The plain of Ja'lan between the Hajar mountains, the Wahiba sands and the sea, with its oases (al-Kamil, the Jalan towns), its herders, and the fishing coast from Ras al-Hadd to al-Ashkhara.
The tribes known there in later centuries (Bani Bu Ali, Bani Bu Hasan, the Janaba) cannot be shown there in 1200; who led the plain's people is not recorded.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not known for 1199-1200
- Title
- Tribal shaykhs
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
None attested.
What it holds
- Oases, wells and pastures of the Ja'lan plain
- The fishing coast from Ras al-Hadd to al-Ashkhara
Allies and rivals
Not recorded.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing.
Where the sources disagree
- Omani history between the Nabhanid seizure of power (1154) and the fifteenth century survives only in thin, contradictory chronicles; no source we could check names a lord, governor or chief anywhere in southern Oman for 1199-1200. Following the regional brief, the realm id oman (the Nabhanid kings of Bahla, Persia map record Oman) is used only at the edge of their core (Adam, by anchor); everything else is given to its own tribes.
Evidence: No source of the period.
On the map: Rough outline of the plain.
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
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.