Town · The Bedouin tribes · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Ja'lan oases

The date oases of the Ja'lan plain behind Sur, watered by wells and channels (aflaj).

The tribal names known there today (Bani Bu Ali, Bani Bu Hasan) are later; in 1200 the oases belong to Arab tribes whose names and chiefs are not recorded.

Who holds it

Name
Not known for 1199-1200
Title
Tribal shaykhs
Since
Not known
Confidence
low

How things stand that morning

Self-governing.

Charter

None known: southern Arabian towns had no charters; the lord or his deputy, the judge (qadi) and the notables answer for the town.

Council

Not recorded for 1199-1200.

Communities

Arabs; Ibadi or Sunni not pinned for 1200.

Fairs and markets

No fair dates recorded for 1199-1200.

Militia

Not recorded for 1199-1200.

Trade and crafts

Dates, camels, goats; trade with Sur.

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 describes Ja'lan.

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

  1. Persia map research file far.json (records far-oman, far-qalhat, far-bahla), after 'Nabhani dynasty', English Wikipedia (after al-Salimi)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.