The plateau that falls away east from the Sarat towards central Najd, with the oases of Turaba, Ranya and al-Khurma in their wadis and the old Najd road from Mecca to al-Yamama and Iraq.
It was the homeland of the Hawazin and of the Banu Hilal before the Hilal moved to Egypt and North Africa in the tenth and eleventh centuries; which tribes hold it in 1200 is not recorded in the sources read.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known for 1 January 1200
- Title
- Shaykhs of the Bedouin east of Ta'if
- 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 oases and wells of Turaba, Ranya and al-Khurma
- the plateau pastures east of the Sarat
How things stand that morning
No ruler or chief 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.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Earlier tribal geography only.
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
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.