Most of the peninsula outside the towns and the princes' valleys belongs to tribes that answer to no prince, drawn here in one pale colour with each tribe's range outlined in its own record.
In the north the Tayy (the Banu Rabi'a, the Banu Lam and the clans of Aja and Salma), the Judham, the Bali and the Anaza hold the steppe, the harras and the oases' outskirts; between Mecca and Medina the Harb, the Juhayna, the Hudhayl and the Thaqif keep or rob the pilgrim roads; in the Sarat and Asir the Bajila, the Ghamid, the Zahran, the Azd and the Shahran farm terraces and herd under their own chiefs; in Najd the Banu Kilab, the Uqayl and the Banu Amir graze between al-Yamama and al-Hasa. In the south the tribes of Najran, Madhhij and the Yafi' hold the edges of Yemen, and in Hadramawt, the Mahra country and inner Oman the Nahd, the Kinda and their neighbours, the herders of the sands and the oases of the Sharqiya and Ja'lan govern themselves. Princes pay them for escort and grazing and fight them when the subsidies stop.
Each group has its own record. The tribes of the Syrian steppe, the Jazira and the deserts round Egypt, with the Beja of the Eastern Desert, are described in the Latin East map's record of the Bedouin.
Who rules
- Name
- Few named for 1199-1200 in the sources read
- Title
- No single leader: each tribe follows its own shaykhs
- Confidence
- medium
As seen from the France and Iberia sheet
The Arab tribes of the Syrian steppe, the Jazira and the deserts round Egypt, and the Beja of the Eastern Desert, are drawn in one colour because they answer to no prince: each tribe follows its own amirs and shaykhs, and none is named for 1199-1200 in the sources read. In Syria the Banu Rabi'a of Tayy hold the steppe: the Al Fadl between Homs, Palmyra and the Euphrates, and their cousins of Al Mira on the desert edge of the Hauran. They serve the princes as mounted auxiliaries for subsidies and grazing rights, and plunder villages and pilgrim caravans when relations sour.
The steppe of the Jazira between the Balikh, the Khabur, Jabal Sinjar and the Euphrates is grazed by Arab clans whose dynasties once ruled its towns. Round Egypt the tribes of the Hawf, the Buhayra, Sinai and the Sa'id supply camels, guides and horsemen, keep or rob the roads, and have been watched closely since the rising of 1174; the Beja, who are not Arabs, hold the country round Aydhab and the Allaqi mines under their own chiefs. Each group has its own record.
- Name
- None named for 1199-1200 in the sources read
- Title
- No single leader: each tribe follows its own amirs and shaykhs
- Confidence
- medium
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Few Arabian tribal leaders are named for 1199-1200; the ranges are drawn from the lie of the land and from the geographers before and after, as each tribe's own record explains.
On the map: One colour for many tribes that answer to no prince; each tribe's range is drawn in its own record.
Primary sources for this realm
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.