Page 43 - Arabian Studies (II)

TWO SOUTH ARABIAN TRIBES:
AL-QARA AND AL-HARASlS1
by WALTER DOSTAL

The Arabian Peninsula belongs to a region of the world which even
today remains ethnographically almost unexplored. Therefore, each
piece of information, even if not proved by careful and systematic
field-research, has a certain value as ethnographic data. With this in
mind I decided to present the following notes on al-Qara and
al-HarasTs, whose common feature is that both pertain linguistically
to those tribes who speak a South Arabian dialect differing from
Arabic, i.e. MahrT, Botl.iarT, HarsusT, Shahrl and Soqotrl. The
information which forms the basis of my remarks was derived from
two Qara and two HarasTs men — SaTd b. Salim b. Sahail al-QarawT,
‘All b. SaTd b. Ahmad b. Salim al-QarawT, Muhammad b. Sahail b.
Bakhut b. SaTd b. ‘AIT b. ‘Abdallah al-HarsusI, Salim b. SaTd b.
Ahmad al-HarsusI, who were in military service with the Trucial
Oman Scouts during my stay in Ras al-Khaimah in the winter of 1971.
By way of criticism of ethnographic sources, it is necessary to
allude to the quality of the data presented here. First, the data are by
no means complete mainly due to 1. the accidental nature and
shortness of the interviews, 2. the youth of the informants who were
between eighteen and twenty-four years old; 3. the informants’ long
absence from their tribal groups (more than three years); 4. the
distance of their tribal homeland and 5. the impracticability of
controlling their statements through further interviews and observa­
tions. In spite of all this I will try to present a summary of
information, always taking into account the conditions under which
I carried out the interviews. In order not to obscure the data they
will be set down first without reference to other sources concerned
with these little known tribes.

al-Qara
The Qara form one of the most important tribes of Zufar, who,
together with the Bait KathTr are among the rebels against the Sultan
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