Bali

Who holds it

Name

not known for 1 January 1200

Title

Shaykhs of the Bali

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 anchorages and wells of al-Wajh and Duba
• the hills and harras west of Wadi al-Qura

How things stand that morning

Present in their country; no ruler.

Wealth

Camels, fishing, the coastal road.

Military

Mounted tribesmen and camel riders under their shaykhs; no fortresses.

Customs

Kin-ruled pastoralists under shaykhs chosen within leading lineages; summer camps at the wells and the edges of the oases, winter grazing in the open desert after the rains; they sell camels, sheep, butter and wool in the oasis markets, take protection money (khuwwa) from villages and caravans, and serve the sharifs or the caravan commanders for pay.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Continuity of the tribe's location from early Islam to modern times; nothing dated near 1200.

On the map: Rough range.

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