The hot coastal plain from south of Jeddah past al-Lith, al-Sirrayn and al-Qunfudha to Hali, crossed by the coastal road from Yemen to Mecca.
In early Islam the Kinana lived in the Tihama south of Mecca; for 1200 the tribes of this coast are not named in the sources read. Al-Sirrayn and Hali are its small ports. To the south the Sulaymani sharifs, Ayyubid vassals since 1173-1174 and centred on Jazan, hold the northern Tihama of Yemen (Yemen researcher); how far north their reach runs in 1200 is not pinned.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known for 1 January 1200
- Title
- Shaykhs of the Tihama tribes
- 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.
Overlord
None recorded; the emir of Mecca's reach southward and the Sulaymani sharifs' northward are not pinned.
What it holds
- the coastal plain and wadi mouths between Jeddah and Hali
How things stand that morning
No ruler named.
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. Many are farmers on the floodwater of the wadis.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Nothing dated near 1200.
On the map: Very 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 al-Mujawir, Tarikh al-mustabsir (about 1225-1230), trans. G. R. Smith, A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia (2008): the Tihama and Sarat routes between Yemen and Mecca
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.