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To cite this article: Ruth Kark & Seth J. Frantzman (2012) Empire, State and the Bedouin of the
Middle East, Past and Present: A Comparative Study of Land and Settlement Policies, Middle Eastern
Studies, 48:4, 487-510, DOI: 10.1080/00263206.2012.682303
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Middle Eastern Studies,
Vol. 48, No. 4, 487–510, July 2012
Bedouins are integral to the fabric of the Middle East and North Africa. However,
over the last 150 years their power and the extent of territory under their de facto
control have been curtailed by state authorities. This article examines state policies
towards nomadic and sedentarizing Bedouin regarding land rights and land
ownership from mid-nineteenth century Ottoman rule to the present.
The dynamic and historic relationship between nomads, tribes and the state is one
that has attracted scholars from numerous disciplines.1 While nomads and tribes are
generally seen as antithetic to the state in the Middle East, the Bedouin are viewed
both as traditional outsiders and as a national forebear.2 We compare, across the
Middle East, the relationship between state policies on land tenure and nomadism
and on-going sedentarization, whether forced or not.
In particular, on-going sedentarization and nomadism will be examined in light of
their impact on land rights and land issues in the various states. We assess whether
the ideological and cultural roots of the leadership of the countries have played a role
in shaping policy towards the Bedouin. We excluded from consideration those
sedentarized Bedouin communities that settled before the period under examination.
The notion of ‘Bedouin’ has, over the years, denoted both a nomadic way of life, and
a group identity.3 While we employ terms such as ‘semi-nomadic’ and ‘semi-settled’
we do so not as a continuation of an Orientalist or colonial objectification of the
Bedouin but in order to accurately convey the views of the prevailing regimes,
whether colonial or Middle Eastern.4 We recognize that Bedouin identity extends
beyond the notion of their mobility; however, our study focuses on nomads because
it is precisely those more nomadic Bedouin whose lives were affected by the state and
colonial regimes in the modern period.5
We relate to periods from the enactment of the Ottoman land laws of 1858 to the
present day in the countries that make up the heart of the Middle East: Syria, Iraq,
Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Other countries with sizeable Bedouin
populations in the region (namely Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates) are
excluded due to the constraints of space. The countries considered here, however,
provide a sound representation of both the political regimes in the region and their
historic relationships with the Bedouin. Although very diverse in many other
respects, most countries in our sample share heritage and language (with the
exception of Israel) and a colonial history as part of the British Empire (with the
exception of Syria and Saudi Arabia).
A number of anthropological, historical and geographical studies have examined
Bedouin tribes in the Middle East over the years.6 Whilst relating to this body of
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work, we also make extensive use of studies conducted by Arab researchers, and
published only in Arabic, which have generally been ignored or gone unnoticed
outside of the Arab world and even within their own societies.7
There is a void in comparative analysis of Bedouin–state relationships in the
Middle East. In addressing this topic, we build on Dawn Chatty’s edited collection
Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century,8
which represents an important step towards filling this gap but does not dwell on
issues of Bedouin land ownership.
In illustrating the changes in Bedouin–state relationships our study presents the
various policies, retributive and administrative, employed by the Ottoman and
European colonial authorities. Our research shows that in more recent times the
experience of the Bedouin has depended, to a great extent, on the ethnic, social,
cultural and ideological identity of the state’s leaders. We also examine the situation
in Israel and show that the Negev Bedouin’s relationship with the state has many
similarities with Bedouin relationships with other regimes in the Middle East.
military expeditions against the Anaza in Syria (1857), the Bani Sakhr in Jordan
(1867) and the Negev (1870 and 1891).15 Previously Ottoman rule outside urban
areas remained weak, with Bedouin tribes controlling much of the land in the region.
In the absence of clearly defined legislation governing the ownership of land outside
the cramped towns, holding remained with those who controlled the land.16
The first substantial change to this state of affairs was the introduction of the
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Ottoman Land Code of 1858 to the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire (except
for Egypt and much of what became Saudi Arabia). Reflecting an attempt by the
state to extend its control outside the cities,17 the Code led to a change in ownership
of village lands, particularly in sparsely inhabited regions. Large tracts of the land
controlled by the Bedouin were made available for sale,18 leading to a long-term
impact on the landscape.19
Syria, 1858–1918. Syria was affected by the implementation of the Land Code and
Ottoman military expeditions against the Bedouin.25 In 1868 a ‘Governorate of the
Desert’ was established in the northern Syrian desert and the Western Desert
(Jazirah) and governor Arslan Pasha was tasked with subduing the Bedouin.26 The
Land Law of 1858 was exploited in Syria by urban investors who encouraged tribes
to leave the land they possessed.27 Sultan Abdul Hamid II contributed to the
changing nature of land ownership by personally purchasing massive estates in Syria.
This led to increased government control in desert regions.28
Jordan, 1858–1918. Transjordan was sparsely populated country with few permanent
settlements south of the town of Salt in the nineteenth century.29 The land was
490 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
populated by a large number of Bedouin tribes, such as the Ruwala, that ranged into
what is now Iraq and Saudi Arabia.30 In 1867 the Ottomans sent an expedition
against the Banu Sakhr and their leader Findi al Faiz as well as against the Adwan
and their chief Ali al-Dhiyab after the latter had raided Hajj caravans.31
Land registration under the 1858 law began in the Ajlun district of Jordan in 1876
and land registry offices were opened in southern Jordan only in 1900.32 During this
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period the Bani Sakhr, the most powerful tribe, registered much of their land,
including ruined villages, in the name of their leading sheikh.33 In contrast the Balqa
tribes such as the Adwan and Balqawiyya divided the land among their constituent
clans, giving ruined villages (Khurbets) to many of the clans.34 However the tribes
were not able to retain the areas that formerly had defined their borders (diras).35
The Bedouin sometimes registered their land ‘defensively’ to prevent outsiders from
doing so. Norman Lewis writes that ‘when it appeared that the Turks or newcomers
might appropriate this vital area the Bani Sakhr reacted by proclaiming and
registering it as theirs’.36
The greatest contribution of the Ottomans in Jordan was that the 1858 law
provided for Bedouins and others to register their lands. Many Bedouin tribes such
as the Bani Sakhr and the Adwan were pioneers in registration in Jordan. However,
the 1858 law also led to the concentration of large tracts of lands in the hands of few
individuals.
some Bedouin sedentarization, but they generally avoided exploring the possibility
of registering their tribal diras. Some tribes such as the Subaih, who resided near Mt.
