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Draft:Modern history of the Negev

The modern history of the Negev is essentially a history of the Negev Bedouins. The international community widely recognizes the Bedouins as the indigenous people of the Negev, having inhabited the region since the 6th century C.E., and for much of that time, almost exclusively.

Since the beginning of the "modern era" is usually dated to the 16th century, the "modern history of the Negev" technically begins with the Ottoman conquest of Palestine around 1516. However, since the Ottomans, like the Crusaders and the Mamluks who ruled Palestine before them from the 12th-13th and 13th-16th centuries respectively, had little influence on the history of the Negev until 1841, the history of the Negev from 1516-1841 can hardly be separated from that of the 12th-15th centuries. Therefore, after a brief prehistory, the history discussed here begins in the 12th century.

The greatest historical upheavals, however, did not occur until the 1840s: From this time, the Ottomans reorganized the area and restructured the economy; from 1892 to 1906, the Taba Crisis and its prehistory led to a further reorganization and the creation of the Negev as a distinct region; during the British Palestine Mandate, Jewish Zionists began to immigrate to the Negev, and from 1947, many Bedouins were either expelled or forcibly resettled by the Israelis and subsequently oppressed. Consequently, the later chapters of the Negev's history are marked by ideological debates and are a hotly contested field, with several conflicting narratives. Discussion of these narratives, where necessary, largely takes place in notes.

Prehistory

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Main article: Ancient history of the Negev
 
Palaestina Salutaris

Before the immigration of the Bedouins into the Negev in the 6th century C.E. (see below), following the annexation of the region by the Romans around 106 C.E.,[1] the Romans incorporated the Negev, the Sinai Peninsula, the southwest of present-day Jordan, and the northwest of the Hejaz into the province of Arabia Petraea and later, excluding the Hejaz, into the province of Palaestina Salutaris, linking it politically and economically with the more northern regions of "Palaestina I" and "Palaestina II".[2][3] This territorial organization was not entirely new, as the Shasu nomads in the Late Bronze Age had already lived from the Negev to the region at the Gulf of Suez.[4][5][6][7] Similarly, during the time of the Edomites in the Iron Age, the area from West Jordan and the Hejaz[8][9][10][11] was likely inhabited by the same groups up to the Sinai Peninsula.[nb 1] With the Nabataeans, it is again certain that their territory extended to the Sinai Peninsula.[15][16][17][18]

 
Registered archaeological sites in the Negev Highlands.[19]
Iron Age: Edomite period.
Persian Period: Edomites relocate to Central Palestine.
Hellenistic/Roman: Nabataeans migrate to the Negev Highlands.
Byzantine/Early Islamic: Christian settlement wave and Arab expansion.

The Roman and Christian expansion into the Negev ushered in a golden age for the northern and central Negev: Ultimately, the Nabataean desert towns evolved into large agricultural villages,[20] and the entire central Negev was dotted with hundreds of smaller agricultural villages and farms. From the 6th century onward,[21] and increasingly following the Islamic expansion in the 7th century, Arab Bedouins began to settle primarily in the central and southern Negev. Concurrently, starting around this time and partly due to the Islamic expansion, the region underwent another transformation. By the 11th century, the desert towns gradually declined[22][23][24][25] and with the migration of Christians to northern Palestine or back to Europe, the population of the Negev gradually arabized, ruralized, and nomadized (→ Ancient history of the Negev). By the 12th century, the Negev had become a region inhabited solely by semi-nomadic and predominantly Muslim Bedouins.[26]

External image
  The Egyptian Hajj route.[27]

This initially changed little in the Roman territorial organization. In mental geography, the Sinai and the Negev were seen by the sedentary population as a transit area: for Christians, a transit area with a north-south axis from Palestine along the Arabah valley on the Negev's eastern fringes to Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai,[28][29] for early Muslims, a transit area with a west-east axis along the Egyptian Hajj route from Suez ("Qulzum") via Nakhl (and smaller waystations) to Aqaba and from there further to Medina and Mekka,[30] and another west-east axis along the Via Maris on the Mediterranean coast,[31] facilitating trade between Egypt and Palestine. These three axes remained significant over the centuries, were further consolidated, and soon played an important role in the history of the Negev.

Therefore, Arabs made a biblical and quranic distinction between "Al Jifâr," corresponding to the Via Maris waystations along the coast, reaching from the Lake of Tinnis to Rafah,[32][33] and the "Fahs al Tih" (the "Area of the Wanderings [of the Israelites in Moses' time]"), which extended over the rest of the Sinai Peninsula (including the Negev) down to Jabal Musa as the assumed Mount Sinai. However, politically, both areas were usually considered part of "Filastin".[34]

12th to early 19th centuries

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Crusader and Ayyubid period (12th to 13th century)

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Negev and surrounding regions

Not much is known about the history and territorial affiliation of the Negev during the time of the Crusaders. It is certain that west of the Jordan river, the line from Deir al-Balah ("Darom") to Al-Karmil was the southern boundary of the area settled by Europeans.[35] Beyond this boundary lay "La Grande Berrie," the "Great Desert," of which the Negev was a part. However, whether this area was entirely outside the European domain[36] or should be considered a vast border region[37] remains unclear.

It is certain, at least, that the Crusader castles east of the Jordan River, which stretched further south along the Christian pilgrimage route and were known as Oultrejordain, served as a wedge between the western and eastern Muslim settlement areas,[38][39][40][41] from where, among other things, the west-east Hajj route was obstructed by raiding the Muslim pilgrims.[42] Thus, during the 12th century, at least the Sinai and Negev on one side, and Jordan and Hejaz on the other, were somewhat separated. Accordingly, towards the end of the first Christian Crusader period (1171), Theoderich of Würzburg distinguishes between "Arabia" to the east of the Jordan river and the desert "between Arabia and Egypt" to the west.[43]

Already the Ayyubids seem to have largely restored the old territorial order: Sometime around 1231 A.D., when Oultrejourdain was under Ayyubid rule, Ernoul writes that in the north the River Jordan "divides the land of the Saracens and of the Christians, just as it runs," while in the south, for example, Mount Sinai "is in the land of the Lord of [east Jordanian] Crac [=Al-Karak]."[44][45]

Mamluk and early Ottoman periods (13th to early 16th and 16th to early 20th century)

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Territorial history

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Map by Abraham Ortelius, late 16th century.
 
Map by Johann Homann, early 18th century.
Two Ottoman period maps. The province of Hejaz is called "Arabia Petraea", as usual on Europeans maps.

Most contemporary sources consistently report the same territorial order for the Mamluk period.[46][47][48][49][50][51][45] According to these sources, the aforementioned province continuously included the East Jordanian shore between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, the Negev, and central and southern Sinai.

However, since the northern and southern extents in the east differ in various sources, since al-Maqrīzī refers to the province as Midian ("Madyan") instead of "Karak" based on a more southern city,[50][52] and since some sources include the region of al-Jifâr in the northern Sinai in this province while others do not,[53] it appears that the provincial borders and centers shifted multiple times during the Mamluk period.

Generally, however, it can be said that during the Mamluk period, the Negev and Sinai consistently formed a single region that politically did not belong to the northern Palestine, whose southern end continued to lie at the level of Deir el-Balah and Bayt Jibrin.[54][55] Instead, as before, it was usually combined with the East Jordanian territories.

 
Map by John Cary, 1811.
 
Map by Heinrich Berghaus, 1835.
Two Ottoman period maps. Cary's map largely corresponds to Homann's map, see above. On Berghaus' map, the green border marks the Gaza District, now extending down to Nakhl. The southern Negev and Sinai are at the same time called "Sicka el Hedjas" and depicted in red as part of Egypt, reflecting Egypt's conquest in the 1830s.

This was also the territorial order that the Ottomans later adopted from the Mamluks; now, Sinai, Negev, southwestern Jordan and the Hejaz were called "Province of Hijjaz."[56] However, towards the end of the Ottoman period, the southern territorial boundaries of Palestine became unclear, even to the Ottomans themselves.[57] Parts of the Negev and northeastern Sinai were at times instead included within the frequently shifting[58][59] boundaries of the Gaza District. These territorial fluctuations intensified when the Egyptians briefly gained control over Sinai and Palestine in the 1830s. This triggered nearly 70 years of territorial disputes between the Ottomans and the British in Egypt, beginning in the 1840s (→ Taba Crisis), after the Egyptians had been pushed back to their own territory.[60][61] Only towards the end of this border dispute, from 1892 to 1906, was the Negev gradually separated as a distinct area from the rest of the Sinai Peninusla. It was also only during this time that the words "Negev" and "Negeb" entered the vocabulary as a toponym for a distinct region in languages such as English, German, and French.[62] Earlier, even the biblical Hebrew word was not recognized in Bible translations as toponym and instead translated as "southwards" or "the South."[63][64][65]

Bedouin presence and land use during the Mamluk and early Ottoman periods

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Recently, the question of the historical presence of Bedouins in the Negev has turned into a politically contentious issue, because the Negev Bedouins are now recognized as "indigenous peoples" by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and with a "near consensus"[66] by the international community, as they are said to

[...] have inhabited the area known as Negev since the seventh century, maintaining a semi-nomadic lifestyle, engaging in subsistence farming and raising livestock. Their land use practices were governed by an intricate system of customary land and water distribution and management. [...] The Special Rapporteur considers there to be strong indications that Bedouin people have rights to certain areas of the Negev based on their longstanding land use and occupancy, under contemporary international standards. It is undisputed that the Bedouin have used and occupied lands within the Negev desert long before the establishment of the State of Israel and that they have continued through the present to inhabit the Negev, maintaining their culturally-distinctive land tenure and way of life.

— James Anaya, 2011[67]

As a result, some scholars and organizations, particularly Israeli ones, have now begun to argue against the early or continuous presence of Bedouins in the Negev, asserting that the Bedouins are not "indigenous" and do not possess indigenous rights.[68][69] Therefore, it is necessary to explore this issue in more detail.

Early land use
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Depending on the archaeological or historical method applied, historians come to two different conclusions regarding the land use of the Negev during the Mamluk and early Ottoman periods: (1) Classical archaeologists, who primarily rely on building remains and period-specific pottery to reconstruct the Negev's history, believe that Bedouins largely abandoned the Negev between the 12th and 16th/18th centuries, as typical Mamluk pottery ("Handmade Ware")[70] is found almost exclusively in the northern Negev east of Rafah and in the eastern parts of the biblical Negev,[71] while it is largely absent in the central and southern Negev, where only pottery typical of the Ottoman period ("Gaza Ware")[72] reappears.[73][74][75][76] Proponents of this position generally also assume that Bedouins only re-learned agriculture from more sedentary cultures in the late 19th or even the 20th century, and only began practicing it themselves due to the sedentarization policies initiated by the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, and later continued by British and even Israeli policies.[77][78][79][80]

However, the absence of building remains and pottery is not suprising: Contemporary pilgrims consistently reported that the Bedouins resided in tents[81][82][83] and used waterskins instead of pottery.[84] In contrast, (2) recent archaeological research using newer methods as Radiocarbon dating, Luminescence dating, and Landscape archaeology suggests that, in agreement with contemporary documents and Bedouin oral history, significant numbers of Bedouins were still present also in the central and southern Negev and — unlike the Bedouins in the rest of the Sinai Peninsula[85] — "cultivated some of the best-preserved agricultural plots and primarily grew annual crops, such as cereals, and occasionally also managed small plots of fruit trees."[86][nb 2]

Individual Bedouin tribes and territorial histories
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The history of the Bedouins is poorly researched. This research is particularly hindered by three factors: First, the Bedouins did not have a written culture, so reconstructing Bedouin history relies on Bedouin oral history, individual tribal legends, scattered local traditions, and sparse mentions in the writings of other peoples. Second, the history is extremely complex: In the early 20th century, 95 Bedouin tribes living in the Negev at that time were known, which had formed into a few tribal confederations. Individual tribes often reorganized, with clans living in different locations and sometimes belonging to multiple tribal confederations simultaneously. Reconstructing the history of each tribe separately is nearly impossible, and such an endeavor has not yet been attempted. Therefore, what follows is not a comprehensive overview of the Bedouins during the Mamluk and Ottoman period, but rather a collection of significant historical fragments.

Third: Despite frequent migrations and border wars, Bedouin tribes had shifting but well-defined territories, called dirah. Land ownership was governed by a set of Bedouin laws, which were enforced both at the community and individual levels by the tribes collectively:[97][98]

  • Invading tribes from outside could be allowed to stay in the tribal territory. If they entered without such permission, they would be expelled by a coalition of the native tribes.
  • Individuals had land rights only within their tribal territory. Land was acquired by developing unused farmland, through the removal of stones ("stoning"). A field cleared of stones was considered private property. Usually, half of an owner's lands lay fallow each year as part of a crop rotation system.[99] Additionally, an owner could decide not to cultivate fields for several years if there were not enough pasture plants for his animals in the surrounding area due to a drought. If another individual successfully cultivated a field in the owner's absence over several years, the owner was usually informed by neighboring field owners and a property dispute arose. This was adjudicated by a council of judges called "ahl ad-diyār" ("people of the lands"), typically chosen from tribes other than the one to which both parties belonged.
 
Bedouin tribal territories in the early 20th century.[100]

However, due to the nature of the evidence regarding Bedouin history, only the migrations themselves can be reconstructed for the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, but not the resulting dirah boundaries. It is only in the early 20th century that the territorial organization of the Bedouins can be more precisely defined.

