The Bedouin

by Read Listen Learn

The Bedouin

The Bedouin are world famous. They are the Arab people who live in the desert and move from one place to another. Their name in Arabic means people who wander and never stay still. If there is a lot of water and food in an area, they can stay with their cousins and perhaps with others from the same group, but when it’s hard to find something to eat or drink, the Bedouin travel only with their wives, children and perhaps, if they are old, with their parents. They live in tents, the only place that they can call their home.

The Bedouin often prefer to travel alone. Their brothers usually live far away from them and generally do different jobs. So, if disaster comes to one area, they can always get help from a different place where the problem is not so serious. They sometimes have herds of goats or camels or sometimes, if they live near the sea, they can get food from fishing. They also earn money by helping people to travel across the desert.

The Bedouin have very strict rules that tell them how to live. Their women live with honour because they never know a man until they get married. This is about more than just sex. They do not give their bodies or their love to a man. If they lose this honour, they can never get it back. Men have a different system. They must look after the honour of the women in their families and protect their homes. They must give food and a place to sleep to anyone that asks for it. It does not matter if that person is an enemy or if the Bedouin are very poor and haven’t got much food for themselves – they must still give. And the Bedouin must be brave and fight for their families and their people.

If the Bedouin kill another person from the same tribe, they must die. The general idea is that if you take blood, you must give blood. Sometimes, the Bedouin’s cousins must find the murderer and kill him. If they cannot, the killer’s brother must die. There is a saying about the Bedouin: “First, I against my brother; then, my brothers and I against my cousins; and, finally, my cousins and I against strangers.”

These days, there are not many Bedouins. In the late nineteenth century, many started to live part of the time in houses. This was because the Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Gulf thought the Bedouin were a risk to security and wanted them to stay in one place. However, the Bedouin way of life really started to change in the 1950s and ‘60s. In Syria, there was no water from 1958 to 1961 because it did not rain a nd many Bedouin left the desert to look for normal jobs. Also, borders have become more important. It’s not easy to travel – even in the desert – from one country to another. These days, passports and visas are necessary. Of course, for the Bedouin, there were no lines in the desert.

The change has come very fast. Until 1960, there were more Bedouin in the deserts than people in cities in Saudi Arabia. There are very few Bedouin now. And, so, the Bedouin soldiers who were the heart of the Muslim armies that carried Islam across North Africa and the Middle East are gone. Of course, there are good things about this: the sick get good hospital care and can often visit doctors; children can go to school and learn to read and write; and the Bedouin are not hungry and thirsty. However, a way of life has died.