The half-way station of the pilgrim road from Kufa to Mecca (the Darb Zubayda), a walled place with wells and cisterns at the foot of Jabal Salma, where the Iraqi caravan leaves part of its provisions on the way out and finds them on the way back, and where the Bedouin sell camels, sheep, butter and milk (Ibn Jubayr, who passed in 1184).
The Tayy are its masters by force: in 1021 the Banu Nabhan of Tayy besieged a Khurasani pilgrim caravan at Fayd even after being paid off (Bosworth).
Who holds it
- Name
- not known for 1200
- Title
- not known
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not pinned
- Family
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
Ibn Jubayr passed in 1184; Bosworth, 'Fayd' (EI2) via Wikipedia on the Tayy.
Lord in 1200
Not known: the Tayy Bedouin of the two mountains dominate the country; the caliph's caravan depends on the station
How things stand that morning
A pilgrim station in Tayy country; no governor named.
Council
Not recorded.
Communities
Station keepers, Tayy Bedouin.
Fairs and markets
The passage of the Iraqi caravan (out about August, back about October 1200).
Walls and castle
A walled enclosure with cisterns (Ibn Jubayr).
Trade and crafts
Provisioning pilgrims, camels and livestock of the Bedouin.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Ibn Jubayr's description of 1184; nothing for 1200.
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
- Ibn Jubayr, Rihla (travels of 1183-1185), trans. R. J. C. Broadhurst, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (1952); Arabic text ed. Wright and de Goeje (1907) on archive.org
- Tayy (English Wikipedia, citing Hiyari 1975, pp. 511-517, and Bosworth, 'Fayd', EI2)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.