed them to be maintained.

They were living memories, embodied in an active social context of

exchange. So ‘the news’ was not only life or death, raids feuds, rain and

grazing. It was also a social institution and covered topics we might consider

gossip. As Thesiger says on exchanging news with part of his party that had

stayed behind before the desert crossing: “They were Bedu, and no mere

outline would suffice either them or my companions; what they wanted was

a detailed account of all that we had seen and done, the people we had

spoken to, what they had said, what we had said to them, what we had

eaten and where. My companions seemed to have forgotten nothing,

however trivial.”51

One might well ask what the significance of the repetition of these

stories is. What function would these stories have served that could be of

50 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 252.51 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 162.

24

interest to a historian? As mentioned above, one function may have been the

maintenance of the moral order and social code of the desert, the

enforcement of its norms. Though he was discussing a technique with very

different goals which emerged from a very different society, as a strategy of

control, one can imagine this oral culture functioning in much the same way

as the panoptic society described by Michel Foucault.52 The central relevant

insight is that people act differently when they know they might be

monitored. And it is clear that the Bedu of the desert knew what sort of

behavior was expected, that their behavior could be reported, and that they

desired a good reputation amongst their peers. The conduct of daily life was

regulated in this way, as one’s actions, for better or worse, would become

public knowledge, known not only locally, but across the desert. An

inhospitable host, a sheikh who hoarded silver instead of distributing gifts, a

man who failed in combat in some way, a flatulent man – these would find

their shortcomings common knowledge. Bin Turkia, one of Thesiger’s

companions, told the party of a circumcision he witnessed among the Mahra,

in which “Ali’s son made a fuss when they cut him. He cried out like a

woman.”53 At the same time, a leader like Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi could

build a reputation for justice and generosity that stretched across the desert.

The Bu Falah as a group could build loyalties with tribes as far afield as the

Hadhramaut. Individuals who exhibited great military prowess, like the

famous raider Bin Duailan (“the cat”) of the Manahil, could be known across

52 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random House, 1977), 195-240.53 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 124.

25

southern and central Arabia – as indeed he was.54 This sort of publicity of

one’s deeds may well underlie the hospitality and generosity that so

impressed visitors to Arabia. Indeed, Thesiger met a penniless, decrepit old

man named Bakhit who was apparently quite famous and much loved in

Hadhramaut – there is no indication of how widespread his reputation might

have been – as someone who had been very rich but lost all his wealth

through generosity. “No one ever came to his tents but he killed a camel to

feed them. By God, he is generous!” Thesiger’s companions were reportedly

even a little envious.55 Given the source material, of course, it is beyond the

scope of this paper to definitively link the circulation of these stories with the

maintenance of the norms they illustrate. But the connection between such a

pervasive orality, a culture with such strong norms in the absence of any

state or mass media, and behavior that consistently approached the very

extremes of the ideals for which the Bedu were known, is too obvious, makes

too much sense not to have a degree of truth. Returning to the example of

the panoptic society, however, it is important to remember that this was a

very different institution than what Foucault described. Where the

panopticon and the discipline it strove to achieve were dehumanizing and

unnatural, the oral culture of the Bedu was an inherently human structure

and it will be obvious that the norms it maintained were more or less

intuitive, informed by values and impulses that are nearly universal – though

these values were expressed to the extreme.

54 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 187-188, 243-245.55 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 71. This is not the same Bakhit from the earlier story.

26

A second function of the exchange of news, equally obvious, must

have been the formation and maintenance of social ties over vast distances.

Were the news merely a practical instrument for the acquisition of

information, Bedu would not have exhibited such anxiety when they had to

forgo the exchange – for example, when Thesiger and his party were

traveling in secret past Liwa.56 Moreover, while no direct examples are given

of the word-for-word content of these exchanges, passages like the

following, in which Thesiger asks al Auf if he had ever ridden from Wadi al

Amairi to Bai, bear this out (as well as illustrating the recall of the Bedu):

“Yes, six years ago.”