Early tribes
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It is certain that the Bedouin tribes whose presence in the Negev is confirmed by contemporary documents from the early Islamic period were predominantly not the same as the Bedouin tribes of modern times.[101] There are some notable exceptions:

  • The Bilī,[102][103] from which the Zullam emerged.[104][105] Today, the Bilī themselves are partly a sub-tribe of the Tiyaha confederation and partly living in northwestern Sinai.
  • The Jerawin,[106] of which some clans today form a sub-tribe of the Tiyaha and others a sub-tribe of the Tarabin confederation. Both of these tribes can be traced back to the pre-Islamic period.
  • The main tribe of the Jabarat[107] and
  • the Banu Judham,[108] from which the Banu Uqba (see below) emerged,[109] are attested in the region of Palestine since the early Islamic period.
  • The Amarīn and
  • the Rutaymat both descended from Palestinian village populations and later joined the Jabarat confederation.[110][111]

The historical roots of several of the large tribal confederations of modern times, on the other hand, seem to lie in the Mamluk period, during which a major tribal migration took place. In the early Mamluk period, the Jarm, who were already documented during the Crusader era,[112] were the dominant tribe in the Negev. During the Mamluk period, they were displaced by other tribes (however, according to early Ottoman tax registers from the 16th century, they either continued to live east of Gaza or returned there later[113][95]).

Masa'id, Banu Uqba, Banu Attiya, and Wuhaydat
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Before the 13th century, parts of the Masa'id migrated from today's Saudi Arabia to the region of the Gulf of Aqaba, east of the Jordan river, where they encountered the Banu Uqba. Starting from the 13th century, when the Banu Attiya also migrated to the Aqaba region from Saudi Arabia,[114] parts of these two tribes moved further into present-day Israel, where the Masa'id briefly replaced the Jarm as the dominant tribe in the Negev. However, when the Mamluks attempted to impose a tax on them, the Masa'id revolted and formed a sort of state within a state, which also deprived the Mamluks of the taxes from surrounding villages. After their tribal leader, Shaykh Sulayman, was killed in the ensuing battles with the Mamluks, the Masa'id dispersed once again, making room for new tribal migrations. The grave of Sulayman near Rafah still bears witness to their stay in the Gaza region (see the map).[115] The Aheiwat, who were still living in the southern Negev and neighboring Sinai regions in the 20th century, claim to have emerged from the Masa'id. If this is accurate, this emergence must have occurred before the mid-16th century, as they were already distinguished at that time by al-Jaziri,[116] and as they are attested as a separate tribe in documents of the Saint Catherine's monastery as early as 1605.[117]

Both the Tarabin and the Wuhaydat are apparently descended from the Banu Attiya. Both must have emerged from them before the 16th century, as the veneration of the grave of their last common ancestor, Shaykh Attiya (see the map, southwest of Aqaba), is already documented at this time.[118][119][120][121] After the dispersal of the Masa'id, the Wuhaydat became the dominant tribe in the Negev during the Ottoman period.[122] According to the traditions of the Banu Uqba and the Masa'id, who migrated to the Negev together (see above), the Wuhaydat were already present when they arrived.[123] If this is accurate, the Wuhaydat's migration must have taken place shortly before their migration in the 13th century. In the 19th century, parts of the Wuhaydat were a sub-tribe of the Jabarat, other parts a sub-tribe of the Tarabin,[124] and in the early 20th century, Musil reported Wuhaydat "living with the Tiyaha."[125]

The Banu Attiya are first documented in Palestine by Ibn Iyas. He reports that in 1520, they fought alongside the Banu Aṭa and the Sawālima on the side of the Ottomans when Janbirdi al-Ghazali revolted against them after the Ottomans had conquered the Mamluk Empire a few years earlier.[126] In tax lists from the beginning to the end of the 16th century, these three tribes are recorded east of Gaza.[113][95] This indicates that all three tribes were already living in the northern Negev at least during the late time of the Mamluks and during the early Ottoman period. It is therefore possible that also the Banu Attiya migrated to the Negev in the 13th century along with the Wuhaydat or along with the Masa'id and the Banu Uqba; however, there is no evidence for this yet. On the Tarabin, see below.

Tiyaha, Tarabin, and Azazima
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In the early 20th century, the largest territories in the Negev belonged to the Tiyaha, the Tarabin, and the Azazima. On the origin of the Tarabin, see above. Regarding the Tiyaha, it is commonly assumed that they were either the original inhabitants of the Sinai, or that they are among the oldest tribes of the Sinai and that they migrated there from the Hejaz in pre-Islamic times.[127] However, Bailey also reports some oral traditions of the Tiyaha, according to which they arrived in the Sinai only in the 10th/11th century.[128] Regarding the Azazima, according to their origin story, their forefather Azzam was a Quda'a and had migrated to the Hejaz. His six children migrated further to the Sinai and the Negev, where they grew into a people. Later, they were driven from there to El-Arish by the Tiyaha and the Jabarat, could later reconquer their ancestral homeland, but were subsequently chased to the Negev Highlands by the Tarabin.[129] Thus, according to this origin story, they migrated to the Negev twice: the first time in mythical prehistory, the second time after the Tarabin had already become a distinct people. Accordingly, there are traditions suggesting that they migrated to the Negev after the Tarabin,[130] as well as traditions stating that they were there before them.[131]

As of now, it is not possible to date the arrival of these three tribes in the Negev. Only in the case of the Tiyaha is there weak evidence: Oppenheim mentions[132] a source that would evidence the existence of the grave of the Tiyaha Sheikh Amri in the center of the Negev Highlands, a two hours' walk north of Avdat,[133][134][135] as early as the late 15th century, although he expresses doubts about the reliability of this source.

The Israeli ethnologist Clinton Bailey attempted to reconstruct the history of the Tiyaha and the Tarabin in two influential articles,[136][137] ultimately concluding that all three tribes migrated to the Negev in the early 19th century. However, in all three cases, the traditions and documents he bases his claim on actually state the opposite.[nb 3] Thus, one can assume that all three tribes certainly lived in the Negev before the 19th century, but beyond that, nothing is certain.

Using a similar approach, the notable Israeli historians Ruth Kark, Seth J. Frantzman, and Havatzelet Yahel attempted to date the migration of the Negev Bedouins of the 20th century to a late period: They compared a study of early Ottoman tax registers, which recorded some Bedouin tribes as taxpayers, with tribal lists from the 20th century. Thereafter, they claimed that no tribe from the 16th century appears on the 20th-century tribal lists.[142][143] However, this also does not hold up. Firstly, the Ottomans only recorded taxpayers down to the southern end of what is now the Gaza Strip, so these tax registers do not provide any information about the biblical, central, and southern Negev.[113][144] More importantly, the claim is not true; in fact, five of the six tribes recorded in the Negev still live in Palestine today.[145]

Bedouin-state relations in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods
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- Mamluken praktizierten darak-Politik > Beduinen Recht, Steuern zu erheben.[146][147][148][149]

- bedouin revolts gegen Mamluken wie oben im Falle der Masa'id. Ähnlich revoltierten die Beduinen mehrfach gegen die Besteuerung durch die Ägypter und strebten danach, von den Mamluken unabhängig zu werden;[150] östlich des Jordan erklärten die Beduinen nach längeren Revolten gegen 1500 ihre Unabhängigkeit, vertrieben den Mamluk governor und blieben unabhängig bis zum Ende des 19. Jhds.[151]

Archäologisch lässt sich zu dieser Zeit feststellen, dass isolierte Dörfer vielfach aufgegeben wurden. Entweder hing das mit der Pest zusammen, die im 14. und 15. Jhd. im Nahen Osten wütete,[152] und dies hatte zur Folge, dass danach die Beduinen sich noch weiter nach Norden ausbreiten konnten, oder umgekehrt folgte aus der Ausbreitung der Beduinen, dass Dorfbewohner sich mit schwindenden Sicherheit aufgrund des beduinischen Machtgewinns in den Ebenen in größeren Siedlungen im Gebirge zusammenschlossen.[153][154]

- Die Ottomanen führten die darak-Politik der Mamluken fort und machten gar - was ebenfalls bereits die Mamluken vorgemacht hatten[155] - Beduinen zu districht governors.[156][157]

- Kann man den Berichten von europäischen Reisenden glauben, nahm "Bedouin lawlessness" dennoch immer weiter zu; Reisende wurden ausgeraubt, fruchtbarer Boden in Palästina lag brach, weil Beduinen ihn mit ihren "incursions" als Weideland beanspruchten; Palästina insgesamt war daher eine zur Wüste verkommene Landschaft, die jedoch bei richtiger Regierung großes landwirtschaftliches Potential barg; die Beduinen selbst waren zweifellos Wilde.[158] Es ist jedoch nicht klar, wie viel Vertrauen man diesen Berichten schenken kann und wie viel davon orientalism und racism of vermeintlich zivilisierteren would-be colonizers war.[159][160] Möglich ist beispielsweise, dass Berichte über beduinische "Räubereien" tatsächlich Berichte über die von den Mamluken und Ottomanen gestattete "security tax" sind, dass Erzählungen über beduinische "incursions" die gewöhnliche Praxis der Beduinen beschrieben haben, sommers in fruchtbarere Gebiete zu ziehen; stories über ihr Ausrauben von Dörfern kann sich darauf beziehen, dass Beduinen Teile ihrer Stammesgebiete an Felachen verpachteten und von diesen Anteile eintrieben, und die beiden vielzitierten Berichte über die Zerstörungen der Dörfer nördlich von Gaza und Jordanien bezieht sich nachweislich auf Ländereien, die in den 1830ern die Ägypter von Beduinen enteignet und die nun wieder zurückerobert wurden.[161]

- Sicher ist aber jedenfalls, dass sich die Einstellung der Ottomanen zu Beduinen nach der Rückeroberung Palästinas von den Ägyptern um 1841 und im Zuge der Grenzstreitigkeiten der Taba Crisis nach und nach änderte.


Dies began with the so-called "Tanzimat land reforms",[162][163] which included a package of legislative amendments designed to privatize and commodify land. The goal was to sedentarize the Bedouins in the Ottoman border regions and thereby stabilize these areas.[164][165][166] In the second half of the 19th century, the Ottomans still tried to achieve this through coercion.

Since these measures were not successful in the province of Hejaz due to the lack of Ottoman military troops,[167] they shifted their Bedouin policy around the turn of the century, when the border disputes began, aiming "to gain Bedouin support for the government in its endeavors."[168] Thus, in 1892, the Ottomans started to buy the favor of Bedouin sheikhs by bestowing titles upon them.[169] Now, instead of imposing governors upon the Bedouins,[170] they had a say in the appointment of governors and could even dismiss them.[171]

 
Market of Beersheba, 1901

The culmination of this new policy[172] was the creation of the new Beersheba District in 1899, whose boundaries were drawn in such a way that it was almost exclusively a Bedouin district.[173] As a regional center, the city of Beersheba was built at a point where the tribal territories of three major Negev Bedouin tribes converged. Instead of granting Bedouin land to sedentary refugees for settlement, as had been done before,[174] now the Bedouins were given land in this city for free.[175] The more Bedouin-friendly policy went so far as to allow legal matters relevant only within this new Beersheba district to be adjudicated according to Bedouin customary law by a "management council" of tribal chiefs, unlike in northern regions.[176]

Land use: late 19th and early 20th centuries
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For the 19th century, there is a new set of evidence for the history of the Negev from textual documents directly concerning Bedouin culture, suggesting that extensive Bedouin agriculture in the Negev certainly predates the Ottoman and British land policies. Notably, there is a wealth of travel literature from the 19th century that now also started again to discuss the Negev region, as well as the first ethnological studies. Many travel reports report having encountered a desert.[177] However, this often seems to refer more to the ruined state of the Byzantine and early Islamic buildings than to vegetation and cultivation. This can be clearly seen, for instance, in Bonar's travel description from 1856, as immediately after describing Bedouin fields in the Negev Highlands,[178] he calls a wadi blooming with "tall and bushy" flowers a "sterile desert."[179] In contrast, Avi Oppenheim[180] and the authors of "Emptied Lands"[181] have highlighted that many travel accounts report that Bedouins cultivated wheat throughout the northern Negev, the biblical Negev, and the highlands of the central Negev even before the Ottoman land law.[nb 4]

This agriculture was not associated with a sedentarization of the Negev Bedouins. Most of them were still semi-nomadic in 1948,[nb 5] although towards the end of the mandate period there was indeed an increasing tendency to build individual permanent houses or storage facilities within larger recurring tent dwelling places.[193]

At the same time, it is certain that Europeans indirectly contributed to those semi-nomadic Bedouins intensifying their agricultural activities from the late 19th century onwards. Three of the Bedouins' most important economic activities were

  • the transportation of goods (especially grain) through the desert[194]
  • the "protection" of pilgrims and caravans[195] (see above; → Amir al-hajj)
  • The textile and soap industry in Gaza,[196][197][198] for which the Bedouins had been supplying potash and wool since at least the 18th century.[199]

From the second half of the 18th century onwards, however, Palestine gradually transformed into an export nation, beginning with the rule of the Bedouin Zahir al-Umar (from the 1730s) and the Mamluk Jazzar Pasha (from 1776) in Northern Palestine, who introduced the cotton export.[200] This was followed by Jaffa's Ottoman governor Muhammad Abu Nabbut (1807-1818), who established the orange trade,[201][202] and then again followed by the brief interim rule of the Egyptians Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha over all of Palestine,[203] with soap, olive oil, and again cotton becoming the most important export goods.[204][205] This attracted more Europeans with their newly developed steam boats to Palestine.[206] These steam boats over time made the first two Bedouin economic sectors irrelevant,[207][208] as the desert could now be bypassed, and, with the import of European mass-produced goods, led to a decline in textile prices.[209][210][211][212][213]

 
Bedouin barley piles covered with straw and earth. Beersheba, 1920

However, steamship trade enabled the British to also import barley from Palestine. Thus, from the 1850s, Gaza developed into a hub for trading "Gaza barley," alternatively called "badawi abyad" ("Bedouin White"). During several years of the Ottoman period, Gaza barley was Palestine's economically most important export, with tens of thousands of tons exported annually.[214][215][216]

From just before the start of the British Mandate (1923) until the end of the Mandate period (1947), there were several surveys of the Negev that showed how much Bedouin agriculture had intensified over time. According to most estimates, the agricultural area gradually increased during the British Mandate period from about 300,000 hectares to 400,000 hectares[217][218][219][220][nb 6] (a comparable, but significantly larger, growth trend is also evident in the adjacent southern West Bank[225]). This constituted nearly 36% of the agricultural land in the region of Palestine[226] and encompassed almost the entire northern half of the Negev.[227] As parts of this area weren't suitable for agriculture (mainly due to the sand dunes in the western central Negev[228][229][230]), this also implies that the Azazima used the Negev Highlands for agriculture during the Mandate period comparably to the Nabateans in the Byzantine era. Correspondingly, in 1941, Jacob Verman and Daniel Zohary had explored the Negev highlands. According to this survey, Bedouins practiced wadi agriculture in practically every region of the Negev highlands except for the Wadi Boker area and the Nahal Ramon area near the Ramon Crater[231] – partly on reused,[232] partly on enhanced[233] and partly on self-built terraces.[234][235]

Thus, British diplomats declared:

The statement, so often made for propaganda purposes, that nearly half of Palestine (Naqab) is still empty and available for settlement is roughly speaking true as regards its emptiness but altogether false and misleading as regards its availability.