Tabor in the Galilee, did register their land and engaged in the buying and selling of
land from 1893.46
Arabia and the Gulf, 1858–1917. Outside of the tiny settled areas of the Hijaz and Al
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Hassa the land was controlled by numerous large Bedouin tribes estimated to
number some 300,000 in the 1860s.47 These Bedouin were split into alternating
alliances between the Wahhabi religious movement and its Ikhwan fighters and other
powerful groups such as the Hashemite family of the Hijaz. Between 1800 and 1918
the Saud family and its Bedouin were able to take control of modern-day Saudi
Arabia, making their capital the desert oasis of Riyadh.48 The formation of Qatar,
Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain was based on the same
strategies employed by Ibn Saud, the creation of a state constructed around a
formerly nomadic tribal family.
Egypt, 1882–1946. Egypt was under extensive British colonial control from 1882 to
1946.50 During the period the desert areas inhabited by the Bedouin remained largely
unaffected by many aspects of the British or Egyptian administration. Unlike in
Jordan, Palestine and Iraq, British land policies did not affect the Bedouins or lands
in which they resided.51
In Egypt’s Western Desert around Mersa Matruh, the Sanusiya Sufi movement
built 37 lodges among the Bedouins of Egypt.52 These religious houses encouraged
nomads to settle around them. The landholdings of these lodges were quite extensive,
especially across the border in Libya and they were concentrated around inland
oases.53
In Sinai the population, which was almost entirely Bedouin, increased from 4,179
in 1882 to 18,011 in 1937 and El Arish (pop. 9,706 in 1937) was the only sizeable
settlement. The Bedouin in these peripheral regions ranged across colonial borders
and received no recognition of their rights by the state.54
Syria, 1922–46. Syria came under French rule after a brief period of Hashemite
control and a sustained revolt. The borders were not recognized until 1929 by
Turkey and 1933 by Iraq.55 The French estimated that the total Bedouin population
numbered 500,000 in 1920 but revised this estimate to 225,000 nomads in 1924,
125,000 of whom were completely nomadic.56 This was out of a total population of
1.5 million people.57 In 1930 it was estimated there were some 130,000 Bedouin living
in 23,000 tents.58
In the 1920s the French Mandate authorities established a Controle Bedouin which
administered the Badiyah or Eastern Desert of Syria. The discovery of oil brought
492 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
further French interference in the Bedouin areas and they were ‘vigorously pacified
[and] stripped of their semi-autonomous status’. However private ownership was
extended to ‘large areas of the common tribal grazing areas’ and voting rights and
monetary compensation were given to Bedouin leaders.59
A Directorate of State Domain was set up to dispose of Abdul Hamid II’s estates
to private individuals, farmers and investors.60 In 1923 the French administration
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asked M. Duraffourd to carry out a general survey. By 1943 some 3.5 million
hectacres (35 million metric dunams) had been surveyed and ‘registered’.61 A 1926
law converted large tracts of government land in the ‘Syrian Steppe’ to state land
that could later be disposed of.62
Laws propagated in 1940 (Arrete No.132/LR) confirmed the ability of Bedouins to
receive land they brought under cultivation, a policy similar to the Ottoman Land
Law of 1858. The Controle Bedouin was encouraged to settle them.63 One writer
noted that this meant ‘the sheikhs have become wealthy, while the tribesmen receive
nothing, and lose their rights to graze their herds’.64 The 1940 and 1941 Law of the
Tribes both assigned ‘unregistered state land east of the ‘‘desert line’’ to the tribal
authorities, granting them title through a special emergency procedure’.65 Never-
theless, although the French authorities had it in mind to settle all the land of Syria
they left large chunks of land untouched and retained the Ottoman categories of land
(mulk, miri, matruka, matruka mahmia and mawat) in the Syrian Civil Code of
1949.66
A process of agglomeration of lands by investors and Bedouin tribal leaders that
had begun under the Ottomans continued in the French period and resulted in the
creation of a class of ‘cotton sheikhs’.67 This also led to impoverishment of large
numbers of ordinary Bedouin, making them more susceptible to droughts and other
challenges.68
Jordan, 1918–46. The British installed King Abduallah of the Hashemite family (of
Hijaz mercantile lineage, allied to Bedouin tribes) as ruler of Jordan in 1918.