“How many days did it take?”

“I will tell you. We watered at al Ghaba in the Amairi. There were four of us, myself, Salim, Janazil of the Awamir, and Alaiwi of the Afar; it was in the middle of summer. We had been to Ibri to settle the feud between the Rashid and the Mahamid, started by killing Fahad’s son.”

Musallim interrupted, “That must have been before the Riqaishi was Governor of Ibri. I had been there myself the year before. Sahail was with me and we went there from….”

But al Auf went on, “I was riding the three-year-old I had bought from bin Duailan.”

“The one the Manahil raided from the Yam?” Bin Kabina asked.

“Yes. I exchanged it later for the yellow six-year-old I got from bin Ham. Janazil rode a Batina camel. Do you remember her? She was the daughter of the famous grey which belonged to Harahaish of the Wahibah.”

Mabkhaut said, “Yes, I saw her last year when he was in Salala, a tall animal; she was old when I saw her, past her prime but even then a real beauty.”

Al Auf went on, “We spent the night with Rai of the Afar.”

56 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 169-170.

27

Bin Kabina chimed in, “I met him last year when he came to Habarut; he carried a rifle, “a father of ten shots,” which he had taken from the Mahra he had killed in the Ghudun. Bin Mautlauq offered him the grey yearling, the daughter of Farha, and fifty riyals for this rifle, but he refused.”

Al Auf continued,”Rai killed a goat for our dinner and told us…”, but I interrupted: “Yes, but how many days did it take to get to Bai?” He looked at me in surprise and said, “Am I not telling you?”57

By inserting themselves into the narrative, and establishing connections

between themselves and the people in al Auf’s story, Thesiger’s companions

here are reinforcing their own relationships in much the same way one can

imagine two travelers exchanging the news might have. In the course of the

exchange would be opportunities to establish personal connections, to hear

news of distant relatives, to establish hierarchies – if any existed – to find

common ground and connect. For a traveler who had spent several weeks in

very limited company, or a Bedu alone with his family grazing his camels – as

many of the people Thesiger’s party met were – the opportunity for social

interaction must have been valuable. And it is significant that the news was

exchanged even before a heated argument between two hostile tribes, as

when Thesiger and his Rashidi companions sought to cross Duruʿ land with a

rabia from the Junuba.58 But perhaps the most important aspect of this is that

the establishment, maintenance and reinforcement of relationships across

vast expanses of desert enabled a sense of community to develop despite

the distance, despite the mobility of the Bedu themselves, and despite

animosities between some groups. And this community extended beyond the

57 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 141-14258 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 299. The Duru were Ghafari.

28

boundaries of the desert and into agricultural areas and towns along its rim,

and along the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf coasts as Bedu traded with

people here, purchased some date palms there, or as individuals or even

sections of the tribe would become more sedentary. And it was this

community that enabled the development of such strong norms. The

perpetuation of this community through the exchange of the news and other

oral forms enabled the enforcement of the norms, the regulation of daily life.

And the segmentation of the community into tribes allowed for the

containment of violence and social mobility, the regulation of the less routine

aspects of life. But what were these norms, specifically, and what sorts of

practices did they encourage?

The Normative Code of the Rubʿ al-Khali

As a function of the source material, many of the norms and practices

discussed here relate to travel. This aspect of their lives may thus be

overrepresented, but the Bedu living in the desert were a mobile people, and

travel would have been an important factor in their lives. The strong norms

governing the treatment of one’s travelling companions and the reception of

travelers reflect his fact. After the sharing of news, one of the most

prominently reported practices in southern Arabia is accompaniment by a

rabia from the tribe whose lands one wished to cross, or an allied tribe. As

Thesiger narrates: “A rabia took an oath: ‘You are my companions and your

safety, both of your blood and your possessions, is in my face.’” He goes on

to relate that travelling companions, as a rule, were obligated to fight to

29

defend one another, even against one’s own tribe and kin, and that “If one of

the party were killed, all the party were involved in the ensuing blood-feud.”

