Nomads of the desert now travel by Buick

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 29

Nomads of the desert now travel by Buick

By

EILEEN ALT POWELL

of Associated Press through NZPA Jordan Sheikh Hayel Sirror rose to his feet, his brown “abaya” robe falling in gentle folds to the floor. “Come,” he beckoned. “Eat.” With that simple invitation, he led his guests to the most traditional of Bedouin feasts — the mensaf. The table had but one dish, a metre in diameter and 13cm deep, filled with rice and topped with chunks of a lamb boiled that morning by the sheikh’s wife, Fasl, in a broth thickened with yoghurt. Around it was spongy, pancake-like Bedouin bread. As the guests began eating from the communal bowl, by tradition with the fingertips of the right hand only, the sheikh moved from position to position, breaking off the prized pieces of meat from the lamb’s head at the centre of the dish and distributing the morsels to each of his guests. The Bedouin of Jordan — who think of themselves as its true natives and who make up about 8 per cent of its 2.8 million population — have been sharing mensafs for centuries. They are all but required for weddings, funerals, and other special occasions. It is one of the ancient traditions that the Bedouin still cling to, in spite of changes in their lifestyle. While a few Bedouin continue to migrate with their herds, most have settled into villages in Jordan and Syria. The sheikh lives surrounded by his tribe, Ahl alJebal, or “The People of the Mountain,” in the dustswept village of Umm Jamal, about 100 km northeast of the Jordanian capital of Amman and just south of the Syrian border. Their modest stone homes encircle the ruins of Umm Jamal, built in the first century B.C. by the Nabataeans, who also carved the famous rose-red city of Petra in Jordan’s south. Umm Jamal means “Mother of Beauty.” Scholars disagree on the origin of the Bedouin but they are known to have conducted raids on the villages of the Ammonites and other tribes who cultivated Jordan’s land as early as the thirteenth century B.C. A nomadic people, they moved their herds of camels — and later, sheep and

goats — across the desert land of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in search of grazing and watering sites.

Fierce and loyal warriors, the Bedouin were the core fighters of the Britishbacked Arab Revolt started in 1916 and immortalised in the writings about and by T. E. Lawrence, better known in the West as Lawrence of Arabia.

They still serve in the desert patrol, known affectionately here as the Camel Corps, which has changed its mission from stopping tribal wars to looking after travellers in the desert. And they form Jordan’s royal palace guard. Sheikh Sirror, the leader of one of the 18 bigger tribes in Jordan and a member of the Jordanian Parliament, says he is not unhappy that his people have settled down.

“Every century has its benefits and gains,” he said.

“Before, there was the nomadic life which kept the man free . . . when civilisation came and governments became effective and laws were enforced, we had to change to benefit.”

His Ahl al-Jebal tribe, with some Government help, has dug wells to help irrigate vegetable and melon crops and to water goats and sheep. The people also have built rain catchments.

Sheikh Sirror’s personal history parallels that of many of his tribe, some 50,000 of whom are in Jordan and 15,000 in Syria.

He was born in the desert either in northern Jordan or southern Syria “not less than 60 years ago,” he says, noting that the nomadic tribe had no means to pinpoint his exact date of birth.

The families lived in camel-hair tents and migrated with their horses, camels, and sheep each spring and autumn.

His father, the tribal sheikh before him, was a member of the Syrian Parliament. In the 19505, Sheikh Sirror, too, was a Syrian Parliament member, but he ended up in a Syrian jail for actively supporting efforts to reunite the land of Syria. Jordan, and Iraq into a single Arab State. Released to the custody of Egyptians, he made his way back to Jordan, where he and his people took advantage of a Jordanian law that gave them possession of land that they pledged to cultivate. But the Bedouin hold fast to some ancient traditions. The tribal sheikh still assists a young man in approaching the family of his girlfriend to ask for her hand. The sheikh remains the arbiter in Bedouin-to-Bedouin disputes, although the disappointed party can appeal to the civil courts.

But some customs have gone the way of the no-

madic life of the Bedouin. The sheikh’s three daughters do not have the decorative blue tattoos that cover the chin and part of the cheeks of their mother. The daughters have abandoned the long black robe traditionally worn by Bedouin women for Western clothes, and one has a master's degree in education and a job with the Education Ministry in Amman. “I am the engineer of the desert,” the sheikh says, laughing. “My sons, they are engineers.” Three of his six sons have university degrees in engineering, a fourth in sociology. The sheikh himself knows both worlds. On his sitting room wall he proudly displays a black-and-white photograph of himself with a prize white camel. At his doorstep is a teal blue Buick car, so new that the plastic covers are still on its blue plush front seats.