Following skirmishes and raids by Ibn Saud in 1925 a border was established by
military force in southern Jordan and in 1930 a Desert Patrol was established under
John Bagot Glubb.69 The new borders circumscribed the Bedouin ability to migrate
annually and eventually led to the end of raiding (Ghazu).70 This was part of a
general trend across the Middle East whereby Bedouins became more sedentary and
took to sheep instead of camel rearing.71 During the 1920s the population of Jordan
was estimated at 300,000, of which some 120,000 were semi-nomads and 50,000 were
nomads.72
The Jordanian regime was built upon the support of the Bedouin. Besides
enrolment in military units such as the Desert Patrol and the Arab Legion, the state
distributed largesse to the tribes.73 Tax relief and land grants (50,000 dunams in al-
Muwaqqar and 70,000 in the Jordan valley to the Bani Sakhr and Adwan) were
provided to Bedouin.74 Sir Arthur Wauchope said in 1936 that ‘in order to avoid the
spread of [the Palestine] disturbances to Transjordan, we must begin to subsidize the
Bedouin tribes . . . [including the] minor Bani Sakhr sheikhs camped near
Amman . . . [including] payments to Bedu Sheikhs’.75
In 1929 a Bedouin Control Law was enacted in order to make this system run
more smoothly. It permitted the government to intervene in all issues pertaining to
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 493
nomadism. One aspect of the Bedouin Control Law and its Bedouin Control Board
was that it declared its intention to give the Bedouin ‘a fixed stake in immovable
property in the country, which will be not only an economic insurance but also a
social anchorage’.76
Dowson was employed by the Mandate to design a land regime that would
encourage settlement after the implementation of a modern survey.77 The Law of
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Land Delimitation, Survey and Evaluation of 1930 replaced the land law of 1927 and
between 1930 and 1935 some 243,389 dunams were registered. It was this law that
settled the Adwan and Ghazzawiyah tribes on 108,000 dunams and 46,000 dunams,
transferring land to private (mulk) ownership. By 1949 3.3 million dunams of land
(including all the musha or communally held land) were ‘settled’ or divided and a
previous class of state land (miri) was defined as mulk.
During the period 1918 to 1946 Jordan underwent a revolutionary transformation
from a largely semi-nomadic/nomadic populace to a state with numerous
settlements. The British introduction of modern survey and registration methods,
coupled with the existing Ottoman system, resulted in the registration of large blocks
of land in the name of individual Bedouin. The British also inaugurated irrigation
projects that had as their goal the settlement of the Bedouin and the improvement of
their lives.78
Iraq, 1918–32. The British occupied Iraq and established King Faisal as its
Hashemite monarch. It took several years to pacify the country due to the 1920
revolt in which 131,000 Bedouin tribesmen were believed to have participated. In the
course of hostilities John Bagot Glubb, then a British commander in Iraq, estimated
that 8,450 Bedouin tribesmen were killed.79
In a report to the League of Nations in 1931 regarding the period between 1920
and 1931, the British acknowledged the severe crises of land settlement and
registration in Iraq. Everywhere ‘disputes as to boundary and even as to the
elementary rights of ownership or tenure’.80 Dowson noted that many of the
Bedouin in Iraq believed they possessed the land in common but had only rarely
secured any rights through registration to their land.81
From 1933 deeds to land were given to the leaders of various tribes, whereas the
tribesmen received no rights to their land.82 A Land Settlement Law of 1932 revised
the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 but preserved the land categories.
New land laws known as the Lazmah Law No.51 of 1932 and the Settlement of
Land Rights Laws No.50 and No.29 of 1938 (amended by Law No.36 of 1952),
created a lazmah type of land and in theory put most agricultural land into state
hands. Some state lands could be acquired by showing evidence of ten years’ use.
Law No.36 of 1952 reduced this to three years. Law No.73 of 1936 and No.20 of
1939 allowed for the land to be acquired from the state for a simple fee if the ten
years had not passed.83 By 1958 some 32 million dunams were privately held (see
Table 1). Hanna Batatu writes that ‘the phenomenon of private or semiprivate
property in Iraq was, to a predominant extent, the consequence of the land policy
initiated in 1932’.84 The British policy of privatizing state land was part of a larger
process of privatization that was also carried out in Palestine where huge blocks of
government land (in some cases former Abdul Hamid II’s estates) were allocated
(through sale or concession) to individuals or organizations.
494 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
Source: H. Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement of Iraq (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1978), p.109.
nomadic Bedouin’.93 However, in the 1960s ‘the government started to see the
Bedouins as important factors in the nation’.94 One significant law passed during
Nasser’s rule was Law 143 that defined all desert land outside of towns (zimam) as
government owned.95
A drought throughout the Middle East in 1960 led to some of the first settlement
projects, as would be the case in Saudi Arabia. Cole wrote that ‘these projects did
not achieve their original sedentarization goals . . . houses located close together and
cheaply built out of concrete blocks were no match for the Bedouin’s ancestral goat
hair tents’.96
Since 1959 the General Institution for Desert Settlement (El Muwasisa El Ama
Litanir Es Sahare) has tried to use water sources to encourage agricultural
development.97 Nabil Sahi Hana reported that many Egyptian Bedouin were also
attracted to settle due to their proximity to urban areas (see Table 2).
Transformation from nomadism to sedentarization began after the arrival of
civilian government to the Matruh governorate in 1962 and the subsequent arrival of
the World Food Programme in 1963. Hana notes that one of the major projects of
the General Institution was the Nasser project undertaken among the Awlad Ali
tribes in the north-Western Desert, in an area about 520 km west of the Nile Delta,
that included 50,000 feddans (1 feddan ¼ 4.2 dunams) of irrigated land. An
additional area of 30,000 feddans was ploughed, and 60,000 feddans were allocated
for livestock grazing. In the area of Sid al Barani tourism and industry provided
income. Hana notes that ‘we see the improvement of certain industries, such as
carpets . . . [it] led to an increase in the average salary. Hospitals and schools were
also built’. A result was the irrigation and planning of 11,000 feddans of which 6,000
were given to the Bedouin.98
Thirty-nine agricultural cooperatives were set up around Matruh and by 1967
some 62 per cent of the Bedouin in the area were members. A contemporary observer
of the programme claimed that 4,000 Bedouin families were successfully settled.99 A
more recent study has shown that ‘Bedouin living in and around land reclamation
projects in the desert at this time were excluded from participation in the projects on
the basis that they had no or little previous experience in agriculture’.100 Instead Nile
valley immigrants were imported and settled, eventually making up 20 per cent of the
population in 1996.