— PRO, FO 371/61868[236]

Ottomans

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  • An Ottoman tax register from 1596 lists about 4,000 taxable Bedouins in the area of the northern Negev between Rafah and Beersheba, among other Bedouins at more northerly places. This tax list clearly indicates that some Bedouins in Palestine were engaged in agriculture and nomadic livestock farming in the 16th century. However, for the Negev Bedouins, the records do not specify the types of taxes paid (such as barley tax, sheep tax, etc.).[237] Accordingly, these tax entries could imply that Bedouins were engaged in agriculture in this most fertile region of the Negev during the 16th century; however, this is not certain from this register. Bedouin presence in this area during that time can also be archaeologically evidenced by a cemetery in Tell el-Hesi at the northern edge of the northern Negev, where Bedouins have buried their dead since the 16th century.[238]



During the Ottoman period, the southern territorial boundaries of Palestine were often unclear, even to the Ottomans themselves.[239] Most of the time, the Negev, the Sinai Peninsula to the west and parts of southwestern Jordan and the Hejaz to the east was again regarded as one unified region; this time under the name "Province of Hijjaz".[240] However, parts of this area were at times instead included within the frequently shifting[241] boundaries of the Gaza District. In the next section, a snapshot from 1835 is displayed,[242] just before the territorial reorganizations of 1840, 1871-1874, and 1906.[243][244] Only during the border dispute from 1892 to 1906 towards the end of the Ottoman period was the Negev gradually separated as a distinct area from the rest of this cultural region (see below).


Notes

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  1. ^ In detail: According to an Assyrian tablet from the 8th century (ND 400), the Me'unites lived in the northern Sinai. This is confirmed by the Biblical references in 1Chr 4:39–41 and 2Chr 26:7–8.[12] These Me'unites are referred to in 2Chr 20:1-2, 10, 22 as "men of Mt Seir," who are "coming from Edom," indicating that they also lived in Edomite territory.[13] The exact relationship between the Me'unites and the Meunites on one hand, and the Edomites on the other, is unclear. The Me'unites and the Edomites might have been identical, neighboring groups living partially in the same area, or one might have been a subgroup of the other. However, if the Bible is reliable here, it is at least certain that the territory of the Edomites extended from the Negev to the east beyond the Jordan, and that of the Me'unites from the Negev west into the Sinai. It may have also extended to the east side of the Jordan if their name comes from the city of Ma'an.[14]
  2. ^ In detail:
    • In the 13th and 14th centuries before the pilgrimage route from Palestine to Sinai, or vice versa, shifted to the Gaza-Nakhl path via Wadi el-Arish,[28] some pilgrims traveled through the Negev highlands and reported that at that time not only did Bedouins still live between Mount Sinai and central Palestine, but they were also so numerous that they could have easily conquered the Holy Land.[81][82][83]
    • The three aforementioned textual witnesses all report that the Bedouins living between Mount Sinai and Palestine did not engage in agriculture but lived solely off their livestock. In contrast, Thiethmar reports "farming Arabs" between Tamar and Mount Sinai in 1217–18[87] — most probably in the Negev highlands, as only there could agriculture be practiced.[85] Recently, archaeology has analyzed old fruit trees still growing in the Negev highlands, proving that the old agricultural terraces in the Negev (→ Negev: Iron Age Agriculture; Negev: Byzantine Agriculture) were indeed cultivated continuously over a period from more than 1,000 years ago until 70 years ago.[88] Surprisingly, it was also found that the planters of these fruit trees did not build up the terraces as would be expected for optimal use.[89] Therefore, OSL dating of terraces dating back to the Byzantine/Early Islamic period does not imply that the terraces were not used thereafter. Hence, the extent of the terrace's use after the Early Islamic period is unknown, but the use per se is proven, and the aforementioned three textual witnesses seem to provide an overly generalized characterization of all Bedouins, which applies only to a limited extent to the Highland Bedouins.[85]
    • Similarly, only recently, archaeologists have begun reconstructing the history of cisterns in the Negev highlands using OSL dating. This research also indicates Bedouin presence during the Mamluk period, among others: some cisterns were first dug in the Middle Ages, while others were used and maintained during that time.[90]
    • In the region around Ayla in the southern Negev, where terrace farming was not previously common and the early Islamic qanat system had been used for irrigation instead[91] (the qanat system continued to be used until the 20th century[92]), new terraces were built after the 11th century. The oldest terrace dated post-11th century was constructed between the 14th and 16th centuries, with the next one built in the 16th century, followed by several more in the 17th and 18th centuries.[93] This suggests that in this driest region of Palestine, agriculture was expanded after the 11th century, especially from the 17th century onwards, but perhaps already starting with Mamluk period of the Burji sultanate (14th to 16th ct.).
    • Ottoman tax registers from the 16th century list about 4,000 taxable Bedouins in the area of the northern Negev east of today's Gaza strip, among other Bedouins at more northerly places. This tax list clearly indicates that some Bedouins in Palestine were engaged in agriculture and nomadic livestock farming in the 16th century. However, for the Negev Bedouins, the records do not specify the types of taxes paid (such as barley tax, sheep tax, etc.).[94][95] Accordingly, these tax entries could imply that Bedouins were engaged in agriculture in this most fertile region of the Negev during the 16th century; however, this is not certain from this register. Bedouin presence in this area during that time can also be archaeologically evidenced by a cemetery in Tell el-Hesi at the northern edge of the northern Negev, where Bedouins have buried their dead since the 16th century.[96]
  3. ^ In detail:
    • According to the oral history that Bailey himself conveys, the Tiyaha were already living in the northern Negev before the 19th century.[138]
    • Like the Tiyaha, the Tarabin are explicitly located by the Description de l’Égypte both in the Tih desert and in the Gaza region in 1798.[139]
    • Both Azazima clans that Ulrich Jasper Seetzen encountered lived in the Negev Highlands;[140] and again, Seetzen explicitly writes that the Azazima usually stayed near Gaza during the summer.[141]
  4. ^ A particularly notable account from William Montgomerie Thomson in 1856, two years before the Ottoman Land Law was enacted, describes the northern Negev as "wheat, wheat, a very ocean of wheat [...], but there is not a village along the entire route, and all the grain belonged to tent-dwelling Arabs."[182] Constantin von Tischendorf listed some other species that were cultivated in the northern Negev in 1844.[183][184] Regarding the biblical and central Negev, examples include Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, who reported Azazima farming in the area of former Nessana ("Aujeh") in the central Negev (among other places) in 1838,[185] Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, who reported Azazima farming at multiple locations of the biblical and central Negev in 1807,[186] and Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who reported Bedouin agriculture in the Arad area and the adjacent, more fertile Ghor valley before 1817.[187]
  5. ^ "Sedentarization" vs. "semi-nomadism" in the sense of "moving into villages with built houses" vs. "Practicing seasonal migration with recurring tent dwelling places."[188] This is sometimes disputed by Palestinian authors nowadays. However, Saidel and Blakely, for instance, have demonstrated, again based, among others, on travel reports, that even in the Tel el-Hesi region at the northern fringes of the Negev, Bedouin field owners had still not become sedentary in the 20th century.[189] Seth Frantzman demonstrated through local village records that out of the 69 newly established villages between 1883 and 1922, only five were established in the Gaza and Hebron districts and only Beersheba was established in the Beersheba district,[190] and through aerial photographs that as late as 1946, only 10% of the Bedouins lived in houses and huts (most of them in Beersheba).[191] Houses had previously been built near Bedouin fields, but they were not regularly the villages of Bedouins:

    Yet it would be simplistic to imagine a neat line dividing pastoralists and agriculturalists, 'Bedouin' and 'Fellahin.' In the Gaza region, some settled villages were inhabited by semi-nomadic peoples that participated in both forms of economic life, balancing farming and grazing. Some Bedouin tribes dominated agricultural villages where subordinate clans worked their masters' land [as in Tel el-Hesi]. [...] Sometimes, even fully nomadic groups could produce surpluses of grains to be sold alongside their livestock in the markets of Gaza.

    — Dotan Halevy, 2021[192]
  6. ^ That is surprising, as the British published significantly lower estimates in 1946 and 1947 (see below), and these lower estimates were predominantly cited in subsequent years. However, the higher estimates are also indirectly supported by Yosef Weitz, who reported a yield of 137 kg of barley per hectare for Bedouin agriculture in the Negev.[221] Given that the exports of Gaza barley averaged 40,000 tons per year at the end of the Ottoman period,[222][223][224] this implies that nearly 300,000 hectares of land were required solely for producing the exported barley even before the Mandate Period.

