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

Madyan

The old town of Midian, with its rock-cut Nabataean tombs (the 'caves of Shu'ayb'), wells and palms, on the road down the east side of the Gulf of Aqaba.

A village and station in 1200.

Who holds it

Title
not known
Since
not pinned
Born
not pinned
Family
not pinned
Confidence
low

No holder named in the sources read.

How things stand that morning

No lord named.

Council

not recorded

Fairs and markets

not recorded

Walls and castle

not described

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Geographical tradition.

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. 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

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