In this way, travel through otherwise hostile areas was possible, so long as

one could find a vouchsafe from an appropriate tribe. Which tribes could act

as rabia for one another, and in which circumstances, was a matter much

discussed amongst Thesiger’s companions – and their lengthy, detailed

discussions indicate that the politics of the tribes arrayed along the desert

frontier were well known. 59 This practice has obvious implications for

commerce and peace-making, but its true significance may be the emphasis

it places on personal relationships over political ones and personal

conscience over the discretion of tribal leaders.60 This is borne out when the

leaders of the Duruʿ seek to prevent Thesiger from crossing their lands on

what would be his last journey in Arabia. Thesiger had travelled through

Duruʿ country previously – undercover as a Syrian – and made friends with a

Dara’I name Staiyun, who spoke for him here: “Why do you make all this

trouble, bin Kharas? There is no harm in the man. He is known among the

tribes and well spoken of. I know him; you don’t….He is my friend.” Another

interposed that he is Sheikh Zayed al-Nahyan’s friend as well, to which bin

Kharas replied “Then take him back to Zayid (sic). We don’t want him

here….and don’t bring him this way again or we will kill him.” Staiyun came

back, “You have no right to talk like this. God Almighty! I myself will take him

through our country in defiance of you and all the other sheikhs. You can’t

59 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 171.60 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 232.

30

stop me.” And Thesiger was ultimately allowed to pass.61 In this exchange,

the relative importance of individual judgment and sheikhly authority is clear

– and when he was turned back, it was ultimately due to the authority of the

Imam in ʿOman, whose influence, more so than authority, was strong enough

to compel the tribes around the Jabal al-Akhdar to turn Thesiger away.

Another practice, reported by Bertram Thomas in the context of a

comparison with British laws on murder, would seem to outline emphasis on

the individual conscience. One of companions, Salih, is reported to have said:

“But with us, sanctuary is honored unless there is shame in the murder, such

for instance as a rabia who has betrayed his companion; what good man is

there, who would withhold sanctuary to one who has killed his enemy?”62

And a chorus of agreement ensued. This practice, however, is not reported

by Thesiger or Philby and receives no further comment from Thomas. But

perhaps the best examples of the Bedu attitude toward authority are the

following exchanges between Thesiger and members of al-Rashid. He asked

a small group who’d visited Riyadh how they had addressed ibn Saud – the

King and most feared man in Arabia at the time – “We called him ʿAbd al-

Aziz, how else would we call him but his name?” When Thesiger suggested

‘your majesty,’ the response “We are Bedu. We have no king but God.”63 In

another instance, his guide Al Auf was discussing a civil war taking place at

the time between Dubai and Abu Dhabi and relating the al-Rashid’s ties to

the Bu Falah from Abu Dhabi: “The bin Maktum of Dibai (sic) would have to

61 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 299-300.62 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 276.63 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 93.

31

pay for our service; we owe them no loyalty. The Al bu Falah are different; if

one from that family, even a child, gave me an order it would be awkward to

refuse.” But, “[grinning] Being a Bedu I expect I should, unless it suited me.”

Even in the context of a statement intended to outline his loyalty to the Bu

Falah, he felt the need to emphasize his complete independence of action.64

Another lynchpin in the facilitation of travel, trade, and inter-tribal

relations was the detailed requirement general to Arabian society – but

perhaps more pronounced in and around the desert – of providing hospitality

to passing travelers. The concept of hospitality is, of course, related to the

more general ideal of generosity, and together with the oral culture of the

desert and surrounding areas they must have contributed to a sense of

community, but the two concepts are distinct in function. That is, the effect

of hospitality is different from that of generosity. Turning to hospitality, the

travel accounts of Europeans throughout Southeast Arabia are replete with

examples of a sort of hospitality that stunned them and struck them as

unique to Arabia – in the extremes to which it was taken, if not its general

intent. Whether or not this is so, hospitality was important to tribesmen in

the region generally, and Bedu in particular, for they went to great lengths to

entertain their guests, despite having very little. In one example, Thesiger

and his companions came to an encampment of some Bait Imani who bade

them drink all the camels’ milk they’d collected for the night – though they

had no other food or water.65 In another, the tables were turned, as Thesiger

64 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 124. . 65 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,136.

