Bedouin

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Bedouin
Total population

?
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the Arab League Arab World  ?
Flag of the African Union Africa  ?
 Israel 170,000
Languages
Arabic dialects • Bedawi • Najdi • Hassani
Religion
Sunni Islam, extremely few Bedouins who practice Shia Islam and other religions exist
Related ethnic groups
Arabs

The Bedouin, (from the Arabic badawī (بدوي), pl. badū), are predominantly Muslim, desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert. Non-Arab groups as well, notably the Beja of the African coast of the Red Sea, are sometimes called Bedouin.

Contents

[edit] Traditional Bedouin cultures

Traditional Bedouin
Bedouin woman in Jerusalem, ca. 1880s

The Bedouins were divided into related tribes. These tribes were organized on several levels—a widely quoted Bedouin saying is

"I and my brothers against my cousins, I and my brothers and my cousins against the world."

The saying signifies a hierarchy of loyalties based on closeness of kinship that runs from the nuclear family through the lineage, the tribe, and even, in principle at least, to an entire ethnic or linguistic group (which is perceived to have a kinship basis). Disputes are settled, interests are pursued, and justice and order are maintained by means of this organizational framework, according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility (Andersen 14). The individual family unit (known as a tent or bayt) typically consisted of three or four adults (a married couple plus siblings or parents) and any number of children.

When resources were plentiful, several tents would travel together as a goum. These groups were sometimes linked by patriarchical lineage but just as likely linked by marriage (new wives were especially likely to have male relatives join them), acquaintance or even no clearly defined relation but a simple shared membership in the tribe.

The next scale of interactions inside tribal groups was the ibn amm ("cousin") or descent group, commonly of 3 or 5 generations. These were often linked to "goums", but whereas a "goum" would generally consist of people all with the same herd type, "descent groups" were frequently split up over several economic activities (allowing a degree of risk management: should one group of members of a descent group suffer economically, the other members would be able to support them). Whilst the phrase "descent group" suggests purely a lineage-based arrangement, in reality these groups were fluid and adapted their genealogies to take in new members.

The largest scale of tribal interactions is of course the tribe as a whole, led by a Sheikh (Arabic: شيخ, literally, "elder"). The tribe often claims descent from one common ancestor—as mentioned above. This appears patrilineal but in reality new groups could have genealogies invented to tie them in to this ancestor. The tribal level is the level that mediated between the Bedouin and the outside governments and organisations.

Bedouins 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 the Bedouin, Bedouin systems of justice

Bedouins are well known for practicing folk music, folk dance and folk poetry. See also: Bedouin music, Ardha, Ghinnawa.[1]

A Bedouin man in Sinai Peninsula

[edit] Changing ways of life

BUSTAN Archives: Goats grazing beneath disused garbage bins in the government township of Tel Sheva, on the Israeli side of the Green Line.
For more details on changing ways of life in the Negev Desert, see Negev Bedouin.

Starting in the late 19th century, many Bedouins under British rule began to transition to semi-nomadism. In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as hot ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. For example, in Syria the Bedouin way of life effectively ended during a severe drought from 1958 to 1961, which forced many Bedouin to give up herding for standard jobs. Similarly, government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, 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.

Government policies pressuring the Bedouin have in some cases been executed in an attempt to provide services (schools, health care, law enforcement and so on (see Chatty 1986 for examples), but in others have been based on the desire to seize land traditionally roved and controlled by the Bedouin.

The Bedouins in recent years have adopted the past-time of raising and breeding white doves. The reason for this has in some respect been attributed to the etymology of the word Bedouin: Be-douim archaic Pheonicio-Arabic for be, "white", and douim, "dove".

[edit] Partial list of Bedouin tribes and populations

Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, late president of the United Arab Emirates, during Bedouin life.
A Bedouin man lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan
Bedouin camp with Birthright tourists

There are a number of Bedouin tribes, but the total population is often difficult to determine, especially as many Bedouin have ceased to lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles (see above) and joined the general population. Below is a partial list of Bedouin tribes and their historic place of origin (the list does not include tribes of Negev Bedouins (in Israel and the Palestinian Territories):

[edit] References

  1. ^ More in-depth discussions on these topics can be found in Chatty (1996) and Lancaster (1997)
  2. ^ Info on Tuba from Flags of the World Website

Al Majali (south Jordan) Strong Family played big role in history of Jordan http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/jordan/HISTORY.html

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin"
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