References

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  1. ^ Cf. Paolo Cimadomo: The controversial annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. Levant 50 (2), 2018. p. 258–266.
  2. ^ Yoram Tsafrir: The Transfer of the Negev, Sinai and Southern Transjordan from "Arabia" to "Palaestina". Israel Exploration Journal 36 (1/2), 1986. pp. 77–86.
  3. ^ Leah Di Segni: Changing borders in the provinces of Palaestina and Arabia in the fourth and fifth centuries. Liber Annuus 68, 2018. p. 248.
  4. ^ Cf. e.g. also Thomas E. Levy et al. (2004): Archaeology and the Shasu Nomads: Recent Excavations in the Jabal Hamrat Fidan, Jordan, in: Richard Elliot Friedman / William H. C. Propp (ed): Le-David Maskil. A Birthday Tribute for David Noel Freedman. Penn State University Press. p. 70 f.
  5. ^ Cf. e.g. also Juan Manuel Tebes (2008): "Centro y periferia en el mundo antiguo. El Negev y sus interacciones con Egipto, Asiria, y el Levante en la Edad del Hierro (1200–586 a.C.)". Society of Biblical Literature / Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente. p. 43–45.
  6. ^ Cf. e.g. Robert D. Miller (2018): Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 80 f.: "The description of the first campaign of Seti I (1291 [B.C.]) on the north outer wall of the hypostyle hall of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak provides an extended treatment of the Shasu. It places them in the 'hill country' of Khurru (Canaan) near Gaza (probably the western Negev, as there are no hills near Gaza), between the borders of Egypt at Tjaru and Pekanen (Canaan), where they were harassing the vassals of Egypt in Palestine (East of the Door, Scenes 1–11, esp. Scene 9, lines 104–108). [...] Some texts are even more precise. In Merneptah's Papyrus Anastasi 6.51–57 (COS 3.5), dated between 1226 and 1202, the 'Shasu of Edom' (probably Cisjordanian) are given permission to migrate west past the border fortresses at Tjeku (Sukkoth) into the Goshen region of Egypt. They are also called 'Shasu of Edom' in a letter from a frontier official (638.14) during the reign of Siptah (fl. 1197–1191). In addition to the connection with Seir to be discussed below, Papyrus Harris 1 76.9–11 (COS 4.2; exploits of Rameses III written by Rameses IV; 1151 bc) speaks of the 'people of Seir among the tribes of Shasu.'"
  7. ^ Uzi Avner (2021): The Desert's Role in the Formation of Early Israel and the Origin of Yahweh. Entangled Religions 12 (2). p. 27: "In the Egyptian inscriptions from ‘Amara West and Madinat Habu, the desert sections of the lists open with 'the Shasu land Se‘ir' (in the Soleb list, the first toponyms were not preserved). Therefore, Se‘ir seems to be a general title for the following toponyms. This implies that Se‘ir was a large area, encompassing several tribal territories. In the Bible, Se‘ir appears as a synonym of Edom, but sometimes it indicates a distinctive region [...]. Edom is usually identified as the mountainous area east of the ‘Arabah, while Se‘ir is identified by some as the desert to the west, i.e., the Negev and at least parts of Sinai. However, this allocation is not definite. In the view of biblical writers, the Negev was an Edomite territory (Joshua 15:1, 21), as far west as Qadesh Barne‘a (Numbers 20:16 [...]), and as far south as Elot (Eilat) and Ezion Geber on the Red Sea (1 Kings 9:26). Several scholars see the Land of Se‘ir as a region encompassing both sides of the ‘Arabah. The location of some of the toponyms from the three groups of sources may also illuminate the extent of Se‘ir. [...] We may conclude from this brief survey that Se‘ir was indeed a large area that included the Edomite Mountains, the Negev, and Sinai as one geographical unit, divided into a number of tribal Shasu territories. This view accords with the plural Akkadian term 'the lands of Se‘ir' [...]."
  8. ^ Juan Manuel Tebes (2014): Socio-Economic Fluctuations and Chiefdom Formation in Edom, the Negev and the Hejaz during the First Millennium BCE. In: Idem (ed.): Unearthing the Wilderness: Studies on the History and Archaeology of the Negev and Edom in the Iron Age. Peeters. p. 14−19.
  9. ^ Christian Frevel (2019): State Formation in the Southern Levant – The Case of the Aramaeans and the Role of Hazael's Expansion, in: Angelika Berlejung / Aren M. Maeir (ed.): Research on Israel and Aram: Autonomy, Interdependence and Related Issues. Proceedings of the First Annual RIAB Center Conference, Leipzig, June 2016 (RIAB I). Mohr Siebeck. p. 364 f.
  10. ^ Jakob Wöhrle (2019): Edom / Edomites, in: WiBiLex. Section 4.
  11. ^ Nadav Na'aman (2021): Biblical Archaeology and the Emergence of the Kingdom of Edom. Antiguo Oriente 19. p. 22.
  12. ^ Israel Eph´al: The Ancient Arabs. Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent. 9th–5th Centuries B.C.. The Magness Press / E.J. Brill, 1982. p. 219 f.
  13. ^ Cf. John Lindsay: Edomite Westward Expansion: The Biblical Evidence. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 36, 1999. p. 49-51.
  14. ^ Cf., e.g., Simon J. De Vries: 1 and 2 Chronicles. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989. p. 358: "This [Assyrian] fragment [...] refers to the Mu´unaya south of the Wadi Arish. At this early date this people may have already occupied most of the Negev, even though their closest association seems to have been at Ma´an near Petra, and with the Edomites (later Idumeans) in general."
  15. ^ Cf., e.g., Avraham Negev (1967): New Dated Nabatean Graffiti from the Sinai. Israel Exploration Journal 17 (4). p. 250–255.
  16. ^ Avraham Negev (1982): Nabatean Inscriptions in Southern Sinai. Biblical Archaeologist 45 (1). p. 21–25.
  17. ^ Mustafa Nour el-Din (2023): New Nabataean and Thamudic Inscriptions from Al-Manhal Site, Southwest Sinai. Abgadiyat 17. p. 25–41.
  18. ^ Mahmoud S. Ghanem / Eslam Sami Abd El-Baset (2023): Unpublished Nabataean Inscriptions from Southern Sinai. Abgadiyat 17. p. 43–58.
  19. ^ After Israel Finkelstein et al. (2018): The Archaeology and History of the Negev and Neighbouring Areas in the Third Millennium BCE: A New Paradigm. Tel Aviv 45 (1). p. 65.
  20. ^ Gideon Avni (2014): The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach. Oxford University Press. p. 261–263.
  21. ^ Moshe Gil (1992): A History of Palestine. 634–1099. Cambridge University Press. p. 18 f.
  22. ^ Uzi Avner / Jodi Magness: Early Islamic Settlement in the Southern Negev. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 310, 1998.
  23. ^ Jodi Magness: The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine. Eisenbrauns, 2003. Esp. p. 194.
  24. ^ Andrew Petersen: The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule AD 600–1600. Archaeopress, 2005. Esp. p. 46.
  25. ^ Gideon Avni: The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach. Oxford University Press, 2014. Esp. p. 257–259, 263–267, 282 f, 287.
  26. ^ Andrew Petersen (2005): The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule AD 600–1600. Archaeopress. p. 47.
  27. ^ Itamar Taxel et al. (2022): A Unique Assemblage of Late Islamic Magical Artifacts from Netafim 2: A Campsite on the Darb al-Hajj, Southern Israel. Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 3. fig. 1.
  28. ^ a b Denys Pringle: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Routledge, 2012. p. 10.
  29. ^ Cf. Max Ritter: Inspired by the same desire? Divergent objectives, routes and destinations of Byzantine monks and Latin pilgrims from the 8th to the 11th centuries, in: Olivier Delouis et al. (ed): Les mobilités monastiques en Orient et en Occident de l'Antiquité tardive au Moyen Âge (IVe–XVe siècle). École française de Rome, 2019. p. 34, 37.
  30. ^ Cf. Karim Zaki-Khalil: [https://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5051/1/5051_2504.PDF?UkUDh British Sinai: its geopolitical significance in the middle east and its strategic role in British colonial policy]. Dissertation, 1998. p. 54.
  31. ^ Fawzi Zayadine: The Gaza-Damascus Roads in the Medieval Periods. Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 9, 2007. p. 367 f.
  32. ^ Friedrich Tuch: Bemerkungen zu Genesis C. 14. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 1 (2), 1846. p. 173–176.
  33. ^ Herbert Verreth: The Northern Sinai from the 7th Century BC till the 7th Century AD. A Guide to the Sources. Vol. I. 2006. p. 151–158, 309.
  34. ^ Guy Le Strange: Palestine under the Moslems. A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Alexander P. Watt, 1890. p. 29 f.
  35. ^ Cf. the Maps in Ronnie Ellenblum: Crusader Castles and Modern Histories. Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 171; Ronnie Ellenblum: Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Map 1.
  36. ^ Guillaume Rey: Étude sur les Monuments de l'architecture militaire des croisés en Syrie et dans l'Ile de Chypre. Imprimerie Nationale, 1871. p. 104.
  37. ^ Joshua Prawer: The Crusaders' Kingdom. European Colonialism in the Middle Ages. Praeger Publishers, 1972. p. 285.
  38. ^ Ibn Jubayr, late 12th century: "It [Karak] obstructs the road to Hijaz, hindering the Muslims' way overland. [...] Yet, the traffic of caravans between Egypt and Damascus via the Frankish dominion does not cease. Likewise, the traffic of Muslims between Damascus and Acre. And the Christian merchants, none of them is hindered or interfered with. The Christians levy in their countries a tax from the Muslims in return for specific protection. Christian merchants also pay a tax in Muslim lands on their merchandise. There is harmony between them and tolerance in all circumstances. The people of war are preoccupied in their war, the general public is in a state of well-being, and the world goes to the winner."
    Apud James E. Lindsay / Suleiman A. Mourad: Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period. An Anthology. Hackett Publishing Compnay, 2021. p. 16.
  39. ^ Robin M. Brown: Late Islamic ceramic production and distribution in the southern Levant: A socio-economic and political interpretation. Dissertation, 1992. p. 57 f., 60 f.
  40. ^ Micaela Sinibaldi: The Crusader Lordship of Transjordan (1100–1189): settlement forms, dynamics and significance. Levant 54 (1), 2022. p. 124–154.
  41. ^ Cf. Michael S. Fulton: Crusader Castle. The Desert Fortress of Kerak. Pen & Sword Books, 2024. p. 35.
  42. ^ Alan G. Walmsley: The Middle Islamic and Crusader Periods, in: Russell B. Adams (ed.): Jordan. An Archaeological Reader. Equinox, 2009. p. 6.
  43. ^ Theoderich of Würzburg: Guide to the Holy Land, in: The Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Six Travelers' Accounts. Italica Press, 2017. p. 194 f.
  44. ^ Ernoul's Account of Palestine, in: C. R. Conder: The City of Jerusalem. Translated from the Old French, with Notes. Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1896. p. 50, 55.
  45. ^ a b On this territorial order, cf. Alan G. Walmsley: The Middle Islamic and Crusader Periods, in: Russell B. Adams (ed.): Jordan. An Archaeological Reader. Equinox, 2009. p. 7 f.
  46. ^ Late 13th ct.: Burchard of Mount Sion: A Description of the Holy Land. Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1896. p. 7 f.: "Arabia the third is that whose capital is Montreal, also called Krach, which once was called Petra in the Wilderness, standing near the Dead Sea. This Arabia contains the land of Moab, which should properly be called Syria Sobal, and all Idumaea, which is Mount Seir, and all the country round about the Dead Sea even unto Kadesh Barnea and Ezion Geber [at the Gulf of Aqaba], and the Waters of Strife, and towards the Red Sea across the widest part of the wilderness even unto the river Euphrates [= the Nile; cf. Volker Scior: 'River-Communities'? The Nile and Its Riparians in Medieval Travel Accounts, in: Johannes C. Bernhardt et al. (ed.): Mediterranean Rivers in Global Perspective. Ferdinand Schöningh, 2019. p. 167]."
  47. ^ ~1300: al-Dimashqi. Cf. Guy Le Strange: Palestine under the Moslems. A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Alexander P. Watt, 1890. p. 41: "Here are Karak and Shaubak. To it belong Ma'ân, the village of Mûtah, Al-Lajjún, Al Hisá, Al Azrak, As Salt, Wâdi Mûsâ, the territory of Madyan, Kulzum, Ar Rayyân: also in the Ghaur, Az Zarka and Al Azrak: Al Jifâr, At Tih (the Desert of the Wanderings), with 'Ammân, of which only the ruins remain: and the territory of Al Balkâ. the Iklîm Al Jibál is also included in the Karak kingdom: its chief town is Ash Sharâh, and the city of Kâb, which lies twelve miles from it."
    Cf. Marcus Milwright: The Fortress of the Raven. Karak in the Middle Islamic Period (1100–1650). Brill, 2008. p. 80 f.
  48. ^ ~1300: Marino Sanuto Torsello: The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross. Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis. Translated by Peter Lock. Routledge, 2016. p. 389: "[The tenth province of Syria] is that Arabia whose chief city is Mons-Regalis which is now called Crach. Formerly it was called Petra in the desert. It lies beyond the Dead Sea and controls the land of Moab which properly is called Syria Sobal and contains the whole of Idumea that is Mount Seyr and all the land around the Dead Sea up to Cadesbarne and Syon Geber and the Waters of strife towards the Red Sea through the broad wilderness up to the Euphrates. This is Arabia the Great and first. It is called Arabia Edemon that is holy. The most evil Mahumeth is worshipped there in the city of Mecca."
  49. ^ 1330/1340s: Probably Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari: "As for al-Karak – it is known as Karak aš-Šawbak – its southern border is the 'Aḳabat aṣ-Ṣawwān [= the Gulf of Aqaba], in the east is the region of al-Balḳā' [= the eastern desert]; in the north is Buḥairat Sudūm [= the southern end of the Dead Sea]; and in the west is the desert of the Israelite wanderings."
    Translated after Richard Hartmann: Politische Geographie des Mamlukenreichs: Kapitel 5 und 6 des Staatshandbuchs Ibn Fadlallah al-'Omari's. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 70, 1916. p. 38: "Was al-Karak – es ist bekannt als Karak aš-Šawbak – betrifft, so ist seine Grenze im Süden die 'Aḳabat aṣ-Ṣawwān; im Osten das Gebiet von al-Balḳā'; im Norden die Buḥairat Sudūm [...] im Westen die Wüste der Wanderung der Israeliten."
    On this passage, cf. Richard Hartmann: Die Herrschaft von al-Karak. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Geographie des Ostjordanlandes. Der Islam 2, 1911. p. 138: "[...] whether the Tīh desert [the desert of the wanderings] should still be partially included within the borders is questionable."; translated from: "[...] ob die Wüste Tīh noch zum Teil in die Grenzen eingeschlossen sein soll, ist fraglich."
  50. ^ a b ~1430: Al-Maqrīzī. Cf. Book of Exhortations and Useful Lessons in Dealing with Topography and Historical Remains (al-Khiṭaṭ). Part IIa. 2022. p. 249, 254: "Madyan, says Al-Farrā' [9th ct.], is the name of a town and of a region. [...] The author of the present book, God have mercy on him, adds: There used to be in the land of Madyan (Midian) a great number of towns which, their people having passed away, fell to ruin and became waste. Of these, some forty intact towns have survived to this day, which is the year 825 (a.D. 1422), some known by name, others whose name is unknown (to us). There are sixteen towns known by name between the Hejaz, Palestine and Egypt, ten of which are located in the direction of Palestine, namely, al-Khalaṣah, al-Sabīṭah, al-Madarah, al-Minyah, al-A'waj, al-Khuwayriq, al-Bi'rayn, al-Mā'ayn, al-Sab', and al-Mu'allaq. The most important of these ten communities are the towns of al-Khalaṣah and al-Sabīṭah; stones from the latter are oftentimes moved to Gaza where they are used in construction. Among the towns of Midian towards the Sea of al-Qulzum and al-Ṭūr are Fārān, al-Raqqah, al-Qulzum, Aylah, and Madyan."