32

and his group had to give up the first meat they had found in many weeks to

some travelers who’d passed their fire.66 Moreover, one of the difficulties in

travelling under cover was that they were often unable to convince other

Bedu they met (in a somewhat busier section of the Dhahirah, as they could

not survive another desert crossing) to let them pass without eating, and

Thesiger could never pass for long as an Arab.67 Even a fatherless child

insisted the travelers accept his hospitality – though in this case, they were

able to send him away.68 The extreme emphasis on hospitality, of course, is

not surprising around a natural feature like the Rubʿ al-Khali where,

occasionally, such hospitality may in fact have been the difference between

life and death, and in any case served to alleviate the extreme hardship of

desert travel. It would have strengthened bonds between settled and

nomadic peoples as well and, at one time, might have protected the former

from raiders outside the reach of the state. Moreover, in line with the rabia

and hospitality norms, Thomas reports a practice he refers to as “thamn-al-

batn” or “stomach price” which protected the provider of hospitality for four

days and nights after a man has ‘eaten his salt.’ This is not mentioned

elsewhere, but seems a fitting counterpart for the protection of travelers by

a rabia and may hint at the importance of hospitality as a protection from

travelers.69 To return to generosity, there are numerous examples of the

extremes of generosity in southern Arabia, in every first-hand account. In

66 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,166-167.67 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,168-169. This was repeatedly an issue, one man even threatened – perhaps hyperbolically – to divorce his wife, if they did not stop, and proceeding to slaughter a camel for them.68 Thesiger, Arabian Sands,308.69 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 84.

33

Thesiger’s account alone, bin Kabina gives away his loincloth, and on a later

journey his shirt, to someone admiring it. Sheikh Zayed al Nahyan allows

Thesiger use of a famous camel named Ghazalah when we wished to travel

in Liwa, and again for his trip to Sharjah.70 This emphasis on generosity,

sharing among companions and certain forms of hospitality had an additional

function as social equalizers. Not only did they redistribute material goods,

presumably to the benefit of the less wealthy, but these practices helped

establish social closeness, even in circumstances a disparity in wealth

existed and between members of more and less prestigious branches of

tribes.

If, as mentioned earlier, companions were expected to protect one

another, even against their own kin, they were also expected to share the

hardships and pleasures of travel equitably, and to decide collectively on

matters of concern to the group. Both Thesiger and Thomas report that on

occasions when one would reach a well or stopping point before one’s

companions, no Bedu would touch food or drink until their companions were

caught up and could share equally. Thesiger, likewise, reported that food

would always be divided evenly, down to the blackened crusts of the bread.

Even the tiny liver of a hare needed to be sliced into pieces for everyone.71 In

fact, at one point Thesiger’s companions became distraught when they

realized that they had neglected to bring back food for the ferryman who had

taken them across Dubai creek. When Thesiger explained that the customs

70 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 136-7, 315.71 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 151. In the event, the entire liver was given to Thesiger, but this was an exception.

34

of the town were different and this would not be expected, bin Ghabaisha

replied, “We are Bedu. He was our travelling companion. Did he not bring us

here? and we have forgotten him. We have fallen short.” Likewise, decisions

were undertaken as a group.72

Of course, the spoils of a raid were shared amongst the party as well.

