[22][better source needed] They are sometimes traditionally divided into tribes, or clans (known in Arabic as ʿašāʾir; عَشَائِر or qabāʾil قبائل), and historically share a common culture of herding camels, sheep and goats.

Disputes are settled, interests are pursued, and justice and order are dispensed and maintained by means of this framework, organized according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility (Andersen 14).

The individual family unit (referred to as a tent or bayt) usually traditionally comprised three or four adults (a married couple plus siblings or parents) and any number of children.

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reported that in 1326 on the route to Gaza, the Egyptian authorities had a customs post at Qatya on the north coast of Sinai.

[40] The Early Medieval grammarians and scholars seeking to develop a system of standardizing the contemporary Classical Arabic for maximal intelligibility across the Arabophone areas, believed that the Bedouin spoke the purest, most conservative variety of the language.

[47] Some scholars, such as Nora Elizabeth Barakat, believe the displacement of the Bedouin had its roots in events even earlier than the 1858 land reforms, for example in an 1844 Anatolia-specific decree recognizing the "tribe" as a formal unit of administration.

[49] Ottoman authorities also initiated private acquisition of large plots of state land offered by the sultan to the absentee landowners (effendis).

The Ottoman authorities viewed the Bedouin as a threat to the state's control and worked hard on establishing law and order in the Negev.

Hamad Pasha al-Sufi (died 1923), Sheikh of the Nijmat sub-tribe of the Tarabin, led a force of 1,500 men who joined the Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal.

"[54] At the time of World War I, a Qays Bedouin tribe from Harran, not far from Urfa, settled in Lüleburgaz in East Thrace under their last Sheikh Salih Abdullah.

William notes that although the warrior was a prisoner, he was nonchalant and was not treated aggressively, and that the ghazzu wasn't a war, but a game in which camels and goats were the prizes.

[57][58] Similarly, governmental policies in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia, oil-producing Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Libya,[59][60] as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders.

According to tradition, Arabian Bedouin tribes are descendants of two groups: Qahtanis, also known as Yaman, who originate from the mountains of Southwestern Arabia, and claim descent from a semi-legendary ancestral figure, Qahtan (often linked to the biblical Joktan), and Adnanis, also known as Qays, who originate in North-Central Arabia and claimed descent from Adnan, a descendant of the Biblical Ishmael.

Among them are Anazzah, Juhaynah, Shammar, al-Murrah, Mahra, Dawasir, Harb, Ghamid, Mutayr, Subay', 'Utayba, Bani khalid, Qahtan, Rashaida, and Banu Yam.

They lived in black goat-hair tents called bayt al-shar, divided by cloth curtains into rug-floor areas for males, family and cooking.

[69] [better source needed] Another factor was the formal annulling of the Bedouin tribes' legal status in Syrian law in 1958, along with attempts of the ruling Ba'ath Party regime to wipe out tribalism.

[72] Bedouin communities in the West bank have been targeted with forcible relocations to townships to accommodate the growth of illegal Israeli settlements on the outskirts of East Jerusalem.

Famously, Bedouin shepherds were the first to discover the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts from antiquity, in the Judean caves of Qumran in 1946.

[84] The rest live in so-called unrecognized villages, which are not officially recognized by the state due to general planning issues and other political reasons.

Despite these communities often predating the state of Israel, many are considered to be located in areas deemed unsuitable by the Israeli government, including military fire zones, natural reserves, landfills, etc.

Both organizations called on Israel to stop its plans to relocate Bedouin communities currently living in the West Bank to land outside of Jerusalem for better access to infrastructure, health, and education.

Some Bedouin in Jordan are semi-nomads, they adopt a nomadic existence during part of the year but return to their lands and homes in time to practice agriculture.

[104] The region encompassing Wadi Musa and Petra is inhabited by the prominent Liyathnah tribe alongside the smaller Bedul community, believed to have Jewish or Nabataean ancestry.

The initial waves of migration from the 7th to the 10th centuries mostly involved sedentary Arabs who established communities in cities, towns and surrounding rural areas.

[111] In addition, they destroyed the Berber Zirid state and most of its cities, sparing only the Mediterranean coastal strip at al-Mahdiyya, and deeply weakened the neighboring Hammadid dynasty and the Zenata.

[118] This took place during the Char Bouba War in modern-day Western Sahara and Mauritania from 1644 to 1674, which after decades of confrontations ended up completely Arabizing the native Berber population, destroying their language and culture and giving rise to the contemporary Sahrawi people.

Western it certainly is, some districts further west than Ireland, yet in its way of life, its culture, its literature and in many of its social customs, it has much in common with the heart lands of the Arab East, in particular with the Hijaz and Najd and parts of the Yemen".

The most well known Bedouin tribes in Algeria include Awlad Sidi Shaykh, Ouled Nail, Chaamba, Doui-Menia and Hamyan, who primarily live in the Algerian Desert.

When the tourist industry started to bloom, local Bedouins became cab drivers, tour guides and managers of campgrounds and coffee shops.

Tarabin and other Bedouin tribes living along the border between Egypt and Israel have been involved in inter-border smuggling of drugs and weapons,[126] as well as infiltration of prostitutes and African labour workers.