Since the time of Sadat, there has been implicit recognition of wad yad land
whereby a person who has resided on land for 15 years must be compensated for its
expropriation.101 In addition, Law 100 granted land to anyone who developed it by
planting trees to create a farm, reflecting standard Islamic legal practice in regard to
land. In addition, Law 632 allowed anyone who possessed land without title before
1980 to receive title.102
Unlike the Western Desert the Sinai experienced 15 years of Israeli rule. Before
1967 the Bedouin were neglected and Sinai was viewed by the Egyptian government
496 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
1986 1996
Matruh 161,173 211,866
New Valley 113,405 141,737
Red Sea 89,724 155,695
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Source: D. Cole and S. Altorki. Bedouin, Settlers, and Holiday-makers: Egypt’s Changing
Northwest Coast (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998), p.11.
Syria, 1946–present. In 1946, the first year of Syrian independence, Albert Hourani
wrote that the best policy of the government would ‘be to assist the Bedouin to settle
on the land, since a region which is occupied both by peasants and by nomads is
certain to be unquiet’.109 Suspicions of the policy of ‘separate status accorded the
tribes’ by the French resulted in the newly independent Syrian government
employing coercive measures against recalcitrant Bedouin.110 In the Jazirah one
report noted that the Beni Shammar were broken as a people, forced to find work as
‘tractor and lorry drivers’ and that ‘they had moved south across the Iraq frontier
into the Sinjar region’.111
The government began to dismantle Bedouin privileges. The 1952 Decree for
Distribution of State Lands ‘declared null and void all possession by feudal lords
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 497
Year 1882 1897 1907 1914 1927 1937 1966 1972 1983
Bedouin NA NA NA NA NA NA 30–40k 45,280 NA
Total 4179 4844 7407 4430 15059 18011 100k 100k
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Notes: The figures for 1966 and 1972 are disputed. 1966: E. Orni and E. Efrat, Geography of
Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1971), note that only 33,441 people were counted in
North Sinai and only an estimated few thousand in south Sinai in autumn 1967, after the
Israeli conquest of the Peninsula. They note (p.381) that ‘Egyptian figures of early 1967 had
been obviously exaggerated’. This may be due to some Egyptians who fled the peninsula, but it
may equally be due to exaggerations by Bedouins and others given to the Egyptian authorities.
The Egyptian ‘estimate’ of 130,000 in 1967, with 100,000 at El Arish and the North Sinai and
the rest ‘spread throughout’ Sinai seems exaggerated and inexact. 1972: According to Frank
Stewart of the University of Arizona this census was flawed due to over-estimation of the
numbers of Bedouin both by anthropologists and Bedouin leaders due to their perception that
giving larger numbers of tribesmen would lead to greater benefits. Manashe Har-El notes in
his book Sinai Journeys: The Route of the Exodus that estimates in 1966 and 1983 both varied
between 30,000 and 40,000 Bedouins (see pp.114, 115, 122, 124).
Source: M. Har-El, Sinai Journeys: The Route of the Exodus (San Diego: Ridgehead, 1983),
pp.114, 115, 122, 124.
and other influential persons over unregistered land . . . if its area exceeded a limit of
150 hectares [1 hectare ¼ 10 metric dunams] per owner in the Jazirah and the
Euphrates Desert districts and 50 hectares in other parts of Syria’.112 Another decree
in October 1952 abolished the very idea of mawat land and one author claims it
‘abolished the last vestige of the Moslem [sic] conception of land’,113 although in fact
the land was simply converted into the miri category of state land.114 The 1953 law
‘allotted areas of land to tribesmen for individual cultivation, in the district of
Hassetche’.115
A new Law of the Tribes, written in 1954, restricted rights only to those Bedouin
who were completely nomadic, abolishing any special rights for those who had
become semi-settled. In all, 34 of these semi-sedentary tribes were removed from
enumeration (including the Afadilah and Wuldah).116
As a result of Syria’s unification with Nasserist Egypt in 1958, the Badiyah was
nationalized and ‘tribal holdings ceased to be recognized’ (see Table 4).117 The lands
became state land. There was ‘formal seizure of all commonly-held tribal land’ and
‘confiscation of the large tracts so recently awarded to individual Bedouin tribal
leaders as private holdings’.118
A project was attempted in the 1960s and 1970s which resulted in 54 Range and
Sheep Cooperatives (Hema) being established to help the Bedouin buy food and
equipment.119 But the new cooperatives were not created in time to assist all the
tribes and the Ruwala tribe emigrated to Saudi Arabia due to a devastating drought
in 1960, government suppression and confiscation of land.120
In response to the drought and the consequent massive loss of Bedouin livestock
the government turned to Dr Faiz Taiya of the Syrian Workers Organization (Hayat
al Amal). He initiated a number of projects including the digging of wells, the
regulation of forests, setting the number of animals each Bedouin should own, the
498 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
Source and notes: J.S. Jabbur, The Bedouins and the Desert: Aspects of Nomadic Life in the
Arab East (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), p.526. This is from a
report by Ahmad al Akkam, representative of the Directorate of the Tribes in the Syrian
Chamber of Deputies, he compiled this list in reaction to various measures enacted and
rescinded between 1950 and 1956 regarding taking away special rights for the tribes and
attempts to confiscate their lands. The study noted that while there were only 140,000
Bedouins they owned some 3 million dunams of land.