    On this passage, cf. Christian Robin / Alî Al-Ghabbân: Une première mention de Madyan dans un texte épigraphique d'Arabie. Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 161 (1), 2017. p. 376–8.
    Cf. also Al-Maqrīzī: Book of Exhortations and Useful Lessons in Dealing with Topography and Historical Remains (al-Khiṭaṭ). Part I. 2022. p. 291: "Among [Egypt's] kūrahs [=districts] of the southeast are the villages of the Hejaz, namely:
    • the district of al-Ṭūr/Fārān
    • the district of Rāyah/al-Qulzum
    • the district of Aylah and the Aylah latifundium
    • Madyan and the Madyan latifundium
    • al-´Awnīd and al-Ḥawrā´ with their latifundium
    • the district of Badan/Shaghb."
  51. ^ 1483: Johann zu Solms: "The third Arabia is the one whose capital is called Montreal or Karak or Petra deserta. It is situated by the Dead Sea; it includes the land of Moab, which is actually called "Syria Sebal," and Idumea and Mount Seir and the whole land around the Dead Sea up to Kadesh Barnea and down to Eziongeber, [and] to the waters of strife. The desert extends from one end of the Dead Sea through the vast desert to the Euphrates."
    Translated after Johann von Solms: Beschreibung der Reyse unnd Wallfahrt, in: Sigmund Feyerabend (ed.): Reyßbuch deß heyligen Lands. p. 64b: "Die dritte Arabia ist / deren Hauptstatt / Mons regalis genannt oder auch Carath / oder auch ein Felß der Wüsten / gelegen bey dem todten Meer / und helt under jr das Landt Moab / welchs egentlich Syria Sebal genannt wird / und darzu Idumeam und den Berg Seyr / unnd das gantze Landt umb das todte Meer biß zu Cadesbarne / unnd biß ghen Siongaber / zu den Wassern der widersprechung / ist ein ende in der Wüsten / gegen dem todten Meer / durch die weite Wüsten biß zu dem Wasser Eufraten."
  52. ^ Burchard of Mount Sion and Johann von Solms similarly call the Bedouins "Midianites":
    Burchard: "There are in addition in the Holy Land Midianites, who are now called Bedouin, and Turkomans, who devote themselves solely to raising flocks and camels, which are exceedingly numerous. They do not have fixed dwelling places, but wheresoever they hear that there is pasture they move themselves, along with their tents."
    Apud and cf. Denys Pringle: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Routledge, 2012. p. 315.
    Johann: "On the 27th day of the month of September, when we had prepared everything for the return journey, the chief of the Arabs came [to the Saint Catherine's Monastery] with many Madianites and demanded his unjust right from us, delaying us for a long time. After we finally silenced him with money, our camel drivers came and also delayed us with their quarrelling, which we also had to settle with money."
    Translated after Johann von Solms: Beschreibung der Reyse unnd Wallfahrt, in: Sigmund Feyerabend (ed.): Reyßbuch deß heyligen Lands. p. 104b: "Am 27. Tag deß Monats Septembris / da wir alle ding hetten geordnet auff die widerfahrt / kam der Hauptmann der Araben mit vil Madianiten / und fordert sein unbilliche Recht von uns / hielt uns lang auff / und als wir denselben mit Gelt geschweigten / kamen unser Kamelthiertreiber und gaben uns auch lange hindernuß an unser fahrt mit jrem Gezänck / die musten wir auch mit Gelt stillen."
  53. ^ Most of the above-cited authors do not mention al-Jifâr. The region is definitively included in al-Karak by al-Dimashqi (see above). Similarly, it was presumably outside Egypt in the time of Ibn Battuta (1325), as the customs station between Egypt and Syria was in Qatya at the eastern end of the Nile Delta; cf. A. R. Gibb: Ibn Battúta. Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354. With an Introduction and Notes. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929. p. 54 f. In contrast, Ibn Taghribirdi (15th ct.) definitively includes the area in the Egyptian province of Sharqiyya and reports a very small province al-Karak. Cf. William Popper: Egypt and Syria under the Circassian sultans, 1382–1468 A.D. Systematic notes to Ibn Taghrî Birdî's chronicles of Egypt. University of California Press, 1955. p. 13 f., 16.
  54. ^ E.g. Burchard of Mount Sion: "From Gaza it is four leagues to Beer-sheba (Bersabee), which is now called Giblin and marks the boundary of Judaea and the Promised Land on the south."
    Apud and cf. Denys Pringle: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Routledge, 2012. p. 310. On "Beersheba" = "Giblin", cf. Jeffrey A. Blakely (2010): A Note on Henry Timberlake's Route from Gaza to Beersheba to Hebron in 1601. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 142 (1), 2010. p. 64 f.
  55. ^ Philip of Savona (1280s): "The town of Darum (Dayr al-Balaḥ) is sited on the border of Idumaea and Palestine, five miles distant from Gaza and ten from Ascalon."
    Apud and cf. Denys Pringle: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Routledge, 2012. p. 349.
  56. ^ Yuval Ben-Bassat / Yossi Ben-Artzi (2015): The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps. Journal of Historical Geography 50. p. 29.
  57. ^ Cf. Gideon Biger: The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. p. 13–28.
  58. ^ Nathan Shachar (2010): The Gaza Strip. Its History and Politics. From the Pharaohs to the Israeli Invasion of 2009. Sussex Academic Press. p. 38: "In later redrawings of the administrative hierarchy Gaza's status fluctuated. At times it was placed under the Ottoman governor in Sidon on the Lebanese coast, at other times under Jaffa or Acre. Sometimes Gaza's direct jurisdiction reached all the way to el-Arish in the Sinai desert, but sometimes only to Khan Yunes."
  59. ^ Cf. also Yitzhak Gil-Har (1992): The South-Eastern Limits of Palestine at the End of Ottoman Rule. Middle Eastern Studies 28 (3). p. 561.
  60. ^ Cf. Butrus Abu-Manneh. "Ottoman Territorial Reorganization, 1840–1917. Preliminary Sketches of Mandate Palestine's Boundaries". Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  61. ^ Cf. Yuval Ben-Bassat / Yossi Ben-Artzi (2015): The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps. Journal of Historical Geography 50. p. 27, 30.
  62. ^ Cf. the Google Ngram Viewer for "English word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16., "German word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16., and "French word usage". Retrieved 2024-05-16.
  63. ^ Cf. Emil G. Hirsch / Max Seligsohn (1905): Negeb, in: The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. IX. p. 207.
  64. ^ Teresa Stanek (2010). ""Negev" in Gen 13:1. Translation and Interpretation". Retrieved 2024-05-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  65. ^ For an example text, in which it still had to be established that "Negev" was a toponym in the Bible, see Thomas K. Cheyne (1902): Negeb, in: Encyclopedia Biblica. Volume III: L to P. c. 3374–3380.
  66. ^ Norwegian Refugee Council (2015): Bedouin Rights under Occupation: International Humanitarian Law and Indigenous Rights for Palestinian Bedouin in the West Bank. p. 28.
  67. ^ United Nations General Assembly (2011): Report by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya. A/HRC/18/35/Add.1. p. 24 f.
  68. ^ E.g. Seth J. Frantzman / Havatzelet Yahel / Ruth Kark (2012): Contested Indigeneity: The Development of an Indigenous Discourse on the Bedouin of the Negev, Israel. Israel Studies 17 (1).
  69. ^ E.g. Regavim (2020): The Truth About The Bedouin in the Negev. p. 4 f.: "The Bedouin tribes currently living in the Negev have been there fore about two hundred years. As such, they cannot claim that their presence predates the arrival of a foreign power, such as the Ottoman Empire, which preceded the current Bedouin tribes present in the Negev by hundreds of years.
  70. ^ For examples, see "Medieval-Modern Levantine Handmade Unpainted Ware". Levantine Ceramics. Retrieved 2024-07-26.; "Medieval-Modern Levantine Handmade Cooking ware". Levantine Ceramics. Retrieved 2024-07-26.; "Medieval-Modern Levantine handmade geometric painted ware (HMGP)". Levantine Ceramics. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  71. ^ Cf. "The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land". Retrieved 2024-07-30..
  72. ^ For examples, see "Palestinian Grey/Black Gaza Ware". Levantine Ceramics. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  73. ^ Steven A. Rosen: The Desert and the Pastoralist: An Archaeological Perspective on Human-Landscape Interaction in the Negev over the Millennia. Annals of Arid Zone 50 (3&4). p. 10 f.: "By the 10th century AD, and probably somewhat earlier, both the village and pastoral systems had ceased to exist and the central Negev was again abandoned for on the order of 500-800 years (depending on where one places the abandonment and later re-colonization chronologically). [...] In this context it is also important to note that since the re-colonization of the central Negev in the 18th century (or perhaps somewhat earlier) by modern Bedouin tribes (Bailey, 1980; Rosen and Goodfriend, 1993; Israel, 2006), a long term increase in productivity can be traced, especially in the first half of the 20th century as Bedouin groups adapted ancient agricultural terrace systems to their own farming needs (Meraiot, 2011)."
  74. ^ Davida Eisenberg-Degen / Steven A. Rosen: Chronological trends in Negev Rock Art: The Har Michia Petroglyphs as a Test Case. Arts 2, 2013. p. 244: "This phase in the central Negev came to an end around the 10th century CE when both the village and nomadic systems collapsed and the region became more or less abandoned. [...] The most recent infiltration of tribal groups into the central Negev occurred in the late 17th and early 18th centuries AD (Bailey 1980; Israel 2006)."
  75. ^ Steven A. Rosen: Revolutions in the Desert. The Rise of Mobile Pastoralism in the Southern Levant. Routledge, 2017. EPUB-Edition, Section 10.5: "The nomadic system WAS abandoned, and no tribal presence is evident again in the central Negev until ca. 1700 CE. with the infiltration of the modern tribes into the region, roughly a 700-year gap [...]."
  76. ^ Piotr Makowski: Towards a Better Understanding of the Chronological and Geographical Distribution Patterns of Plain and Painted Handmade Wares in Bilād al-Shām. Bulletin of the Americal Society of Overseas Research 389, 2023. p. 124; maps on pp. 125, 131, 138.
  77. ^ E.g. Joseph Ben-David (1990): The Negev Bedouin: From Nomadism to Agriculture, in: Ruth Kark (ed.): The Land that Became Israel. Studies in Historical Geography. Yale University Press / The Magnes Press. p. 187-192.
  78. ^ E.g. Gideon M. Kressel et al. (1991): Changes in the Land Usage by the Negev Bedouin Since the Mid-19th Century. The Intra-Tribal Perspective. Nomadic Peoples 28. p. 28–55.
  79. ^ E.g. Mordechai Haiman (1995): Agriculture and Nomad-State Relations in the Negev Desert in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 297. p. 47.
  80. ^ Cf. Avinoam Meir (2009): Contemporary state discourse and historical pastoral spatiality: contradictions in the land conflict between the Israeli Bedouin and the State. Ethnic and Racial Studies 32 (5). p. 829.
  81. ^ a b Wilhelm von Boldensele (1330s): "Since it [=the desert] is very large, an innumerable number of Arabs, who are also called Ridilbim, live there, primarily in places where water can be found, at least in small amounts, from springs, streams, or wells: for the lack of water is very great here. [...] The people live here in tents made of animal skins, usually feed on camels and goats, do not sow or reap because they do not possess fields, and therefore have no bread, except what is brought from Egypt or Syria. They are of brown color, very brave, and can run very fast. [...] They care little about the Sultan; on the contrary, the Sultan tries to win over their captains with gifts and promises because, as it is said, these desert dwellers, if they wished and were united among themselves, could easily overthrow the Sultan and conquer Egypt and Syria."
    Translated after Wilhelm of Boldensele: Reise nach Palästina, in: Joachim H. Jäck (ed.): Taschen-Bibliothek der wichtigsten und interessantesten durch Palästina. II. Theil, 2. Bändchen. Haubenstricker, von Ebner, 1829. p. 138 f.: "Weil sie [=die Wüste] sehr groß ist, lebt in derselben eine unzählige Menge Araber, die man auch Ridilbim heißt, welche sich vorzüglich an solchen Orten aufhalten, wo man Wasser, wenigstens in geringem Maße, aus Quellen, Bächen oder Brunnen haben kann: denn der Mangel an Wasser ist hier sehr groß. [...] Die Menschen leben hier unter Zelten, die aus Thierfellen gemacht sind, nähren sich gewöhnlich von Kamelen und Ziegen, säen nicht, und ärndten nicht, weil sie keine Aecker besitzen, und haben daher auch kein Brod, ausgenommen das, was aus Aegypten oder Syrien herbeigeschafft wird. Sie sind von brauner Farbe, sehr tapfer, und können sehr schnell laufen. [...] Sie bekümmern sich wenig um den Sultan; dagegen sucht dieser durch Geschenke und Versprechen ihre Kapitäne an sich zu ziehen, weil, wie man sagt, diese Wüstenbewohner, wenn sie wollten und unter sich einig wären, den Sultan vertreiben, und Aegypten und Syrien leicht erobern könnten."
  82. ^ a b Ludolf von Sudheim (1336–1341): "From Mount Sinai, after a journey of 13 days – provided one has stocked up on provisions at the monastery – one travels through the deserts into Syria [=Israel]. There is a great shortage of water, and many people live there, called 'Baldewiners'. They are half-wild and live in tents. [...] They take care of and tend to their livestock; they live off the milk given to them by their cattle and their camels. They never eat bread unless it is given to them by strangers. (...). They do not sow, nor do they reap, but live like wild animals. They are black-skinned, hideous, they have long beards, and are swifter and faster than a dromedary. [...]. These people do not care about soldiers and are not subject to them [...]. The soldier seeks to buy their friendship through gifts because if they wished, they could conquer the entire land. [...] In this desert, there are also many dangers from winds, sand dunes, savages, snakes, lions, dragons, and other poisonous animals, about which much more could be said."
    Translated after Rudolph Kirchherr von Suchen [sic] (1584): Fleissige Auffzeichnung aller Belegenheit / Reysen / Gebräuchen / Wunder und anderer Werck / Gebäuwen / Stätten / Wassern / Erdfrüchten / Thieren / und sonst allerhand Sachen / so in dem heyligen und daran angrentzenden Oertern / vom 1336. biß auff das 1350. jar vermeldt worden, in: Sigmund Feyerabend (ed.): Reyßbuch deß heyligen Lands. p. 448: "Von dem Berg Sinai kompt man in 13.tagen / so man sich im Kloster mit Proviant versehen / durch die Wüsten in Syriam / da ist grosser mangel an Wasser / und wohnen da gar viel Leute / die man Baldewiner nennet / und sind halb wild / und leben unter den Zellten [...] / hüten da und warten deß Viehs / ihr Speiß ist von Milch / was in das Vieh un die Kamel geben / essen nimmer Brot / es werd in denn von den Fremden geschenckt [...] / sie säen nit / schneiden auch nit / sonder leben wie das wilde Vieh / ir Angesicht ist schwarts / scheußlich / und haben lange Bärt / sind geschwinder und schneller denn ein Dromedari [...]. Diese Leute fragen dem Soldan nit nach / sind im auch gar nit unterthan [...]. Der Soldan begert mit schenckungen Freundschafft mit in zu machen / denn wenn sie wolten / möchten sie im das gantze Land eynnemmen. [...] Es stehet auch in diser Wüste einem vil gefahr zu von den Winden / Sandhauffen / wilde Leuten / Schlangen / Löuwen / Drachen / und andern vergifften Thieren / von welchen viel zu sagen wer."
