Bedouin Culture
In this chapter I describe Bedouin culture in some detail with an emphasis on the visual representation of leadership. I also elaborate on the difference between the Bedouins and Arabs and the specific nature of the nomadic communities in the Middle East.
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Who Are the Bedouin? Returning now to the discussion begun in Chap. 1, the term Bedouin (Badu بدو, singular Badawi ) بدويmeans “person of the desert” (desert means al badya ) البادية. It has been used to refer to nomadic Arabs, and, though the words “Arab” ( )العربand “Bedouin” ( )البدوare generally used interchangeably, their meanings do not entirely overlap, as Lewis (1993) observed. The Bedouins are Arabs who have traditionally lived in nomadic communities in the Middle East, primarily in the Syro-Arabian desert that extends over a large part of the Arabian Peninsula. They herd camels, sheep, and goats, moving from place to place to gain access to water and pasturage. According to genealogists, today’s Bedouins are descended from two main tribes, the Adnani ( )العدنانيونof northern Arabia and the Qahtani ( )القحطانيونof southern Arabia and Yemen (Abu-Hakima, 1972). The nomadic nature of the Bedouins is at least partly attributable to the geography of the Arabian Peninsula, which consists of arid desert spotted with a few remote small fertile areas called oases among which they move according to the needs of their livestock. In practice, though, the Bedouin clans of the Arabian Peninsula can be distinguished as either © The Author(s) 2020 A. Bitar, Bedouin Visual Leadership in the Middle East, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57397-3_3
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nomadic, semi-nomadic, or rural. The nomadic clans consist of shepherds who live in the desert and travel with their herds. The semi-nomadic clans live on the edge of the arid steppe lands around the oases, frequenting small towns deep in the Arabian Peninsula and near the northern Syrian steppe. The rural clans live in rural areas that supply the desert towns that once serviced caravans crossing the desert. Bedouin communities are not confined to the Arabian Peninsula but are also found in the Sinai Peninsula and the Sahara. Arab Bedouin can be distinguished from other nomadic communities in the southern Sahara by their Arabic language and shared cultural and genealogical notions. The traditional, conservative, and patriarchal nature of Bedouin society forms a collective identity centered on loyalty to the family and clan (Al-Krenawi & Slater, 2007). A tribe is a social structure based on kinship (Chatty, 2010) and as such represents a kind of extended family, the roots of which may extend back for thousands of years (Chatty, 2010; Yaphe, 2007). Bedouin tribes are ruled by chiefs called sheiyukh ()شيوخ, singular sheikh ( )شيخa word that combines the meanings of leader, chief, elder, and noble. Sheikhs are assisted by an informal tribal council (majlis )مجلس made up of male elders. The members of a tribe are expected to obey and respect the sheikh and the elders, loyalty again being a fundamental tribal value along with genealogy (Mizel, 2009). According to Esenova (1998), tribes possess four main characteristics: (a) solidarity among their members, as expressed in the Arabic saying “I ag
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