Jordan, 1946–present. From the earliest days of King Abdullah’s rule in Jordan he
understood that the Bedouin would form the most important pillar of his
administration. Jordan ‘admitted a large proportion of the tribes’ young men to
the Desert Patrol’.126 According to Norman Lewis, the army pay and pensions
constituted ‘the most important source of income of nearly every family [among the
Bani Sakhr]’.127
Jordan founded new villages for the Bedouin. It established new schools and
‘roads were built between these new villages and also between them and the
capital’.128
These projects began in earnest in 1959. Jabbur noted that there were 113 villages
for 112 clans for the Bani Khalid, al-Sirhan, al-Sardiyah, al-Masaid, al-Uzaymat, al
Sharafat, al-Shara and the Bani Sakhr.129
Some 11 settlement schemes were embarked upon by the Jordanian government
between 1960 and 1980.130 This was an attempt to sedentarize the last portion of
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 499
Jordan’s population that remained nomadic (7 per cent in 1978). Small communities
were established.131 One of the criteria for establishment was the sanitation of the
new apartments. The government built mosques, wind shields, schools and
markets.132 Some projects were unsuccessful, such as one among the Bali tribe in
which only 25 per cent of the Bedouin remained on the land given them. Fawal, who
analysed the various projects, identified three types of settlement: imposed
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settlement, independent settlement and joint settlement. He concluded that the ‘best
way is the independent settlement followed by a joint settlement project’.133 The Bani
Sakhr tribe was almost completely sedenterized by 1985 and one of its sheikhs,
Mithqal al Faiz, became one of Jordan’s largest landowners.134 There were a few
disturbances among the Bani Hasan in 1983 and in southern Jordan around Ma’an
in 1989 due to land price increases, but generally the Bedouin have remained a pillar
of the state.135 In eastern Jordan, the most deserted region of the country known as
the Badiyah, there remained some 2,000 Bedouin households in the 1990s.136
Recently they built stone houses ‘for consolidating land rights following state
legislative challenged to tribal diras’.137
One study in 1976 estimated that 6 per cent of the Jordanian population was
nomadic (i.e. 30,000 nomads).138 In 1929 the population was said to number 130,000
‘settled’ people, 120,000 ‘semi-nomads’ and 50,000 ‘nomads’.139 It would appear that
Jordan is an excellent case study of the almost complete sedentarization of Bedouin.
Iraq, 1932–present. One report soon after Iraqi independence noted that the
‘tribesmen have become share-cropping fellahin’.140 Irrigation and the settlement of
land titles was an incentive for sheikhs and other tribal leaders to gain actual title to
the lands within their dira.141 In places where there were large numbers of tribes the
holdings tended to be larger. Around Amara the average holding per sub-tribe was
6,884 dunams, the largest in Iraq.
The 1952 Amara Law gave the Bedouin special status as renters of state lands.142
By the 1950s the people were no longer nomadic. During the following period the
sheikhs attempted to take advantage of the law and take title to much of the land.
The 1952 Law for the Settlement of the Disputes concerning state land held in the
Muntafiq Province provided for land redistribution by compensating the sheikhs and
passing deeds to the actual cultivators of the land.143
The Miri Sirf Lands Development Law of 1951 also provided for the disposal and
sale of state land to those who would cultivate it.144 In the province around Mosul a
similar situation resulted in yet another registration of 1.8 million dunams to 6,863
holdings; however, large tracts of ‘the best state land’ were granted to Shmed el
Ajeel, sheikh of the Shammar tribe. He became the largest landowner in the
province, an Iraqi version of the Jordanian Bedouin landowner, Mithqal.145 In
northern Iraq a number of Bedouin were settled before 1953 on 1 million dunams of
state land. The Miri Sirf Land Development established villages for them and built
them wells.146
There were unique attempts to legislate solutions to specific problems at Dujail,
Amara and among the Muntafiq. Nuri Barazi’s 1969 study of Iraq’s Bedouin notes
that ‘there was a specific government notional policy to settle the Bedouin, however
there are no statistics to show how many settled after 1958’.147 He attributes the
settlement of Bedouin to the 1958 land reform law which was based on the Nasser
500 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
model and allowed 1,000 dunams as the maximum amount of land one person could
own. Barazi determined that 12,000 Bedouin in total settled in northern Iraq, which
is almost certainly an underestimate.148 By 1969 some 2 million dunams were
distributed to 193,000 people throughout Iraq, some of them Bedouin.149
With the rise of Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s Iraq experienced a series of
massive upheavals: war with Iran from 1980 to 1988, with Kuwait and the West from
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1990 to 1991, sanctions between 1991 and 2003 and then war with the US and UK,
occupation and chaos from 2003 to 2007. Attempts to understand land tenure and
the Bedouin in Iraq are frustrated due to conflict, including population transfers and
massacres. One observer familiar with Iraq in the post-Saddam era put the
population of Bedouin at 10 per cent of the country.150
Israel, 1948–present. After the 1948 war the remaining 11,000 to 18,000 Bedouin
were concentrated by the government in an area (Sayigh) of 1.2 million dunams
north-east of Beersheba.151 In 1960 the military eased its control of the Bedouin, who
returned to the labour markets from which they had been restricted since 1948. A
1969 census counted 36,800 Bedouin in Israel (1.3 per cent of the total population),
who lived in 44 settlements.152 Because of the unique situation of Israel and the
division of its various ethnic and religious communities, the Bedouin in southern
Israel, where most of them live, were not able to move to Jewish towns or villages. In
northern Israel Bedouin settled in Israeli-Arab villages such as Tarshiha, or
exclusively Bedouin villages such as Tuba-Zangariya and Shibli.
The Israeli government built seven towns specifically for the Negev Bedouin
between 1969 and 1985. By 2006 some 83,000 Bedouin resided in these towns
whereas the rest (76,000) lived in 45 unrecognized settlements.153 The legally
‘unrecognized’ Bedouin village is not unique to Israel but the phenomenon is
pronounced there. Out of a population of around 7.5 million in Israel in 2009 (not
including the West Bank and Gaza Strip) there were 193,000 Bedouin, about 2.5 per
cent of the population. In the West Bank the Bedouin population was estimated at
50–300,000.154 In the absence of good estimates, Bedouin may constitute as much as
10 per cent of the population of the Gaza Strip.155
Sources: For 1931, Mills, Census of Palestine 1931, pp.1–2; for 1947, Ad-Hoc Committee on the
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registration to people claiming rights to land that had not been confirmed by that
point. A separate law in 1968 determined that all land not registered and not
cultivated would revert to the state.161
In 1961, in response to the destruction of Bedouin herds by the drought, the
government established the Bedouin Settlement Project under the Ministry of
Agriculture.162 Some 29 settlements were established and 10 million dunams brought
under cultivation.
