Bedouin of Northern Arabia

Traditions of the ?l-?haf?r

Bruce Ingham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138190443
• eBook ISBN: 9781317278733
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This is an absorbing and authentic account, first published in 1986, of the history and traditional way of life of the Al-Dhafir bedouins of north-eastern Arabia, based on a study of their traditions, Arabic historical annals and the reports of western travellers over the past two hundred years. During the early part of the twentieth century the Al-Dhafir were a major power in the desert south west of the Euphrates between Samawa and Zubair. Beginning in the Hijaz in the early 1600s as a confederation of small tribes under the leadership of the Suwait clan, they have had an eventful history in which their tribal tradition records battles with the Sharifs in the Hijaz, the al'Urai'ir in al Hasa, the Muntafiq in Iraq and finally the Ikhwan raiders in the 1920s. They are well known for an almost quixotic adherence to the taditions of hospitality and protection of fugitives for which their sheikhs became known as the Ahl al-Buwait, 'people of the little tent'.

Chapter 1
The history of the Āl Ḍhafīr

The original home of the Ḍhafīr according to their own tradition was in the Hijaz. The first of the shaikhs whose name is recorded is Ḥamdān al-'Ama, Ḥamdān the Blind, who is nine generations before the present shaikh 'Ajimi ibn Suwaiṭ. Doughty states that their original home was in al-Ḩijr, from where they and the 'Beny Saîd' were expelled by the Bani Sakhar.¹ The 'Beny Saîd' he mentions could be the Ā1 Sa'īd section of the Ḍhafīr. The Ḍhafīr themselves were unaware of this tradition and only know that their origins were in the Hijaz. Their tradition states that Ḥamdān refused to pay tribute to the Sharīfs of Mecca and that as a result they fought a battle at al-Dāth [Text 1] probably in the early 1600s. The results of this battle were inconclusive, but Ḥamdān found it difficult to resist his powerful opponent and sought the help of Thuwaini ibn Qash'am, the Qash'am being at that time the most powerful tribe of the desert south of the Euphrates and significantly also led by the Qash'am clan who are to this day considered one of the most noble of desert families.² With the help of the Qash'am he overcame the Sharīf, but from that time on the Ḍhafīr began to move away from the Hijaz. A surprisingly similar story is given by Ibn Bishr of a disagreement between Salāma ibn Suwaiţ,³ the grandson of Ḥamdān, and the Sharif Ḥamūd ibn 'Abdallah in 1080 AH [1669] involving a confiscation of camels, and it is quite possible that both of these stories refer to the same incident. The incident involving Salāma is in fact the earliest comparative dating I have found.

Philby suggests that the eastward migration of the Ḍhafīr may have coincided with a devastating famine which visited Najd in 1674 and is referred to in the bedouin tradition as al-Jarmān⁴ and may also have caused the eastward migration of the Fuḍhūl from their home in western Najd. If so, this would be after their movement eastward from the Hijaz as suggested by their own tradition.

Map 2 BATTLES AND INCIDENTS INVOLVING THE ḐHAFĪR, marking the locality or the personage involved. (Also shown are localities mentioned in the texts outside the Ḍhafīr dīra)

