Khaybar

Who holds it

Name

not known: the oasis farmers (a Jewish community about 1170) under the protection of the Anaza Bedouin, with claims by the emir of Medina (not pinned)

Title

not known

Since

not pinned

Born

not pinned

Family

not pinned

Confidence

low

Benjamin of Tudela (about 1170); Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (thirteenth century) puts the Anaza 'in the regions of Khaybar'.

Lord in 1200

Not pinned: the Anaza Bedouin dominate the country; the emir of Medina's claim is not pinned

How things stand that morning

Under no ruler we can name; the Anaza are the power in the country.

Council

Not recorded.

Communities

Oasis farmers (a Jewish community about 1170), Anaza Bedouin, freed slaves and clients.

Fairs and markets

Date harvest in late summer.

Walls and castle

Old hill forts above the gardens (not described for 1200).

Trade and crafts

Dates, grain under the palms, trade with Medina and the Bedouin.

Where the sources disagree

• Benjamin of Tudela's 50,000 Jews at Khaybar and 100,000 at 'Tilmas' are not credible; the existence of the community is.

Evidence: Only Benjamin (about 1170, hearsay) and the tribal geographers.

On the map: The oasis and its harra; the Anaza's pastures are in Anaza.

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