The government experimented with large-scale settlements at Wadi Sirhan and in
the Daphna desert, named the King Faisal Settlement Project. Begun in 1964 and
planned for 8,000 acres (1 acre ¼ 4.047 metric dunams) and 1,000 families, it ‘suffered
considerable setbacks’.163
The 1968 Public Land Distribution Ordinance (PLDO) provided for people who
resided on land for a fixed period, sometimes five years, to receive up to 50
dunams.164 Between 1969 and 1972 some 301,000 hectares were available for
distribution under the PLDO, although the area that was successfully transferred to
individual owners is not clear.
In 1959 Wilfred Thesiger estimated there were some 6–7 million Arabs in the entire
Arabian Peninsula, of whom 25 per cent were nomadic.165 In 1964 there were some
3.3 million people in Saudi Arabia and 694,000 nomads. Today it is estimated there
are some 2 million Bedouin in Saudi, out of a population of 21 million people, of
whom 200,000 or fewer are nomadic.166 The salient characteristic of Saudi Arabia’s
relationship with the Bedouin has been government planning and land grants to the
population, which in the 1920s was largely nomadic and which is largely settled
today. As in Jordan, the Bedouin were employed in the army, and in national
infrastructure such as the petroleum industry.
Conclusion: The Bedouin in the Middle East – Land and the State, 1858–2007
The determining factor in whether Bedouin have been granted extensive access to
land in the Middle East is whether the states they live in are led by leaders who view
themselves as having a Bedouin heritage – in the case of the Hashemites of Jordan,
being closely linked to the Bedouin. There is a mythical conception in the Arab
world that the Bedouin are the ‘true’ Arabs of old, but there is also marginalization –
a widespread feeling that the Bedouin are the classical ‘other’, set apart from those
502 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman
who, unlike the Bedouin, live in towns and for the most part practise a formal form
of Islam.167 Explicit evidence of this can be seen in the 1965 Arab League conference
in East Jerusalem, entitled ‘The Bedouin and the way to deal with them; settlement
and training’. It used pejorative words such as ‘civilized’ to describe the objective of
settling and changing the Bedouin.168 The ideas expressed by attendees included
drafting the Bedouin to military service, settling them near ‘civilized’ areas, building
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municipalities or military bases in their areas and building roads for them.169 Later it
would seem that most of the participating governments added to that list the use of
irrigation and the building of mosques ‘ and schools.
For the nationalist, Socialist or Ba athist regimes in Egypt, Syria and eventually in
Iraq, this has entailed an almost complete rejection of the Bedouin. For Jordan and
Saudi Arabia (as well as Kuwait and the UAE) the opposite is true, as the leadership
consists of families who view themselves as being not only more traditional but also
closer to the Bedouin. The late King Hussein of Jordan’s grandfather, King
Abdullah, was a leader of the Arab revolt of 1917, which was Bedouin based. The
family of Saud was of Bedouin origin. The Sabah family of Kuwait and the various
clans of the UAE were all tribesmen 100 years ago. This affiliation has resulted in
empathy of these leaderships in understanding the problems facing Bedouins.
In general, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have pursued policies that grant land to
Bedouin in exchange for sedentarization, full support for the state and enrolment in
the military. However, this does not mean coercion has not been employed by both
regimes to enforce modes of sedentarization and deter traditional Bedouin
migration. In the 1920s and 1930s both regimes acted to end the habit of inter-
tribal warfare and raiding. The background in Jordan and in Hashemite Iraq for the
granting of state land to Bedouin was the recommendations of the British land
expert Sir Ernest Dowson, whereas the Saudi Arabian initiative has been due to local
impetus and unique developments.
The
‘ role of the colonial administrations should not be ignored. The Nasserist and
Ba athist governments of Jordan and Egypt inherited policies from their colonial
predecessors. The importance of the 1858 Ottoman land law was extraordinary in
laying the groundwork for extension of government control to the region. The
influence of Sir Ernest Dowson was instrumental in establishing precedents and
recommendations. British lack of interest in Sinai and the Western Desert of Egypt
was continued by the Egyptian administration. The British establishment of the
Desert Patrol in Jordan and the attempts to resolve land disputes in the Balqa in
Jordan and among the Mantafik tribes of Iraq were continued after the end of
British rule. The French policy of neglect and extending forms of autonomy to the
Badiyah was initially continued by the Syrian regime but was abolished in 1958. The
Arab National and Socialist regimes established in Egypt considered the Bedouin
anathema to their dreams of modernization and land redistribution. The Bedouin,
rather than being perceived as an asset that could be readily incorporated into the
state apparatus as in Jordan and Saudi, were viewed as a threat to integration. The
Bedouins of Egypt, although their tribal members were poor, were seen as a
reactionary influence. In both Egypt and Syria the traditional lower middle-class
supporters of the revolutionary regimes, the urban educated classes and the peasants
all abhorred the Bedouins. Thus loyal subjects were recruited by both Egypt and
Syria to populate areas hitherto inhabited by nomads. Syria continued the practice
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 503
of settling ‘reliable’ peasants on Bedouin lands in the Jazirah, and Egypt attempted
to flood the Western Desert and Sinai with Nile Valley Egyptians. The Bedouins as a
traditional class of nomads
‘ were seen to be outsiders in the socialist world views of
Nasserist Egypt and Ba athist Syria. However, the Syrian regime of the Asad family,
being from a minority population in contrast with the Egyptian rulers, has sought
out Bedouin allies although officially denying the existence of a separate ‘Bedouin’
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and 1962 in the case of the Western Desert. In parallel, the Bedouin Sayigh in the
Negev and the remaining Bedouin of the Galilee were also under Israeli military rule
until 1966. The phenomenon of ‘unrecognized’ villages prevalent in Israel has many
parallels in Sinai, and one may assume that such spontaneous settlement would exist
also in Syria.
