The Bedouin would typically be paid off by the amir al-hajj through a sarr (tribute) payment in return for safe passage through their territory.

[3] The sarr money came from the tax revenues collected by the amir al-hajj from the inhabitants of Damascus Eyalet earmarked specifically for the Hajj caravan's protection and supply.

Consequently, the Ottoman commanders leading the Hajj gradually transferred the traditional duties normally entrusted with the Bani Sakher and its allies to the Anizzah.

[3][7] After having completed his dawrah (tax collection tour) in April 1757, amir al-hajj and wali of Damascus, Husayn Pasha ibn Makki, departed with the pilgrim caravan in July,[8] and it arrived safely in Mecca several weeks after.

The guard was plundered and dispersed, with soldiers fleeing south to Ma'an, southwest to Gaza, west to Jerusalem and north to the Hauran plain.

Musa Pasha was personally attacked and managed to escape to the Hauran town of Daraa "nude and barefooted", according to historian Abbud al-Sabbagh.

[5] On the third day of Husayn Pasha's march,[9] the Bedouin tribesmen launched their assault on the caravan between Tabuk and Dhat al-Hajj.

[9] According to historian F. E. Peters, the site of the assault was Hallat Ammar, on the Tabuk-Ma'an road at the border between modern-day Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

[5] The 18th-century Damascus-based chronicler Ahmed al-Budeiri recorded that pilgrims, men and women, were stripped of their clothing and left naked in the desert by the Bedouin raiders.

Husayn Pasha was immediately dismissed as amir al-hajj and wali of Damascus and ultimately reassigned as sanjak-bey (district governor) of Gaza in 1762.

[19] Moreover, Zahir curried favor with the authorities by buying the looted goods from the Bani Sakher and returning the mahmal to the Sultan.

[10] Husayn Pasha's imperial patron and an official with some responsibilities regarding the Hajj caravan, the kizlar agha Aboukouf, was arrested, exiled to Rhodes and executed.