  83. ^ a b John Mandeville (~1360s): "In that desert dwell many of the Arabians, who are called Bedouins and Ascopardes, who are people full of all evil conditions, having no houses, but tents [...]. These people do not till the ground or labour; for they eat no bread, except it be those who dwell near a good town, who go thither and eat bread sometimes. [...T]hey are strong and warlike men, and there is so great a multitude of them that they are without number. [...] They care not for their lives, and therefore they fear not the sultan nor any other prince; but dare to war with all princes who do them any grievance; and they are often at war with the sultan, as they were at the time I was with him."
    The Book of Sir John Maundeville. A.D. 1322–1356, in: Thomas Wright (ed.): Early Travels in Palestine. Henry G. Bohn, 1848. p. 160.
  84. ^ On waterskins, cf., e.g., Felix Fabri The Book of Wanderings. Vol. II/2. Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1893: "At last they [our ass-drivers] got water with difficulty, and came back about sunset with their water-skins full. At first water out of water-skins was exceeding loathsome to us, because in the skins the water takes a colour like blood, gets a salt smack from the leather, and loses all its pleasant qualities, while food cooked with that water acquires the colour and taste of newly-tanned hides. Moreover, our jars, flasks, and bottles, into which we put the water from the skins, became tainted with the same smell. Yet, in spite of all this, we often became so very thirsty that, when the water in our bottles was all gone, we put our mouths to the waterskins, and counted it luxury to suck the foul water from the stinking skin; we were exceeding grateful to the camel-drivers and ass-drivers for granting us that draught – nay, we oftentimes paid them silver coins to be allowed to suck water from the raw stinking skin."
  85. ^ a b c Cf. Edward H. Palmer: The Desert of the Exodus. Journeys on Foot in the Wilderness of the Forty Years' Wanderings. Part II. Deughton, Bell, and Co., 1871. p. 293 f.: "The Teyáhah who occupy the central portion of the great desert of Et Tíh are a large and powerful tribe of Arabs; their country produces scarcely any grain, and they are therefore compelled to purchase all the necessaries of life from Gaza or some of the border villages of Palestine. Their camels furnish them with the means of subsistence [...]. Such of them as are not fortunate enough to participate in this traffic live almost entirely on the milk of their sheep and camels, occasionally selling one of the latter, if this resource fail from drought or other causes. In so many other parts of the desert, milk forms the sole article of diet obtainable by the Bedawín, and I have heard a well-authenticated case of an Arab in the north of Syria who for three years had not tasted either water or solid food. [...] Only the Bedawín of the mountainous districts engage in anything like agricultural pursuits; they therefore alone consider a spring of water as a positive necessity: to the Bedawín of the plains, this is indispensable only when they are making a long journey with a laden beast."
  86. ^ Eli Ashkenazi et al. (2020): The vitality of fruit trees in ancient Bedouin orchards in the Arid Negev Highlands (Israel): Implications of climatic change and environmental stability. Quaternary International 545. p. 11.
  87. ^ "[Coming from Petra,] I entered the desert of Babylonia, which is called the Birrie, a land without roads or water, a vast wilderness and a lonely place, which in former times the children of Israel crossed, through the providence of the wondrous God. [...] No one can find the way except the Bedouin, who know the region and are accustomed to pass along that route. [...] It should be noted that the dangers of that desert are very many. There are often lions, whose recent tracks I saw, and poisonous worms and snakes. Also rains, for when it rains the water that is collected throughout the mountains fills the desert with such a flood that no one can avoid the danger. Also the heat, whose excess drives travellers to exhaustion. And the lack of water, which is to be had only one day in five, or one in six. Robbers too, both farming Arabs and Bedouin, whose freebooting activities are dreaded. In summer time no one can pass through this desert. There are also few birds in it."
    Apud Denys Pringle: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Routledge, 2012. p. 122–124.
  88. ^ Cf. Eli Ashkenazi et al. (2020): The vitality of fruit trees in ancient Bedouin orchards in the Arid Negev Highlands (Israel): Implications of climatic change and environmental stability. Quaternary International 545. p. 6 f.
  89. ^ Cf. Yotam Tepper et al. (2022): Relict olive trees at runoff agriculture remains in Wadi Zetan, Negev Desert, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 41: ~500 year old trees on terraces with OSL dates pointing to the early Islamic period.
  90. ^ Andrea Junge et al.: The Archaeology and History of Rock-cut Cisterns and Open Water Reservoirs in the Negev Highlands. Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research 389, 2023. p. 191–216.
  91. ^ Gideon Avni (2022): Landscapes as Palimpsest: The "Ancient Lands" Myth and the Evolution of Aricultural Landscapes in the Southern Levant in Late Antiquity, in Walid Atrash et al. (ed.): Cities, Monuments and Objects in the Roman and Byzantine Levant. Studies in Honour of Gabi Mazor. Archaeopress Archaeology. p. 267.
  92. ^ James Fergusson: In Search of the River Jordan. A Story of Palestine, Israel and the Struggle for Water. Yale University Press, 2023. p. 167.
  93. ^ Ilan Stavi et al. (2021): Ancient to recent-past runoff harvesting agriculture in the hyper-arid Arava Valley: OSL dating and insights. The Holocene 31 (6). p. 1051.
  94. ^ Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth / Kamal Abdulfattah (1977): Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan, and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. With 13 Figures and 5 Maps. Selbstverlag der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 38, 49, 143 f.
  95. ^ a b c Amnon Cohen / Bernard Lewis: Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century. Princeton University Press, 1978. p. 17.
  96. ^ J. Kenneth Eakins (1993): Tell el-Hesi. The Muslim Cemetery in Fields V and VI/IX (Stratum II). Eisenbrauns. p. 76.
  97. ^ On the following, cf. Frank Stewart (2006): Customary Law among the Bedouin, in: Dawn Chatty (ed.): Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century. Brill. p. 241, 248–250.
  98. ^ Cf. also Clinton Bailey (2009): Bedouin Law from Sinai & the Negev. Justice without Government. Yale University Press. p. 263–265.
  99. ^ Eliahu Epstein (1939): Bedouin of the Negeb. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 71 (2) p. 70.
  100. ^ Simplified from the Carta map "Bedouin Tribal Confederations" and Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. Appendix.
  101. ^ Cf. Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). Esp. p. 47–49.
  102. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 21, FN 4.
  103. ^ Sason Bar-Zvi / Yosef Ben-David (1978): Negev Bedouin in the 1930s and 1940s as a semi-nomadic society. Studies in the Geography of Israel 10. p. 111. [Heb.]
  104. ^ Alois Musil: Arabia Petraea. Vol. III: Ethnologischer Reisebericht. Alfred Hölder, 1908. p. 44.
  105. ^ Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 129.
  106. ^ Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 13.
  107. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 21 f.
  108. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 21, FN 4.
  109. ^ Muḥammad S. Aṭṭayib: Mawsu'at al-Qaba'il al-'Arabiyya [Encyclopedia of Arab Tribes]. Vol. 1. Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, 1997. p. 137. [arab.]
  110. ^ Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 82.
  111. ^ On the Amarīn, cf. also Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 21 f.
  112. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 22.
  113. ^ a b c Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth / Kamal Abdulfattah: Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. With 13 Figures and 5 Maps. Selbstverlag der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, 1977. p. 49.
  114. ^ Muḥammad S. Aṭṭayib: Mawsu'at al-Qaba'il al-'Arabiyya [Encyclopedia of Arab Tribes]. Vol. 1. Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, 1997. p. 256. [arab.]
  115. ^ Muḥammad S. Aṭṭayib: Mawsu'at al-Qaba'il al-'Arabiyya [Encyclopedia of Arab Tribes]. Vol. 1. Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, 1997. p. 139–149. [arab.]
  116. ^ Frank H. Stewart (1991): Notes on the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 34 (1/2). p. 102.
  117. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 36.
  118. ^ Cf. Na'um B. Shuqayr: The Ancient and Modern History of Sinai and Its Geography. Dar Al-Jil, 1991 [1916]. p. 108, 116. [arab.]
  119. ^ Cf. Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 99.
  120. ^ On this grave, cf. also G. W. Murray: Sons of Ishmael. A Study of the Egyptian Bedouin. George Routledge & Sons, 1935. p. 254.
  121. ^ On Bailey's calculation of Shaykh Attiya's birth year as 1470, see Frank H. Stewart (1991): Notes on the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 34 (1/2). p. 103, who refutes this calculation. Cf. also Clinton Bailey: A Reply to F. Stewart's "Notes on the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 34 (1/2), 1991. p. 114.
  122. ^ Clinton Bailey: The Negev in the Nineteenth Century: Reconstructing History from Bedouin Oral Traditions. Asian and African Studies 14, 1980. p. 44.
  123. ^ Clinton Bailey (1985): Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1). p. 49 FN 93.
  124. ^ Clinton Bailey: The Negev in the Nineteenth Century: Reconstructing History from Bedouin Oral Traditions. Asian and African Studies 14, 1980. p. 68 FN 94: "Of those that remained in the Negev, one section became part of the Jubārāt tribal confederation, which they had formerly dominated, and part joined the Tarābīn."
  125. ^ Alois Musil: Arabia Petraea. Vol. III: Ethnologischer Reisebericht. Alfred Hölder, 1908. p. 38.
  126. ^ Cf. Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn: Provincial Leaderships in Syria, 1575–1650. American University of Beirut, 1985. p. 185 f.
  127. ^ Muḥammad S. Aṭṭayib: Mawsu'at al-Qaba'il al-'Arabiyya [Encyclopedia of Arab Tribes]. Expanded and Revised Edition. Vol. 1. Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, 2005. p. 460. [arab.]
  128. ^ Clinton Bailey: Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1), 1985. p. 48.
  129. ^ Muḥammad S. Aṭṭayib: Mawsu'at al-Qaba'il al-'Arabiyya [Encyclopedia of Arab Tribes]. Expanded and Revised Edition. Vol. 1. Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi, 2005. p. 818, 820–822. [arab.]
  130. ^ Clinton Bailey: Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1), 1985. p. 24.
  131. ^ Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 122.
  132. ^ Cf. Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1943): Die Beduinen. Band II: Die Beduinenstämme in Palästina, Transjordanien, Sinai, Ḥedjaz. Otto Harrasowitz. p. 111.
  133. ^ Edward Robinson: Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraeea. Crocker & Brewster, 1841. p. 288.
  134. ^ On this grave, cf. also Horatius Bonar: The Desert of Sinai: Notes of a Spring-Journey from Cairo to Beersheba. Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857. p. 306.
  135. ^ On this grave, cf. also Alois Musil: Arabia Petraea. Vol. III: Ethnologischer Reisebericht. Alfred Hölder, 1908. p. 35.
  136. ^ Clinton Bailey: The Negev in the Nineteenth Century: Reconstructing History from Bedouin Oral Traditions. Asian and African Studies 14, 1980.
  137. ^ Clinton Bailey: Dating the Arrival of the Bedouin Tribes in Sinai and the Negev. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 28 (1), 1985.
  138. ^ Clinton Bailey: The Negev in the Nineteenth Century: Reconstructing History from Bedouin Oral Traditions. Asian and African Studies 14, 1980. p. 39, FN 7: "Before the 19th century, Tiyāhā bedouin from the poorer Sinai used to come to the Gaza district in the summer to help in the wheat harvest and graze their flocks on the stubble."
  139. ^ M. Le Chevalier / A. Jaubert: Nomenclature des Tribus d'Arabes qui campent entre l'Égypte et la Palestine, in: Description de l'Égypte. État moderne, Tome Second. De l'Imprimerie Impériale, 1812. p. 250: "La vallée de Tyeh [...] ou de l'Égarement, les environs de Ghazzah [...], et plus particulièrement le lieu nommé Deyr el-Tyn [...] ou Couvent des Figuiers."
  140. ^ F. Kruse et al. (1855): Ulrich Jasper Seetzen′s Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten. Dritter Band. G. Reimer. pp. 45, 47. Cf. also the map in F. Kruse / H. L. Fleischer: Commentare zu Ulrich Jasper Seetzen's Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten. G. Reimer, 1859. Appendix.
  141. ^ Fr. Kruse et al. (1855): Ulrich Jasper Seetzen′s Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten. Dritter Band. G. Reimer. p. 47.
  142. ^ Seth J. Frantzman / Ruth Kark / Havatzelet Yahel (2012b): Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? Fabricating Palestinian History. Middle East Quarterly 19 (3), 2012. p. 9: "Among the Bedouin tribes living in the Negev today, most view themselves as descendants of nomadic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, most of them arrived fairly recently, during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, from the deserts of Arabia, Transjordan, Sinai, and Egypt. [...] Ottoman tax registers demonstrate that the tribes which lived in the Negev in 1596-97 are not those residing there today. According to historians Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah, the tax registers that reflect material collected in those years show names of forty-three Bedouin tribes living in what became Mandatory Palestine, including six in the Negev. There is not much information on what became of those tribes. However, the names of the tribes currently living in the Negev do not appear on the tax registers from 1596."
  143. ^ Havazelet Yahel / Ruth Kark / Seth Frantzman: Negev Bedouin and Indigenous People: A Comparative Review, in: Raghubir Chand / Etienne Nel / Stanko Pelc (ed.): Societies, Social Inequalities and Marginalization. Marginal Regions in the 21st Century. Springer, 2017. p. 132: "Ottoman tax registers demonstrate that the tribes which lived in the Negev in 1596-97 are not those residing there today (Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Abdulfattah 1977, 3). According to Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, the tax registers that reflect material collected in those years show names of forty-three Bedouin tribes living in what became Mandatory Palestine, including six in the Negev. There is not much information of what became of those tribes (Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Abdulfattah 1977, 51-3). However, the names of the tribes currently living in the Negev do not appear on the tax registers from 1596 (Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and Abdulfattah 1977, 51-3)."
  144. ^ Alexandre Kedar / Ahmad Amara / Oren Yiftachel: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 124: "It is important to note that the southernmost area surveyed by the census, the edge of the Ottoman-controlled area, was, according to census maps, demarcated by a line straggling between Hebron and Rafah, that is, along the northern edge of the Bedouin region. Hence most of the Bedouin tribes who lived farther south were not surveyed or mentioned in the census."
