Page 62 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 3

73
? THE central west
TR. as OP

It is bounded on the north by the Nasri, on the south by and
MSUk, east by the Sh^-h, ^est^the^en ^ Qf

southern Juhadlah.
, wells being plentiful, and they raise
their northern neighbours
nomads amongst them. lhe;y
cereals and fruits. There are no
favoyr the Emir of Mecca and can provide him with about 1,000
men. _
Hamsa ibn Mohammed is their chief Sheikh. ^ .
There is enmity between them and the Shalawah, and with the
Juhadlah they are by no means friendly. They combine with the
Beni Thaqif, Beni Malik, and Nasri in times of danger.

9. Tribes of the NE. Asir Borderla.A.

Certain tribes which inhabit the region between Northern Asir
and Southern Nejd (so far as this is not occupied by the Ateibah) must
be mentioned, although it is very doubtful if any of them can be
regarded as predominantlyjnomadic. It is certain, in any case, that
a large proportion of their members are partly settled, either in the
upper valleys of the inland Asiri wadis or in the Nejd oases ; and
it is probable that enough of them are now permanent cultivators to
deprive the tribes of the Bedouin character they once had. Com­
paratively little, however, is known about them.
The most numerous and important tribe is the SEBEI‘, whose
home-land is the ill-known region of Wadi Sebei£, which lies between
N. Asir and Woshm and appears to include the lower basins of two
of the great Asiri wadis, Turabahand Ranyah. Not only, however, are
settled Sebei' found also in towns and villages of almost all the Nejd
districts, but ntfmad members wander even east of these into Sum-

man, and over many parts of Eastern Toweiq. The nomad element of
lu oribe uum^ers least 1,000 tents, and is divided in allegiance,
he S&bei‘ of Wadi Turabah being tributary to the Sherif, while the
rest (the larger part) acknowledge Ibn Sa‘ud. The whole tribe is
either Wahabite or Hanbali Sunnite.
. ™be names of some seventeen sub-tribes are known, but almost all
in connexion with settled Sebei*.
Connected with the Sebei‘ and possibly constituting a sub-tribe
only are the SAHUL ;or Shaul), of which nomad members range
! ' and into Hasa. If identical with the SHALAWAH, their
home-land is Wadi Sebei\ But it is practically certain that they are
now
more settled than nomadic and have become only less a per-
manent element of the Nejd population than the Fadhul. They