The housing initiatives employed by Israel have many similarities to those in Arab
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countries. The division of the Negev into Bedouin and non-Bedouin towns is not
unique. Neglect by the Israeli government and the inclination of Israel not to recognize
Bedouin claims to lands which were and are legally defined as state and mawat lands by
the Ottomans, British and Israelis is not unique. Similar nationalizations in the 1950s
of lands on which Bedouin roamed were carried out by Syria and Egypt.
The phenomenon of ‘unrecognized’ villages is also not unique to Israel. Bedouins
across the Arab world have colonized road crossings and turned them into shanty
towns. Governments in Jordan and Saudi Arabia have extended services to these
places, whereas in Egypt many Bedouin settlements lack recognition, land rights and
are often subject to coercion.172 There is inadequate information about this subject
in Syria and Iraq.
A major difference between the Arab states and Israel is that Bedouin cannot be
absorbed into the urban environment in southern Israel, mostly due to linguistic
and ethnic barriers. Thus there has been an increase of the Bedouin population in
Southern Israel, from 18,000 in 1949 to 159,000 or more in 2009.173 The natural
increase of Bedouin in Israel, among the highest in the world, is not vastly
different to that of the rest of the Arab world’s settled and former nomads. Saudi
Arabia’s population increased from 3 million in 1950 to 21 million in 2006.
Kuwait’s has risen from 152,000 to 1.3 million and Jordan’s from 472,000 to 6
million in the same period.
Previous to this study most work on the Bedouin has examined only small groups
of them and when researchers focused on their relationship to the state and land they
focused on unique case studies. Our research has attempted to synthesize the sources,
including local Arabic ones, and provide a comparative long-term analysis of the
Bedouin and the state. We find that the origins of the leadership of various states has
played a dominant role in determining state policy towards nomads. The Israeli case
is part of a wider regional pattern.
The sedentarization of the Bedouin and the extension of state control to areas in
which they traditionally resided has been the result of the extension of laws to these
regions. The period from 1858 to the present has therefore seen the increasing
exertion of the power of the state, initially with the1858 land law and the reign of
Sultan Abdul Hamid II,174 and later with the introduction of colonial law and
administration and the foundation in Arabia of the Saudi dynasty. The period of
independent statehood has seen differences in Bedouin–state relations with a general
trend towards complete sedentarization of the Bedouin.
Notes
The authors wish to thank Frank Stewart for his time and helpful observations.
1. J. Szuchman (ed.), Nomads, Tribes and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross Disciplinary
Perspectives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 505
2. D.P. Cole, ‘Where Have the Bedouin Gone?’, Anthropology Today, Vol.76, No.2 (Spring 2003),
p.236; A. Meir, ‘Nomads and the State: The Spatial Dynamics of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces
among the Israeli Negev Bedouin’, Political Geography Quarterly, Vol.7, No.3 (July 1988), pp.251–2;
L. Lenhart and M. Casimer, ‘Environment, Property Resources and the State: An Introduction’,
Nomadic Peoples, Vol.5 (2001), p.5; W. Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today, 2nd ed. (Prospect
Heights: Waveland Press, 1981), p.131; D. Chatty, ‘Mobile Peoples and Conservation’, Anthropology
Today, Vol.18, No.4 (Aug. 2002), pp.1–2.
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p.90, this story is told in full in S. Abujaber, Pioneers over Jordan: The Frontier of Settlement in
Transjordan, 1850–1914 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988), p.70.
14. A. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber, 1991), pp.100–104. This is a common
theme among all who study the Middle East prior to the mid-twentieth century. See, for example,
Lewis, Nomads and Settlers. Also B. Schaebler, ‘Practicing ‘‘Musha’’: Common Lands and the
Common Good in Southern Syria under the Ottomans and the French (1812–1942)’, in R. Owen
(ed.), Rights to Access, Rights to Surplus: New Approaches to Land in the Middle East (New
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Haven, CT: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp.267–338; B. Schaebler, ‘The ‘‘Noble Arab’’:
Shifting DisCurrent Courses in Early Nationalism in the Arab East (1910–1916)’, in B. Streck and
S. Leder (eds.), Shifts and Drifts in Nomad Sedentary Relations (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag,
2005), pp.443–67.
15. For information on the Syrian expedition see Lewis, Nomads, p.28, for Jordan see Abujaber, Pioneers,
pp.36–7, and for the Negev expeditions see A. Abu-Rabi’a, A Bedouin Century: Education and
Development among the Negev Tribes in the 20th Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), p.6.
16. For a description of one case in the Baysan valley see C.R. Conder, Tent Work in Palestine: A
Record of Discovery and Adventure, 3 Vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1878). Vol II, p. 69;
Lancaster provides a number of interesting examples in Rwala, pp.122, 124–5, 130. ‘Thoroughly
ugly, cramped, squalid, uncomfortable and filthy’ was Mark Twain’s description of Damascus;
however unfair, it is one example among many of the cities in the Middle East in the nineteenth
century. M. Twain, Innocents Abroad (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1869), Vol.2,
chapter XXI, lines 3–4.
17. H. Islamoglu, ‘Property as a Contested Domain: A Reevaluation of the Ottoman Land Code of
1858’, in R. Owen (ed.), New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East (New Haven, CT,
Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp.3–61.
18. R. Kark, ‘Changing Patterns of Land Ownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine: The European
Influence’, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.10 (1984), pp.357–84; R. Kark, ‘Land Acquisition
and New Agricultural Settlement in Palestine during the Tyomkin Period, 1890–1892’, Zionism,
Vol.9 (1984), pp.179–93 (in Hebrew with English Abstract).
19. R. Kark, ‘Consequences of the Ottoman Land Law: Agrarian and Privatization Processes in
Palestine, 1858–1918’, in: Raghubir Chand (ed.), Marginalization, Globalization and Regional and
Local Response, New Delhi (Forthcoming).