  145. ^ Alexandre Kedar / Ahmad Amara / Oren Yiftachel: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 124: "In the census summaries the names of six Bedouin tribes are mentioned, five of which can be identified today in the Mount Hebron region and the Negev." (including the Gaza Strip, see S. Dar / S. Safrai (ed.): Shomron Studies. Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1986. p. 385 f. [Heb.]).
  146. ^ Näher beschrieben in: Teddy Kollek: Pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Story of Pilgrimage through the Ages. Harper and Row, 1970. p. 158.
  147. ^ Cf. Ibn Battuta (1325): "My route [from Egypt to Gaza] lay through Bilbays and as-Sálihíya [along the Mediterranean coast], after which we entered the sands and halted at a number of stations. At each of these there was a hostelry, which they call a khán, where travellers alight with their beasts. Each khán has a water wheel supplying a fountain and a shop at which the traveller buys what he requires for himself and his beast. At the station of Qatyá customs-dues are collected from the merchants, and their goods and baggage are thoroughly examined and searched. There are offices here, with officers, clerks, and notaries, and the daily revenue is a thousand gold dinars. [...]. The responsibility of guarding this road has been entrusted to the Badawin. At nightfall they smooth down the sand so that no track is left on it, then in the morning the governor comes and looks at the sand. If he finds any track on it he commands the Arabs to bring the person who made it, and they set out in pursuit and never fail to catch him."
    Apud A. R. Gibb: Ibn Battúta. Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929. p. 54.
  148. ^ Cf. Obadiah of Bertinoro (1490): "The district beyond the Jordan, including the lands of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, and of the sons of Ammon, the Mountain of Moab, and Mount Seir, are now waste places. Not an inhabited city is to be found there; for the Bedouins destroy everything. They come even up to the gates of Jerusalem, steal and plunder in the open roads, and no one can interfere with them, they are so numerous. For this reason the district is all waste, without inhabitants; and there of about twenty to thirty houses. Bethar, formerly a large city, is now a place for cattle, and contains about twenty houses; it is half a day's journey from Jerusalem. Nearly all the houses that wer formerly great are now waste places. They continue to bear the same names, but are uninhabited.
    In all these districts, in the valleys and mountains, there are toll-collectors, who represent themselves as overseers for the security of the way, and are called Naphar in Arabic. These men take as many taxes as they like from the Jews with perfect impunity."
    Apud Elkan N. Adler: Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 Firsthand Accounts. Dover Publications, 1987. p. 240 f.
  149. ^ Cf. Edward Robinson: Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraeea. Crocker & Brewster, 1841. p. 253 f.
  150. ^ Hayat Nasser al-Hajji: The Internal Affairs in Egypt During the Third Reign of Sulṭān Al-Nāṣir Muḥammed ibn Qalāwūn. PhD Thesis, 1975. p. 224 f., 229, 236 f.
  151. ^ Robin M. Brown: Late Islamic ceramic production and distribution in the southern Levant: A socio-economic and political interpretation. Dissertation, 1992. p. 78 f., 87 f.
  152. ^ Cf. Eliyahu Ashtor: A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages. University of California Press, 1976. p. 301–304.
  153. ^ Bethany J. Walker: Militarization to Nomadization: The Middle and Late Islamic Periods. Near Eastern Archaeology 62/4, 1999. p. 214.
  154. ^ Beides kombiniert Robin M. Brown: Late Islamic ceramic production and distribution in the southern Levant: A socio-economic and political interpretation. Dissertation, 1992. p. 71 f. zu einer zeitlichen Folge: "This growth trend reversed sharply in 1347–8 when bubonic plague swept across Egypt and the Levant reducing the population by approximately one-third [...]. Malnutrition stemming from poverty created a devastating death toll and hindered recovery by discouraging intensive procreation [...] During the Burji reign population was further diminished by rebellions, warfare between villages and tribes, and bedouin uprisings. These upheavals led to the destruction of villages and agricultural lands, spawning widepsread rural abandonment in some districts [...]. In some districts severe population decline caused the desertion of hundreds of villages [...]."
  155. ^ Hayat Nasser al-Hajji: The Internal Affairs in Egypt During the Third Reign of Sulṭān Al-Nāṣir Muḥammed ibn Qalāwūn. PhD Thesis, 1975. p. 237.
  156. ^ Robin M. Brown: Late Islamic ceramic production and distribution in the southern Levant: A socio-economic and political interpretation. Dissertation, 1992. p. 84 f.
  157. ^ Bethany J. Walker: Militarization to Nomadization: The Middle and Late Islamic Periods. Near Eastern Archaeology 62/4, 1999. p. 205 f.
  158. ^ Vgl. den Überblick in Muhammad Suwaed: The Image of the Bedouin in Travel Literature and Western Researchers Who Visited Palestine in the Nineteenth Century. Digest of Middle East Studies 25 (1), p. 88–108.
  159. ^ Cf. Tomer Mazarib: [ From Culture to Culturism: Rethinking 'Cultural Translation' of Nomadic Bedouin Society]. The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies 8 (1), 2022. p. 61–86.
  160. ^ Gabriel Polley: "Palestine is Thus Brought Home to England": The Representation of Palestine in British Travel Literature, 1840–1914. PhD Thesis, 2020. p. 173–185, 249–264.
  161. ^ Cf. Muhammad Suwaed: The Image of the Bedouin in Travel Literature and Western Researchers Who Visited Palestine in the Nineteenth Century. Digest of Middle East Studies 25 (1), 2016. p. 100.
  162. ^ On these reforms, cf. Yasemin Avci: The Application of Tanzimat in the Desert: The Bedouins and the Creation of a New Town in Southern Palestine (1860–1914). Middle Eastern Studies 45 (6), 2009.
  163. ^ Cf. Dotan Halevy: Stripped: Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation, 2021. p. 69 f.
  164. ^ Cf. Reșat Kasaba: A Moveable Empire. Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees. University of Washington Press, 2009. p. 85 f.
  165. ^ Yuval Ben-Bassat: Bedouin Petitions from late Ottoman Palestine: Evaluating the Effects of Sedentarization. Journal of the Economic and social History of the Orient 58, 2015. p. 155 f.
  166. ^ Nora E. Barakat: Bedouin Bureaucrats. Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire. Stanford University Press, 2023. p. 100 f.
  167. ^ Cf. Clinton Bailey The Ottomans and the Bedouin Tribes of the Negev, in: Gad G. Gilbar (ed.): Palestine 1800–1914. Studies in Economic and Social History. E.J. Brill, 1990. p. 322–325. Cf. also p. 332: "In sum, Ottoman rule was barely effective in the nineteenth-century Negev. As a result, the Bedouin there lived an autonomous, if not independent, existence, pursuing their lives and wars with little interference. Without sufficient manpower and weaponry at government disposal, it could hardly have been different."
  168. ^ BOA, I.DH 1385/13, apud Ahmad Amara: The Ottoman Tanzimat in the Palestinian Frontier of Beersheba (1850–1917), in: Burhan Çağlar et al. (ed.): Living in the Ottoman Lands: Identities, Administration and Warfare. Kronik, 2021. p. 136.
  169. ^ Eugene L. Rogan: Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921. Cambridge University Press, 1999. p. 188.
  170. ^ Cf. Nora E. Barakat: Bedouin Bureaucrats. Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire. Stanford University Press, 2023. p. 101.
  171. ^ Ahmad Amara: The Ottoman Tanzimat in the Palestinian Frontier of Beersheba (1850–1917), in: Burhan Çağlar et al. (ed.): Living in the Ottoman Lands: Identities, Administration and Warfare. Kronik, 2021. p. 142.
  172. ^ Cf. Ahmad Amara: The Ottoman Tanzimat in the Palestinian Frontier of Beersheba (1850–1917), in: Burhan Çağlar et al. (ed.): Living in the Ottoman Lands: Identities, Administration and Warfare. Kronik, 2021. p. 127, 132.
  173. ^ Ruth Kark, Seth J. Frantzman: The Negev: Land, Settlement, the Bedouin and Ottoman and British Policy 1871–1948. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (1), 2012. 58 f.
  174. ^ Nora E. Barakat: Bedouin Bureaucrats. Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire. Stanford University Press, 2023. p. 165 f.
  175. ^ Yasemin Avci: The Application of Tanzimat in the Desert: The Bedouins and the Creation of a New Town in Southern Palestine (1860–1914). Middle Eastern Studies 45 (6), 2009. p. 977.
  176. ^ Birzeit University, Institute of Law: Informal Justice: Rule of Law and Dispute Resolution in Palestine. 2006. p. 31.
  177. ^ This is likely most vividly demonstrated by the following report: "The border districts have ever been exposed to the predatory incursions of the Bedouins. [...] Only in the [inland] mountains has the ancient freedom been preserved for the native inhabitants [...], hence the regions are densely populated, well-cultivated, prosperous, flourishing, contrasting with the deserts ruled by despotism. When will the time come for enlightened Europeans to restore freedom to these peoples, and thus release the shackles under which the splendid nature of these regions has been almost captive for millennia?"
    Translated after Friedrich G. Crome (1834): Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des Landes Syrien. Erster Theil: Geographische Beschreibung. Erste Abtheilung: Das südliche Drittheil oder das Land Palästina. Mit einer Karte. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. p. 13 f.: "Die Gränzdistricte waren von jeher den räuberischen Einfällen der Beduinen ausgesetzt [...]. Nur in den Gebürgen [im Inland] hat sich die alte Freyheit dem Ureinwohner erhalten [...], daher sind die Gegenden stark bevölkert, wohlangebauet, wohlhabend, blühend, im Gegensatz zu den Wüsten, welche der Despotismus beherrscht. Wann wird die Zeit kommen, daß gebildete Europäer diesen Völkern die Freyheit wiedergeben, und also die Fesseln lösen, unter denen die herrliche Natur dieser Gegenden nun schon seit Jahrtausenden fast gefangen liegt?"
  178. ^ "This is a spacious wady, well clothed with the vegetation of the desert [...]. We found several cultivated fields of considerable size, with corn beginning to shew itself in some of them. Right across the valley ran long lines of stones, at short intervals. They were not the foundations of houses, – but were evidently thrown across to retain the soil in its place, and prevent the rush of the occasional torrent from sweeping it away. These lines might be two or three hundred yards long, – some even longer, and were made of well-squared stones, fitting into each other, and forming a strong bulwark against the stream. [...] These stones were not the work of Bedaween, – but of an older date, and raised by more skilful hands. The present inhabitants were but making use of what a more ingenious population had bequeathed to them. They were originally, perhaps, Roman, afterwards kept up by the Christian inhabitants of the locality."
    Horatius Bonar:The Desert of Sinai: Notes of a Spring-Journey from Cairo to Beersheba. Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857. p. 294 f.
  179. ^ "Between one or two we came into Wadý-el-Ab'deh, where doubtless stood Eboda, mentioned by Ptolemy as a Roman city [...]. It would appear that in this region the Romans had established themselves in great strength, their footsteps being visible everywhere. It is not unlikely that the 'wilderness of Beersheba' (Gen. xxi 14) extending itself in this direction, and the cultivation, of which we see traces, was begun in the days of Abraham and Isaac. [...] Though occasionally molested by the Philistines, they yet, in general, seemed to have had this semi-desert in peaceful occupation; and through them these plains were brought under a partial tillage, which went on for ages, reaching its height under the Roman conquest, and after that, gradually sinking back into a sterility probably greater than that from which it was at first reclaimed.
    The wady was sandy, but still marked by a considerable amount of vegetation. It was studded everywhere with the lilacious plants, which I have already noticed, as well as with crocuses and similar small bulbs. Nor were these stunted and meagre; they were tall and bushy, as if the soil were quite congenial."
    Horatius Bonar:The Desert of Sinai: Notes of a Spring-Journey from Cairo to Beersheba. Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857. p. 304 f.
  180. ^ Avi Oppenheim (2015): The Agriculture Development in the Negev, 1799 – 1948. M.A. Thesis [Heb.]. p. 36–66.
  181. ^ Cf. Alexandre Kedar et al. (2018): Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press. p. 125–129.
  182. ^ William M. Thomson (1880): The Land and the Book. Or: Biblical Illustrations drawn from the manners and customs, the scenes and scenery, of the Holy Land. Southern Palestine and Jerusalem. Harper & Brothers. p. 192, 194.
  183. ^ "But suddenly, near Khan Yunes, like the joyousness of life conjoined to the shadow of death, the fields of Gaza, with their cheerful fertility, were linked to the edge of the desert. It seemed a magical delusion – like a joyful picture starting suddenly from the colourless canvass. There are broad plain of pasture-land lay stretched before us, with fields offering their golden harvest, and still sown all over with flowering stems, with tobacco plantations in the splendour of their richly coloured blossoms, with luxuriant melon plantations, with hedges of the productive fig-cactus, with olives and pomegranates, sycamores and fig-trees. It was the impress of the promised land; it offered indeed a festal greeting." In: Constantine Tischendorff (1847): Travels in the East.Longman, Brown, Green, and Logmans . p. 127
  184. ^ Cf. also a letter from 1855 detailing how these species were grown in the Gaza area: C. S. Minor (1855): Agriculture in Palestine. American Agriculturist 13. p. 210–212.
  185. ^ Edward Robinson / Eli Smith (1841): Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea. A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838. Vol. I. Crocker & Brewster. p. 282: "Our guides had promised to take us to a place with ruins, not far from our path, which they knew only by the name of ˀAujeh; but which Tuweileb said was also called ˀAbdeh. [...] On both sides of the way patches of wheat and barley were seen; their deep green contrasting strongly with the nakedness around. We saw many such patches in the course of the day; but they were mostly stunted and poor, in consequence of the little rain."
  186. ^ Fr. Kruse et al. (1855): Ulrich Jasper Seetzen′s Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten. Dritter Band. G. Reimer. p. 31: north of Beersheba; p. 45: near Avdat; p. 47: southeast of Avdat.
  187. ^ "The Ghour Arabs of Rieha: their tribes are el Djermye, and el Tamere. Many of the Ghour Arabs cultivate ground, and breed buffaloes, sell all their cattle at the Jerusalem market, and pay tribute to the Mutsellim of that place.
    Returning from the west towards the southern parts of the Dead Sea, we find an Arab tribe encamped near Hebron (or, as the natives call it, el Khalîl). This tribe is named el Djehalein: they cultivate land, but reside in tents; have few horses, but many firelocks." In: John Lewis Burckhardt (1831): Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, Collected during His Travels in the East. Vol. 1. Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. p. 49.