Ibn Bishr relates two further incidents involving Salāma: his capture by Barrāk ibn Gharīr, the first Bani Khālid ruler of al-Ḥasa in 1676,⁵ and his caputre by the Sharīf after the battle of al-Abraq with the Fuḍhūl in 1696.⁶ In 1670 a further battle is recorded between the Ḑhafīr and Barrāk at Kaithān.⁷ At around the same time a war is recorded in 1676 between the Sharif Ḥārith and the Ḍhafir at Dhulfa'a in Qaṣīm;⁸ also in the same year the battle of Dalaqa between the 'Aniza and the Ḍhafīr.⁹ In 1700 the Fuḍhūl raided the Ḍhafīr in the Nafūd al-Sirr at Batra and in the same year Ibn Suwaiṭ attacked the Āl Ghizy in Sudair.¹⁰ In 1706 Dujaini ibn Sa'dūn attacked the Āl Zāri' section of the Suwaiṭ and expelled Ibn Suwaiṭ from Sudair. In the same year a further battle occurred between the 'Aniza and the Ḍhafīr at Khuḍhār near the Dahana in which Ibn Suwaiṭ was the victor.¹¹ In 1726 an unnamed Ibn Suwaiṭ is united with the Muntafiq on a raid into al-Ḥasa in which they were defeated. The catalogue of raids and battles continues, in which the Ḍhafịr are usually united with the opponents of the Āl Sa'ūd, in 1746 at Manfūḥa,¹² and in 1751 at Raghaba where they are united with the people of Sudair under Shaikh Faiṣal ibn Shuhail who is the grandson of Salāma. In 1753 the Ḍhafīr were defeated by the Bani Khālid at Sibila.¹³ Faiṣal is again mentioned in 1764¹⁴ when he is sent on a mission of intercession to Najrān by Muḥammad ibn Sa'ūd. Previously to that a number of battles and raids are mentioned. In 1757 the Ṣmida section of the Dhāfīr intercept and defeat a raid of the Amīr of Ḍhruma against Washm.¹⁵ In 1759 'Abd al-'Azīz ibn Sa'ūd raids the 'Askar section of the Dhafīr at Tharmāniyya near Raghaba¹⁶ and subsequently the Āl Sa'īd section at Jrāb between Sudair and the Dahana in 1764¹⁷ and following this the Miḥimra section on the Iraq borders in 1768.¹⁸ In 1779 the Ḍhafir were attacked by the Subai' at Ṣfuwān near Basra¹⁹ and in 1781 Sa'ūd ibn Sa'ūd attacked a large concentration of the Āl Sa'īd and Ṣmida at the wells of Mabāyiḍh at Mijwal near Sudair, in which the shaikhs Dahām aba Dhrā'a of the Ṣmida and Thawāb ibn Ḥallāf of the Sa'īd were killed.²⁰ In 1794 Sa'ūd ibn Sa'ūd again raids the Ḍhafīr in the Ḥajara²¹ and in 1800 the Ḍhafīr join various Iraq tribes including the Muntafiq, Qash'am, Āl Bu'aij and Zaghārīṭ on a grand raid into Najd under the leadership of Sulaimān Pāsha, the Ottoman governor of Iraq.²² During this period the oral tradition speaks only of the year when Faiṣal ibn Shuhail was the guest of Ibn Buraić at Bag'a on the borders of the Nafūd (Text 2).

The chronicle of Ibn Bishr next speaks of Shayyūsh ibn 'Afnān, the grandson of Faiṣal, whose son Musliṭ is killed in a battle with the Muṭair in 1805.²³ The Ḍhafīr tradition does not recall Musliṭ, but he is quite likely to have been a brother of Sulṭān, the most famous son of Shayyūsh, since brothers are often given cognate names. In the same year Shayyūsh was again attacked and defeated by Sa'ūd Ibn Sa'ūd at Līna where he was grazing herds for the people of Sudair. In 1805 the Saudis again attacked them and killed many of them at Fulaij near Ḥafar al-Bāṭin.²⁴ In 1809 Shayyūsh in the company of Durai'i ibn Sha'lan of the 'Aniza was attacked by Sulaimān Pāsha with levies of Iraqi nomads on the borders of Iraq. However, the combined forces of the 'Aniza and Ḍhafīr beat them severely.²⁵ In 1830 Turki ibn Sa'ūd attacked a group of the Bani Ḥusain between Wguba and Ḥafar al-Bāṭin.²⁶ In 1831 the Bani Ḥusain joined Turki in another expedition against the 'Utaiba.²⁷ These are presumably the same Bani Ḥusain who later joined the Ḍhafīr under Nāyif ibn Suwaiṭ, the grandson of Shayyūsh.

The name Ḍhafīr also occurs as a tribe of the Hijaz mentioned by Ḥamdāni as part of the confederation of al-Mira in the thirteenth century. Oppenheim regards them as probably related to the present Āl Ḍhafīr²⁸ but there is almost no evidence of a connection. The identity of the name is not strongly positive evidence as instances of the name also occur in the south for which no relationship has ever been suggested. In fact our knowledge of the beginnings of the Ḍhafīr is much the same as our knowledge of most of the present bedouin groups in central and northern Arabia, since a continuous record of tribal activities only begins in the middle ages. At the same time we begin to hear of the 'Aniza, Shammar, 'Utaiba and others. Groups that can be traced in name at least and to some extent also in location back to the early Islamic period are few. These include the Qaḥṭān of southern Najd, the Quraish of Hijaz, and the Ṭayy of northern Iraq; also, though with less certainty, the Bani Tamīm of Central Najd. The majority of the important tribes of the early period either left central Arabia to be absorbed into the population of the Fertile Crescent and the Gulf Coast or disappeared in name to reform into the present groups. Although tribal tradition usually links the present tribes to the older groups by quite definite genealogies, we have little historical evidence to support these links. In practice we have here to deal with an entirely new set of groupings which correspond to the beginning of a new period of involvement of Central Arabia with the more well known parts of the Middle East, i.e. Syria, Iraq, al-Ḥasa and the Hijaz. This involvement manifests itself to a great extent in contact with the Ottoman rulers of Iraq and Syria, both on the part of the rising Wahhaby state of Central Najd and nomadic tribes such as the Ḍhaflr, who found themselves in conflict with them.

