Beja

Who holds it

Name

Not pinned for 1200; the chief who shared Aydhab's revenues is called al-Hadrabi by Ibn Battuta (1326)

Title

Chiefs of the Beja (the Hadariba)

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

low

Overlord

None in their deserts; at Aydhab they share the port's revenues with the sultan of Egypt

How things stand that morning

Quiet; the Aydhab trade and the pilgrim traffic run.

Customs

Their own law and language; payment for passage and camels; the share in Aydhab's dues.

Assemblies

Their chiefs; details not pinned.

Overlord claims

Egypt claims overlordship and a share of Aydhab; in the hills it rules nothing.

Where the sources disagree

• The Beja are not Arabs; they are drawn under the bedouin realm id as the desert nomads of the sheet.

Evidence: Ibn Jubayr (1183) describes them; their chiefs of 1200 are not named.

On the map: A dashed outline of nomad country; its southern edge runs on beyond the sheet into the Sudan.

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