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'Handbook of Arabia. Vol. I. 1917' [‎43] (52/748)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (371 folios). It was created in 1916. It was written in English and Arabic. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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&
CHAPTER III
)eiiigoil
idsthei THE BEDOUIN TRIBES
wards 1
i the Ac T his chapter is designed to give an account of those tribal
Irnan : constituents of present-day Arabian society which are essentially
latefti nomadic—those, in short, to which Arabs themselves concede the
under! name Bedu. The Bedouin (Bedawi type of society is the product
of desert and steppe conditions, and cannot survive long under
others. A tribe which has left such conditions to settle in an oasis
or other permanently arable land does not necessarily cease to be
a tribe, but it does cease to be a nomad or Bedouin tribe. Therefore
all those tribes of which most members now inhabit continuously
fertile lands or tracts of oasis character will be excluded from the
following consideration—such, for example, as the tribes of Asir,
Yemen and hinterland, the Aden Protectorate, Hadhramaut and the
South Littoral, Oman, and the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. (see Chapters XIV
and XV).
On the other hand, Bedouin constituents of Arabian society which
have passed wholly or in part northwards out of the peninsula are
included. Not having changed the essential conditions of their
life, but still ranging deserts and steppes, they have remained
Bedu. It would be unsatisfactory not to take account here of
the tribes of the Syrian Hamad and the Mesopotamian Jezirah.
They are regarded by the peninsular Bedouins as forming one great
social block with themselves, and some, e. g. certain constituents
of the great Anazah group, still pass at regular seasons southward
into the peninsula, while others have their own home ranges in
the peninsula itself. Moreover, many, like the Ruweilah, Dhafir,
and Huweitat, move habitually from one side to the other of the
border-line, and some, e.g. the Mesopotamian Shammar, though
they stay to the north of it, are integral parts of larger tribal
units still at home in the south.
For convenience, we adopt a geographical division of Bedouin
tribes into Northern, Central (Western and Eastern), and Southern.
At the outset, a tree of tribal descent from the Arch-Patriarch,
Abraham, will show what Arabs consider to be the true Bedouin stock.
To know this pedigree is of practical value to any one who has to deal
with Arab nomads, owing to the value which they themselves attach
to genealogy, the social distinctions which they base upon it, and
the estimation in which they hold those expert in its intricacies.

About this item

Content

This volume is A Handbook of Arabia, Volume I, General (Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Department: May, 1916) and contains geographical and political information of a general character concerning the Arabian Peninsula. The volume was prepared on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, from sources, including native information obtained for the purpose of compiling the volume, since the outbreak of the First World War. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the districts or provinces of the Arabian Peninsula and include information on the physical character, as well as social and political surveys.

The volume includes a note on official use, title page, and a 'Note' on the compilation of the volume. There is a page of 'Contents' that includes the following sections:

  • Chapter 1: Physical Survey;
  • Chapter 2: Social Survey;
  • Chapter 3: The Bedouin Tribes: A. Northern Tribes, B. Tribes of the Central West, C. Tribes of the Central South, D. Tribes of the Central East, Supplement: Non-Bedouin Nomads;
  • Chapter 4: Hejaz;
  • Chapter 5: Asir;
  • Chapter 6: Yemen;
  • Chapter 7: Aden and Hadhramaut: A. Aden and the Interior, B. Hadhramaut;
  • Chapter 8: Oman: A. The sultanate of Oman, B. Independent Oman;
  • Chapter 9: The Gulf Coast: A. The Sultanate of Koweit [Kuwait], B. Hasa, C. Bahrain, D. El-Qatar, E. Trucial Oman A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. ;
  • Chapter 10: Nejd;
  • Chapter 11: Jebel Shammar;
  • Chapter 12: The Northern Nefūd and Dahanah Belts;
  • Chapter 13: Settled Tribes of the North-West;
  • Chapter 14: Settled Tribes of the West;
  • Chapter 15: Settled Tribes of the South;
  • Chapter 16: Settled Tribes of the Centre;
  • Appendix: Note of Topographical and Common Terms;
  • Index;
  • Plates.

The front of the volume includes a 'List of Maps' and a 'Note on the Spelling of Proper Names'. Maps contained in this volume are:

  • Map 1: Arabia: Districts and Towns;
  • Map 2: Orographical Features of Arabia;
  • Map 3: Land Surface Features of Arabia;
  • Map 4: Tribal Map of Arabia.

The volume also contains fifteen plates of photographs and sketches by Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear, Douglas Carruthers, Captain Gerard Leachman, Dr Julius Euting, George Wyman Bury, and Samuel Barrett Miles.

Extent and format
1 volume (371 folios)
Arrangement

The volume is arranged in chapters. There is a contents page, list of maps, alphabetical index, and list of plates.

Physical characteristics

Foliation: There is a foliation sequence, which is circled in pencil, in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio. It begins on the front cover, on number 1, and ends on the last of various maps which are inserted at the back of the volume, on number 371.

Written in
English and Arabic in Latin script
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'Handbook of Arabia. Vol. I. 1917' [‎43] (52/748), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/E84/1, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100037114035.0x000035> [accessed 3 January 2025]

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