The Sarat, the high terraced mountains running south from Ta'if, are farmed by tribal villagers; the northern part, south of Ta'if, is the old country of the Bajila.
Ibn Jubayr (1183) watched the highlanders of the Sarat (the Sarw) come down to Mecca in Rajab with grain, honey, butter and raisins, admired their piety and their wild appearance. No chief or event is recorded for 1200.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known for 1 January 1200
- Title
- Shaykhs of the Bajila
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not pinned
- Family
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No chief of this people is named for the winter of 1199-1200 in the sources read.
What it holds
- the terraced valleys of the northern Sarat
How things stand that morning
Present; no chief named.
Military
Village levies of the mountains.
Customs
Terrace farmers and herders in fortified villages under lineage shaykhs; weekly markets; they sell grain, honey and butter in Mecca and Ta'if.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Tenth-century geography (al-Hamdani) and Ibn Jubayr's general description of the Sarw.
On the map: Rough.
Primary sources for The Bedouin
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
Sources and studies
- al-Hamdani, Sifat Jazirat al-Arab (tenth century), the standard description of the tribes and places of the Sarat, Najd and the Hejaz, as used in the Wikipedia tribal articles cited here
- Ibn Jubayr, Rihla (travels of 1183-1185), trans. R. J. C. Broadhurst, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (1952); Arabic text ed. Wright and de Goeje (1907) on archive.org
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.