A number of these systems date from pre-Islamic times, and hence do not follow Sharia (Islamic religious law).
Many of these systems are falling into disuse as more and more Bedouins follow the Sharia or national penal codes for dispensing justice.
Closely related tribes may also follow similar systems of justice, and may even have common arbitrating courts.
The most well-known of the trials by ordeal is the bisha'a, a custom practiced among the Bedouin of Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula.
It is a protocol for lie detection, and is enacted only in the harshest of civil or criminal violations, such as in a case of a blood feud, usually in the absence of witnesses.