  188. ^ "The semi-nomadic Bedouins, unlike the nomadic Bedouins, dwells with his family in a specific place, generally in the place in which his tribe dwells. There he cultivates his parcel of land, and only for a short period of time, lasting a few months – he, or another member of his family, takes the flock and goes wandering, following the annual wild grass and the water. It should be emphasized that, whereas the nomadic Bedouins moves about with his entire family, the semi-nomadic Bedouins leaves some of his family in his permanent dwelling place."
    Yaakov Habakkuk: From the House of Hair to the House of Stone: Transition in Bedouin Dwelling – Ethnographic Research. MoD, 1986. p. 105. [Heb.] Apud Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 145.
  189. ^ Benjamin A. Saidel, Jeffrey A. Blakely (2019): Bedouin "Settlement" in the Tell el-Hesi Region in the Late Islamic to British Mandate Period. Journal of Islamic Archaeology 6 (1). p. 22 f.
  190. ^ Seth J. Frantzman (2010): The Arab settlement of Late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine: New Village Formation and Settlement Fixation, 1871–1948. Dissertation. p. 123.
  191. ^ Seth Frantzman (2014): The Politization of History and the Negev Bedouin Land Claims: A Review Essay on Indigenous (In)justice. Israel Studies 19 (1). p. 53.
  192. ^ Dotan Halevy (2021): Stripped: Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation. p. 63.
  193. ^ Cf. Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 150.
  194. ^ Dotan Halevy (2021): Stripped: Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation. p. 65.
  195. ^ Reșat Kasaba (2009): A Moveable Empire. Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees. University of Washington Press. p. 34.
  196. ^ Cf. G. Gatt: Industrielles aus Gaza. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 8, 1885. p. 69–79.
  197. ^ Cf. Alexander Schölch (1982): European Penetration and the Economic Development of Palestine, 1856–82, in: Roger Owen (ed.): Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. St. Anthony's. p. 53 f.
  198. ^ Cf. Mansour Nasasra / Bruce E. Stanley (2023): Assembling urban worlds: always-becoming urban in and through Bir al-Saba'. Urban History 51 (2). p. 8–10.
  199. ^ Cf. M. C.–F. Volney: Travels through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785. Vol. II. G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1787. p. 340 f.; 343 f.: "The black soil of the surrounding country [of Gaza] is extremely fertile, and the gardens, watered by limpid streams, still produce, without art, pomegranates, oranges, exquisite dates, and ranunculus roots in great request, even at Constantinople. It has, however, shared in the general destruction; and, notwithstanding its proud title of the capital of Palestine, it is no more than a defenseless village, peopled by at most only two thousand inhabitants. The manufacture of cottons is their principal support; and, as they have the exclusive supply of the peasants and Bedouins of the neighbourhood, they may keep going about five hundred looms. There are likewise two or three soap manufactories. The article of ashes, or kalis, was formerly a considerable commerce. The Bedouins, who procured these ashes, by simply burning the plants of the desert, sold them at a reasonable rate; but since the Aga has monopolized this commodity, the Arabs, compelled to part with it at his price, are no longer anxious to collect it; and the inhabitants, constrained to purchase at his pleasure, neglect making soap. [...]
    [... To] the east, we meet with other strips of cultivable land, as far as the road to Mecca. These are little vallies, where a few peasants have been tempted to settle by the waters, which collect at the time of the winter rains, and by some wells. They cultivate palm-trees and doura, under the protection, or rather exposed to the rapine, of the Arabs. These peasants, separated from the rest of mankind, are half savages, and more ignorant and wretched than the Bedouins themselves. [...] This country has not been visited by any traveller [...]."
  200. ^ Cf. Mahmoud Yazbak: Palestinian Commercial Networks in Transformation, 1750–1900. Sociology Study 2 (11), 2012. p. 806 f.
  201. ^ Cf. Mahmoud Yazbak: Palestinian Commercial Networks in Transformation, 1750–1900. Sociology Study 2 (11), 2012. p. 811 f.
  202. ^ Haim Gerber: Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The Role of Foreign Trade. Middle Eastern Studies 18 (3), 1982. p. 258: "From 1825 to 1875, the export volume from Jaffa increased fiftyfold, while the import volume initially only increased seventeenfold." Cf. also p. 260.
  203. ^ Cf. e.g. Ruth Kark (1982–1986): Agricultural land in Palestine: Letters to Sir Moses Montefiore, 1839. Jewish Historical Studies 29. p. 215.
  204. ^ Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question. "Olive Oil Production in the Late Ottoman Rule. Embracing New Technology with in a Deeply Rooted Tradition". Retrieved 2024-05-09.: "The proto-industrial sector in Palestine can be dated to the time of Ibrahim Pasha (1831–1840). By installing windmills in Jerusalem, he wanted to elevate the traditional local flour production business to the industrial level, or at least bring it to the level of proto-industry. The olive oil sector was undoubtedly one of his interests; Egypt continued to import the largest quantity of soap and olive oil from this part of the Ottoman Empire. Olive oil and soap were the two most exported items from the three main ports of Palestine (Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa)."
  205. ^ Beshara Doumani (1995): Rediscovering Palestine. Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900. University of California Press. Section 3: "It is estimated, for instance, that Ibrahim Pasha’s policy of 'forced cultivation' led to the doubling of the cotton-growing areas in Greater Syria by the end of the 1830s, but these figures are only guesses."
  206. ^ cf. Charles Issawi (1977): British Trade and the Rise of Beirut, 1830–1860. International Journal of Middle East Studies 8 (1). p. 97 f.
  207. ^ Nathan Shachar (2010): The Gaza Strip. Its History and Politics. From the Pharaohs to the Israeli Invasion of 2009. Sussex Academic Press. p. 40.
  208. ^ Dotan Halevy (2021): Stripped: Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation. p. 68 f.
  209. ^ Cf. G. Gatt: Industrielles aus Gaza. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 8, 1885. p. 76.
  210. ^ Charles T. Wison: Peasant life in the Holy Land. E. P. Dutton, 1906. p. 259 f.: "At one time a great deal of weaving was done by the Fellahîn, and though goods of European manufacture have to some extent crippled this industry, yet there are still many looms to be found in various parts."
  211. ^ I. M. Smilianskaya: The Disintegration of Feudal Relations in Syria and Lebanon in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, in: Charles Issawi (ed.): The Economic History of the Middle East 1800–1914. A Book of Readings. Chicago University Press, 1966. p. 245–247.
  212. ^ Talal Asad: Anthropological texts and ideological problems: An analysis of Cohen on Arab villages in Israel. Economy and Society 4 (3), 1975. p. 261.
  213. ^ Haim Gerber: Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The Role of Foreign Trade. Middle Eastern Studies 18 (3), 1982. p. 251: "[...F]rom the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards the Middle East began to be flooded with the products of the industrial revolution. The volume of trade increased dramatically during the a1820s and 1830s, with the beginning of steam navigation and the greater measure of security introduced into Syria and Palestine by Muhammed Ali."
  214. ^ Cf. Roger Owen: The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914. I.B. Tauris, 2002. p. 265: Average of 1898–1902: citrus fruits exported from Jaffa: £94,000; exports from Gaza: £100,000.
    On citrus fruit export, cf. Walid Khalidi: Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution. Journal of Palestine Studies 27/1, 1997. p. 13.
  215. ^ Cf. Marwan R. Buheiry: The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1914. Journal of Palestine Studies 10 (4), 1981. p. 68: Average of 1901–1905: citrus fruits exported from Jaffa: £97,000; barley exported from Gaza: £180,000.
  216. ^ Cf. Dotan Halevy (2021): Stripped: Ruination, Liminality, and the Making of the Gaza Strip. Dissertation. p. 72, 79.
  217. ^ The British Abramson Report of 1921, based on agricultural production and paid taxes: 280,000 hectares. Cf. Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 130.
    However, also compare this figure to Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 54, who thinks that the yield per hectar assumption in these calculations is too high, and that at least 375,000 hectares were already being cultivated at the beginning of the Mandate period.
  218. ^ Beersheba's District Officer Aref al-Aref in 1934: 100,000 hectares currently being cultivated (المزروع بالفعل, "indeed / right now under cultivation"), 300,000 hectares agricultural land. Cf. Aref al-Aref: The History of Beersheba and its Tribes. Maktabat Madbouli, 1999. p. 274. [Arab.]
    Two figures in this and the next two estimates reflect that in Palestine, only roughly half of the agricultural land was regularly cultivated. The remainder either lay fallow to allow the soil to recover or was not cultivated due to insufficient rainfall. Cf. Sami Hadawi: Village Statistics 1945. A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine. With Explanatory Notes. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970. p. 36; Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 54; Alexandre Kedar et al.: Emptied Lands. A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. Stanford University Press, 2018. p. 130.
  219. ^ Epstein in 1939, based on a survey of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries: 211,000 hectares currently under cultivation, 350,000 hectares agricultural land in Bedouin possession. Cf. Eliahu Epstein: Bedouin of the Negeb. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 71 (2), 1939. p. 70.
  220. ^ Hadawi, based on the Village Statistics of 1945: ~200,000 hectares currently under cultivation, >400,000 hectares agricultural land. Cf. Sami Hadawi: Village Statistics 1945. A Classification of Land and Area Ownership in Palestine. With Explanatory Notes. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970. p. 36.
  221. ^ Cf. Ruth Kark: The Agricultural Character of Jewish Settlement in the Negev: 1939–1947. Jewish Social Studies 45 (2), 1983. p. 169.
  222. ^ Marwan R. Buheiry: The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1914. Journal of Palestine Studies 10 (4), 1981. p. 68.
  223. ^ Haim Gerber: Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The Role of Foreign Trade. Middle Eastern Studies 18 (3), 1982. p. 261.
  224. ^ Cf. similarly Dotan Halevy: Being Imperial, Being Ephemeral: Ottoman Modernity on Gaza's Seashore, in: Yuval Ben-Bassat / Johann Buessow (ed.): From the Household to the Wider World. Local Perspectives on Urban Institutions in Late Ottoman Bilad al-Sham. Tübingen University Press, 2022. p. 233.
  225. ^ Cf. Gad Schaffer: Agricultural Land-Use Changes in the Judean Region from the End of the Ottoman Empire to the End of the British Mandate: A Spatial Analysis. Geo-Information 10 (5), 2021.
  226. ^ Cf. UN Sub-Committee 2 on the Palestinian Question: Report of Sub-Committee 2 to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question of the UN General Assembly 1947. Appendix VI: Agricultural land excluding Beersheba = a total of 720,072 ha.
  227. ^ Salman H. Abu-Sitta: Atlas of Palestine 1917–1966. Palestine Land Society, 2010. p. 24: 450,000 ha.
  228. ^ Cf. Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946. The Government Printer, Palestine, 1946. p. 370: "A considerable part of this comparatively fertile zone is covered by a block of shifting sand. Excavation has shown that there was already sand at Khalasa in the third to the fourth century A.D."
  229. ^ Cf. the Survey of Palestine 1:100,000 map.
  230. ^ Cf. Figure 9 in Khalid Fathi Ubeid: Sand dunes of the Gaza Strip (Southwestern Palestine): Morphology, textural characteristics and associated environmental impacts. Earth Sciences Research Journal 18 (2). p. 138.
  231. ^ Avi Oppenheim (2015): The Agriculture Development in the Negev, 1799 – 1948. M.A. Thesis [Heb.]. p. 88–98.
  232. ^ C. Leonard Woolley / T. E. Lawrence (1936 [=1915]): The Wilderness of Zin. With a chapter on the Greek Inscriptions by M. N. Tod. Jonathan Cape. p. 54: "We noticed that wherever these [Byzantine] terrace walls are preserved, and especially if their hedges yet remain, there the modern Beduin prefers to sow his corn and there the crop is in best condition."
  233. ^ Ariel Meraiot et al. (2021): Scale, Landscape and Indigenous Bedouin Land Use: Spatial Order and Agricultural Sedentarisation in the Negev Highland]. Nomadic Peoples 25. p. 15 f.
  234. ^ Cf. Philip Mayerson (1960): The Ancient Agricultural Remains of the Central Negeb: Methodology and Dating Criteria. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 160. p. 35: "I have carefully examined many of these tributary wadis and have found that many terrace walls have been laid by Bedouin and that they do not lie over ancient walls. I have also questioned Bedouin who have cultivated the area, and they claim to have terraced wadis, particularly small ones, in which no walls existed before.
    When one examines the terracing in tributary wadis with steep gradients, it is quite common to find that the ancient walls stop at some distance from the wadi's source. Bedouin, however, have continued terracing the wadi with low, rough walls as far as there is a bit of cultivable soil. [...] Tributary wadis with mild gradients, and consequently not badly eroded [...], are generally filled with Bedouin walls form source to mouth. [...]
    In the area around ˁAuja (Nitsanah), I estimate that at least one-third to one-half of all visible remains in tributary wadis are Bedouin work."
  235. ^ Cf. also Ariel Meraiot et al. (2021): Scale, Landscape and Indigenous Bedouin Land Use: Spatial Order and Agricultural Sedentarisation in the Negev Highland]. Nomadic Peoples 25. p. 15 f.
  236. ^ apud Mansour Nasasra (2017): The Naqab Bedouins. A Century of Politics and Resistance. Columbia University Press. p. 98.
  237. ^ Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth / Kamal Abdulfattah (1977): Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan, and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. With 13 Figures and 5 Maps. Selbstverlag der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. p. 38, 49, 143 f.
  238. ^ J. Kenneth Eakins (1993): Tell el-Hesi. The Muslim Cemetery in Fields V and VI/IX (Stratum II). Eisenbrauns. p. 76.
  239. ^ Cf. Gideon Biger: The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. p. 13–28.
  240. ^ Yuval Ben-Bassat / Yossi Ben-Artzi (2015): The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps. Journal of Historical Geography 50. p. 29.
  241. ^ Nathan Shachar (2010): The Gaza Strip. Its History and Politics. From the Pharaohs to the Israeli Invasion of 2009. Sussex Academic Press. p. 38.
  242. ^ After H. Berghaus (1835). "Karte von Syrien". Retrieved 2024-05-02.; Yitzhak Gil-Har (1992): The South-Eastern Limits of Palestine at the End of Ottoman Rule. Middle Eastern Studies 28 (3). p. 561.
  243. ^ Cf. Butrus Abu-Manneh. "Ottoman Territorial Reorganization, 1840–1917. Preliminary Sketches of Mandate Palestine's Boundaries". Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  244. ^ Cf. Yuval Ben-Bassat / Yossi Ben-Artzi (2015): The collision of Empires as seen from Istanbul: the border of British-controlled Egypt and Ottoman Palestine as reflected in Ottoman maps. Journal of Historical Geography 50. p. 27, 30.
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