In this matter, camels were divided equally among the members of a raiding

party according to value, with the exception that an important sheikh or the

leader of the party might get an extra share. Weapons confiscated from

surrendered enemies were likewise split equally, but a dead man’s weapon

belonged to the man who killed him. A man who escapes from the party,

only to be captured by one individual ceded his camel and weapons to the

individual and a man could choose to keep a camel he captured and

surrender his share of the rest “but he will only do that if he has a fast

camel.”73 This equity in the division of spoils would have helped with the

recruitment of a raiding party. More to the point, however, it may speak to

the purpose of raiding in the context of the desert tribes. While Thomas’

assertion that the purpose of raiding was economic – “Men kill and are killed

in the fight for camels” – may be overly simplistic, it seems likely that the

practice of raiding served as a redistributive mechanism, allowing young

men an opportunity to gain the wealth necessary to marry and start a family

and livelihood – camels are a source of wealth that is self-reproducing and

that grows naturally over time – while increasing the strength of one’s own

72 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 161.73 Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 287-288 ; Thomas, Arabia Felix, 235.

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tribe in relation to its rivals.74 One need look no further than Thesiger’s

youngest and most favored companions, bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, who

made a nuisance of themselves in his absence, establishing themselves as

feared raiders in the Dhahirah near the borders of Abu Dhabi, ʿOman and

Saudi Arabia. They were penniless when they first joined Thesiger’s party. By

the end, with the camels they bought with the money from Thesiger, and

using the rifles he gave them as gifts to gain more through raiding, they

were well-off – bin Kabina would have six camels after the first crossing,

before he took up raiding. Indeed, when Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud forced peace

on the tribes of the Northwest Rubʿ al-Khali, they were said to be chomping

at the bit to be allowed to raid once again. One can imagine that

generational conflict might have played a role in this – without raiding, the

elder tribesmen would have had a monopoly on the wealth of the tribe – but

this is admittedly speculation.

Conclusion

Many of the norms and practices common to the Rubʿ al-Khali then

reflect a broader concern for independence, social mobility, and a roughly

egalitarian social order. The extreme generosity discussed above, raiding

and the division of the spoils of war, certain forms of hospitality, the strong

tradition of consultative decision-making, dissent and independent action,

the selection of leaders by senior males, and the ease with which leaders

who failed to maintain consent together with a generally egalitarian social

74 Thomas, Arabia Felix, 231.

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ethic and the broad acceptance of solicitous behavior 75 combined to produce

a social and economic order that was thoroughly redistributive, in which

wealth and poverty were seen as transitory, and in which hierarchical

behavior was strongly resented.

However, while the social order of the desert can be described as

anarchic and egalitarian in a strict sense, due to the lack of central authority

and the apparent lack of an established system of law, the argument of this

paper is that it was in fact a thoroughly governed society. Widely accepted

norms took the place of formal laws; social pressure and the concept of

honor took the place of the state in legitimizing and enforcing conformity;

orality, tracking skills and the threat of violence from competing tribes took

the place of institutional means of surveillance, violence and control. This

begs the question of how coercive this social order was. Certainly the

potential for coercion was present. A tribesman who seriously transgressed

the established order was certainly at risk of being ostracized, being

excluded from marriage and family life, and was defenseless against

potential violence from other tribes. But there is little information now

available to indicate how common this was. Moreover, and more to the point,

coercion is a slippery, subjective state. Ultimately the only measure of the

coerciveness of a social order is how coerced people feel. Certainly, there is

little to indicate that the Bedu felt their society to be coercive. But the best

75 Here, one struggles to find an English word without a negative connotation, as the behavior is so thoroughly denigrated in British and American societies. But I am referring to the practice of asking for things outright – gifts, money, food, etc. It is reported by every visitor that the Bedu saw no shame in this behavior whatsoever.

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written sources in the most thoroughly documented episodes in history

typically fail to communicate this aspect of human experience. The present

study is thus incomplete, as is our understanding of the way of life of the

nomadic peoples of the Rubʿ al-Khali. The only recourse available to a

researcher looking for a more complete picture, then, is oral research

amongst those surviving Bedu in the states arrayed along the frontier of the

great desert. And such research would be fraught with difficulties ranging

from the now-archaic dialect these men and women speak, to the decades of

rapid social transformation that have shaped the greater portion of their lives

and cannot help but color their memories of events – let alone their

subjective perception of their lives before the advent of mechanical transport

and state control.

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