Page 20 - Arabian Studies (II)

10 Arabian Studies II
Ibrahim Saqr says that he will not be taken ‘into a safe-conduct
agreement, nor into our blood’ (viz. if lie kills someone they will not
be responsible for his crime).
There are still obviously areas of possible disagreement in the
interpretation of trucial oaths. It is not clear how the agreement
could be binding on the dead in the clause ‘alive or dead’ in both
Mehri and HarsusT oaths. This either means those thought to be dead,
or is merely a fagon de parler, an attempt at making the agreement
sound totally comprehensive.
It is difficult, moreover, to see why such trouble is taken to make
a truce agreement binding on ‘oath-breaker and oath-keeper’ unless it
is that a tribe or group will assume responsibility for the actions of
an oath-breaker under the terms of a sworn agreement, but not
otherwise.
There is no question of dishonour in a murder for revenge when
there is no oath to break. The HarsusT speaker says in another
account of raiding ‘When a man wants to go and kill someone who
has not been given safe-conduct and there is no truce, there is no
trouble. When he goes he is free of any disgrace. God will help him.’
The position of the travelling-companion, in most central and
eastern Arabic dialects ribV, is of considerable importance in the
social system of the tribal elements in the Arabian peninsula.2 This
importance becomes a matter of respect for tradition in areas where
a safe-conduct need not be arranged before a journey, but where lack
of security is still a factor in everyday life, the customs and beliefs in
regard to this institution, and the binding of such agreements by
oath, are very much alive and play an essential role in allowing a
splintered society to operate.
Among the Mahrah the ‘fellow-traveller’ is rlbay (pi. herbat) and
the term for ‘safe conduct’, namely, terbat is the verbal noun of the
intensive theme from the same root, namely rb\ A Mehri is
responsible for his ribay while he is conducting him, and if injury is
done to him he must see that retribution is made, as urgently as he
would for the closest of his relations. They have a proverb which
sums up the potential of this relationship for praise or blame, namely
arlbek selebek ‘your companion is your weapon’; that is, a source of
both strength and weakness, of pride or of shame. It is of course a
major source of humiliation for a tribesman to be despoiled of his
arms. A raiding party which has been overtaken with the camels it
has reived will quite willingly hand back the booty, but may
choose to fight if its members are offered their lives only on
condition that they give up their arms. This is said to have happened
to a party of Rashid when they were overtaken by the Janabah. The