Page 10 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 3

47
NO! HE I IN T LUBES

xtencl far beyond Jebel ‘Amud and tlie sources of tho Wadi
not ^

** The loose confederation of tribes of w hich tho Wuld ‘Ali are
(imposed holds the steppe east and south-east of Damascus and
* the first part of the old post-road to Baghdad. Ibn Sumeir
|'iw uS the village of ‘Ain Dhikr at Tell el-Faras, some 12 hours from
Damascus, with the cultivation round it. A detached group round
Tcima the Fuqara and the B. Wahhab, arc also to be reckoned
,unong the sub-Vribes of the Wuld ‘Ali, but they have no political
ooune'xidn with them, a*nd fall under the authority of Ibn Rashid
whenever he i3 strong enough to exercise it. The Fuqara are
a small, poor tribe, with few camels, which depends for its livelihood
partly on the payment it receives from the Ottoman Government
for protecting the Hejaz Railway from Dar el-Hamra to Meda’in
Sali]i, and partly on a little cultivated land which it possesses in
the rocky Harrah of Kheibifr. The Billi and the Huweitat, with
their close allies the B. ‘Atlyah, are their enemies. The Aida, who
are the sheikhly clan of the southern Wuld ‘Ali, have charge of
a section of the Hejaz Railway south of Meda'in Salih.
In sumiyer the Ruweilah draw into the Wadi Sirhan or go with
the Wuld ‘Ali' towards the fertile Matkh plain, watered by the
B’arada ; but the volcanic Harrahs east of Jebel Duriiz are inhabited
by tribes hostile to the Anazah, the Serdlyah, a branch of the Beni
Sakhr, and the Jebellyah, composed of Ghiyadh, Beni Hasan, Masa'Id
and others, all allied with the Druzes. With these and with the
Druzes themselves the Anazah have always been at enmity.
The paramount chief of the Ruweilah is of the house of Slia'lan
and the sub-tribe of MuFidh. The present representative is Nuri
esh-Sha'lan. His own sub-tribe, the Sha'lan, together with the
Nuseir, who come directly under him, consists of about 1,000
tents, but over all the Ruweilah he is unquestioned autocrat, and
his authority is recognized by the Wulcl ‘Ali and the Muhallaf.
He is probably the most powerful of all purely nomad chiefs, and,
since his capture of Jauf, has shown himself a successful rival of
Hie Shammar. His son, Nawwaf, a convinced adherent of the
pan-Arab party, is his representative at Jauf. Though more
colourless than his father, he is better educated and is considered
hy the Arab Unionist party in Damascus, among whom he is well
known, to be the most advanced political thinker in the desert.
ehas the inherited interest in the Turkish question which those
0 ms house can scarcely escape, since it touches their own future
p° Hosely. Nuri himself bears a bitter grudge against the Ottoman
on errunent by reason of his having been invited to Damascus by

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