20. Lewis, Nomads, p.40.
21. See Census of Egypt, 1882; G. Baer, ‘Some Aspects of Bedouin Sedentarization in 19th Century
Egypt’, Die Welt des Islams, New Ser., Vol.5, No.1/2 (1957), pp.84–98.
22. They are estimated to have numbered 100,000 in the last years of Ali’s rule. A.M. ‘Azbawi, The
Bedouins and Their Role in Urabi’s Revolution (n.p.: n.p., 1986), p.7 (Arabic).
23. See Har-el, Sinai, pp.87–90, 114.
24. Cole and Altorki, Bedouin, Settlers, pp.67–72.
25. Lewis, Nomads, p.30.
26. Ibid., p.30.
27. Ibid., p.50.
28. D. Chatty, ‘The Bedouin in Contemporary Syria: The Persistence of Tribal Authority and Control’,
Middle East Journal, Vol.64, No.1 (Winter 2010), p.30.
29. C.R. Conder, Survey of Eastern Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography,
Archaeology, etc. (London: Committee for the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1889), Vol.1, p.291.
30. The Howeitat were recalled by T.E. Lawrence to have raided as far as Baghdad from their bases near
Akaba. See Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp.33–5, 413.
31. Abujaber, Pioneers, pp.36–7.
32. Ibid., p.33; E. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.90.
33. Abujaber, Pioneers, p.70.
34. Ibid., p. 68. See also M.R. Fischbach, State, Society and Land in Jordan (London: Brill, 2000).
Fischbach notes that ‘the Adwan divided up their lands among their constituent sections ca. 1760.
Around the same time the Adwan, the Abbad and the settled families of al-Salt divided up the
western part of al-Balqa into what eventually became several dozen villages’ (p.16). Also see ibid.,
p.51: ‘These were temporary villages which the cultivators only inhabited during the planting and
Empire, State and the Bedouin of the Middle East 507
harvesting seasons, after which they returned to their home village.’ Sometimes tribes traded
cultivation rights as was the case with the Bani Hassan and the Muammariyya (ibid., p.51).
35. Rogan, Frontiers of the State, p.88.
36. Lewis, Nomads, p.131.
37. A. Vinogradov, ‘The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.3, No.2 (April 1972), pp.123–39.
38. M.F. Jamali, The New Iraq: Its Problem of Bedouin Education (New York: Bureau of Publications,
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104. S. Lavie, Poetics of Military Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp.60, 74.
105. Ibid., p.76.
106. Ibid., p.76.
107. Ibid., p.77.
108. ‘Egypt: Sinai Bedouins Hold Anti-government Protest’, Associated Press, 26 April 2007.
109. Hourani, Minorities, p.117. He had previously noted that the Jazirah was populated by the Shammar
mostly who are mostly nomadic and breed camels. Some had sheep and become ‘semi-nomadic’
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(ibid., p.80).
110. Chatty, ‘Bedouin in Contemporary Syria’, p.35.
111. Warriner Land Reform, p.88.
112. Ibid., p.102.
113. Ibid., p.103.
114. Chatty, ‘Bedouin in Contemporary Syria’, p.37.
115. Warriner Land Reform, p.88.
116. Lewis, Nomads, p.163.
117. Chatty, ‘Mobile Pastoralists’, pp.37–8.
118. Ibid., p.503.
119. Lewis, Nomads, p.176; R. Jaubert, ‘Government Policy and Productive Systems in the Arid Regions
of Syria since the 1930s’, in Mundy (ed.) The Transformation of Nomadic Society, p.106. The 1968
programme created 46 Co-ops and was intended to reintroduce a ‘traditional system’ of collective
management of land. The ideas were based on observations in Saudi Arabia. A law in 1970 tried to
encourage this. Later studies found nevertheless that great areas were illegally cultivated. Jaubert,
‘Government Policy’, pp.106–7.
120. Keohane, Bedouin Nomads of the Desert, p.13.
121. Al Fawal, Tanmiyya al-Mujtama at, p.206.
122. J. Rae, ‘Tribe and State: Management of the Syrian Steppe’ (PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 1999),
p.221; Chatty, ‘Bedouin in Contemporary Syria’, pp.44–5.
123. Lancaster, Rwala, p.16.
124. Chatty, ‘Bedouin in Contemporary Syria’, p.47.
125. Ibid., p.47.
126. Jabbur, The Bedouins, p.530.
127. Lewis, Nomads, p.144.
128. Jabbur, The Bedouins, p.530.
129. Ibid., p.531.
130. Chatty, Mobile, p.20. By 1960 the population of nomads was estimated at only 80,000, of whom most
were in the southern areas of Jordan, around Ma’an.
131. Ibid., p.24.
132. Ra man, al-Tawtın wa-l-Tanmiyya, p.130.
133. al-Fawal, Tanmiyya al-Mujtama at, p.207.
134. Lewis, Nomads, p.143; Abujaber, Jordan, pp.75–7.
135. T. Tariq, ‘The Politics of Rural Policy in East Jordan, 1920–1989’, in Mundy (ed.), The
Transformation of Nomadic Society, p.98.
136. Rowe, ‘Agricultural Policy’, p.602.
137. Ibid., p.603.
138. J. Gulick, The Middle East: An Anthropological Perspective (Pacific Palisades: Goodyear Publishing,
1976), p.57. The Lonely Planet travel guide claims there are around 40,000 nomadic Bedouin in
Jordan. Lonely Planet, Jordan (New York: Lonely Planet, 2006), p.37.
139. Shwadran, Jordan, p.162. al-Barazi notes that there were 52,928 nomads in 1964. al-Barazi, al-
Badawa, p.212
140. Warriner, Land Reform, p.136.
141. Ibid., p.139.
142. Ibid., p.151.
143. Ibid., pp.155–6.
144. Ibid., p.159.
145. Mithqal was the Bani Sakhr sheikh of the Faiz clan who was the largest landowner in Jordan in the
period. Ibid., p.160.
510 R. Kark & S.J. Frantzman