It is useful at this point to review the history, as we know it, of the emergence into the northern desert of the main bedouin groups there today. One account is given by Blunt²⁹ based on information obtained from bedouin informants in the early 1800s. According to this version the Shammar began their push forward into the northern desert in the middle of the seventeenth century. They marched up from the Najd and occupied the Ḥamād, destroyed Tadmur, broke the line of Ottoman communication between Baghdad and Damascus and attacked the Mawāli, the most powerful tribe of the area. These they defeated after twenty years of war. However, almost immediately the 'Aniza arrived and, uniting with the Mawāli, pushed the Shammar across the Euphrates into the Jazīra. These early Anizis were the Fad'ān and Ḥṣina who were followed later by the Sba'a, Wild 'Ali and the Ibn Hadhdhāl clan. The Ruwala appeared at the end of the eighteenth century. An alternative account is given by Montagne³⁰ based on Burckhardt and Rousseau which brings these immigrations further forward, with some Shammar arriving in the Jazīra in the eighteenth century before the arrival of the Aniza. These were the Ṣayiḥ, Khruṣa, Faddāgha and Thābit, with some elements of Tūmān and 'Abda. These early Shammar invaders were then reinforced by the Jarba who arrived in the early nineteenth century and became involved in a war with the 'Ubaid of the Khābūr region. The Shammar according to this version had been in the Shāmiyya in the eighteenth century but were quickly defeated by the 'Aniza and forced into the Jazīra. Montagne³¹ notes that Niebuhr mentions them in 1765 near Hīt and Gubaisha dominating the Zaghārīṭ and Aslam, who are now however counted as Shammar. The war in the Jazīra with the 'Ubaid resulted in a victory for the Shammar and the 'Ubaid retired south to Ḥawīźa. Their allies, the Ṭayy-were driven north to Nissibin. This latter account agrees with the Ḍhafīr tradition (Text 4) in which the Ḍhafīr under Shayyūsh assist the Shammar against the 'Ubaid in the Jazīra. It is also based on accounts of the early nineteenth century which claim the events were recent. Montagne's version also admits to a certain vagueness as to what the term Shammar covers. Earlier invaders such as the Jais, Tayy, Simbis and Zawba' coming probably in the seventeenth century are regarded as of Shammar origin, but mixed with the original population and almost completely sedentarised.³² This therefore gives the possibility of a constant stream of immigration from the Jabal Shammar area from about the seventeenth century. This would include also the tribes of the Shammar Ṭawqa, Shi'as of southern Iraq such as the Mas'ūd, Zaghārīṭ and southern Zawba'.

The Ḍhafīr tradition tallies generally with the above account although little of the above is recalled in detail. They say nothing of the time before Ḥamdān, only that the Ḍhafīr came into being in the Hijaz as a confederation of different elements under the leadership of the Suwaiṭ. The component elements were the Suwaiṭ and Sa'īd who formed the Buṭūn section, and the Dhir'ān, Źuwāsim, Ma'ālīm, 'Uraif and 'Ilijānāt who formed the Ṣmida. The 'Uraif and 'Ilijānāt were associated together under the name 'Askar mḥalaf. All of these except the Źuwāsim, 'Ilijānāt and Ma'ālīm are referred to individually from time to time by Ibn Bishr. From the time of Ḥamdān it is recorded that they found life difficult in the Hijaz and began to move eastward (tḥaddaraw). Generally it is admitted that times were hard before 'Afnān. Tradition relates this to the fact that there was a shortage of able-bodied men among the shaikhs of the Suwaiṭ. Each shaikh bore only two sons, of which one would die (bass rajjālēn, wāḥid ymūt u wāḥid yḥaya). 'Afnān, however, had four sons and from then on the line was fruitful and conditions improved. One of his so...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Notation systems
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The history of the Āl Ḍhafīr
• Chapter 2 The traditional dīra of the Āl Ḍhafīr
• Chapter 3 The structure of the Ḍhafīr tribal confederation
• Chapter 4 The present situation of the tribe
• Chapter 5 Texts with translations and explanatory notes
• Chapter 6 Linguistic characteristics of the Ḍhafīr dialect
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index