Bani Sakher

Last updated October 09, 2024

The Beni Sakhar confederacy is one of the largest and most influential tribal confederacies in The Kingdoms of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Its founder, Sakher bin Tha'labah al Tayy, a great-grandson of Jalhamah, likely lived in the 3rd century AD, making the tribe around 18 centuries old. The Bani Sakher began migrating to The Levant from the Hejaz as early as the 16th century and their influence continued growing until they became the most powerful tribe in northwestern Arabia around the mid 18th century.^[1]

History

Origin

The Bani Sakher was a tribe title that was given to more than one tribe, but the greatest and most famous of this tribes are the sons of Sakher bin Tha'labah bin Amro bin Alghouth bin Tayy, the progenitor of the Banu Tayy, who is a descendent of Kahlan of the famous Qahtaniya tribe. The Tayys lived in what is now the Ha'il Region, where Sakher Al-Ta'yun and the now Bani Sakher mainly lived on top of the "Mountain of Lions".^{[ citation needed ]}

Then the Bani Sakher migrated to occupy the lands Tayma to Al-'Ula; where they were adjacent to the Bani Harb which led to the mixing of the two tribes leading some genealogists to fall into error and consider the tribe of Bani Sakher a part of Bani Harb. The Bani Sakher were also adjacent to Bani Anazzah, whom inhabited the Khayber, and between the two tribes there were several conflicts, including the orientalist Frederick Gerard Peake in his book "A History of Jordan and its Tribes, x, 1958" that the tribe of Bani Sakher clashed with tribes of Anazzah on the way to migrate to the Levant. The battle ended with the Anazzah's defeat, forcing some of their sub-groups to migrate to the northern more, and this explains the hostility between the two tribes.^{[ citation needed ]}

In Frederick's book, he also documented the clash between Bani Sakher and the Al-Dhafeer tribes and that they defeated Al-Dhafeer. However, Al-Dhafeer regrouped again under the leadership of their knight Sultan Ibn Suwit, and followed Bani Sakher, whom where heading heading north of the Arabian Peninsula. The two tribes met again in Wadi Azraq, now known as Azraq, on the Saudi-Jordanian border. Banu Sakher was able once again to defeat the tribes of Al-Dhafeer, killing Sheikh Sultan Ibn Suwit where he lies in his tomb in that region next to a water ravine that was named after him (Ghadeer Sultan).^{[ citation needed ]}

The Bani Sakher then headed towards Al-Balqa however their stay did not last long because the tribes didn't welcome them, most notably the Al-Adwan (العدوان) whom where extending their influence over the region. The Bani Sakher went to Palestine and stayed for a period of time until they soon returned to Al-Balqa. At this time, the area was under the sovereignty of the Sardiyya tribe, which was imposing a tax on the tribes that inhabited the areas in and around Al-Balqa, however when the Bani Sakher returned, they refused to get taxed, which led to a heated situation between them.^{[ citation needed ]}

This conflict lead to the first alliance between Bani Sakher and Al-Adwan where they joined forces with the intent to annihilate the Sardiyya tribe.^{[ citation needed ]}

Background

In 1757, Bani Sakher attacked the hajj caravans that resulted in the death of many pilgrims, immediately and afterwards. Although Bedouin raids on Hajj caravans were fairly common, the 1757 raid represented the peak of such attacks which was also likely prompted by the major drought of 1756.^[3]

In the 1799, the Beni Sakher joined the Es-Sabhah and other tribes in a full-scale battle against a force from Napoleon's army under the command of General Kleber. The fighting occurred south of Nazareth, with the French having such an advantage in terms of guns and artillery that Amir Rabah, the leader of the Beni Saqr, commenting on the effectiveness of his spear, said that he "could not swim in hell with a stick."^[4]

In the 19th century, the Beni Sakher lived as nomads. Their income came from their monopoly in trading camels and from the protection they could gave to pilgrims and visitors. In 1867, the Ottoman Empire launched a raid which defeated the Beni Sakher and ended their practice of collecting khuwwa (protection money) from established settlements.

For fifty years up to 1920 the Bani Sakher were friends and allies of the Al Rashid dynasty. The relationship ended with Ibn Saud's conquest of the Nejd. It had its roots in the early nineteenth century when Abdullah Ibn Rashid was fleeing the Ibn Ali family after a conflict over leadership of the Shammar tribe. Ibn Rashid and his brother with a single camel arrived at the tents belonging to Ali Al-Khraisha, leader of the Beni Sakher and father of Haditha Al-Khraisha. Sheikh Ali Al-Khraisha was not there but all the same they were given hospitality. During the night the camel died and the next day they continued their flight on foot. Some distance from the camp they met Sheikh Ali Al-Khraisha returning home. On hearing their story he insisted on them taking the camel he was riding, claiming that no guest who came into his camp riding should leave on foot. When Ibn Rashid came to power in the Nejd this deed was remembered.^[5]

In 1875, a member of the Palestine Exploration Fund's survey team reported finding the Beni Sakher of the Ghor, who claim descent from the Beni Sakher of the Hauran, had several herds containing 100 to 300 head of cattle and many sheep and goats as well as camels and horses. He mentions that they had fewer camels than previously since their power had been broken 7 or 8 years earlier by Mohammed Said, Pasha of Nablus, but that the current government was impotent. He counted 150 tents and estimated the tribe strength as 400 men.^[6]

Two years later, 1877, the survey team led by Lieutenant Kitchener, found the Bani Sakher camped on the road to Jenin, and later between Beisan and Tiberias. Kitchener reported that their Sheikh, Fendi Al-Fayez, was the most powerful local leader and could muster 4,500 fighting men. The sheikh showed Kitchener a coat of mail that probably dated to the early centuries of the Arab conquests and appeared to be on good terms with the government. The tribe showed no sign of lawlessness, though local farmers had to harvest their crops early to avoid them being eaten by the grazing camels. The Beni Sakher showed no interest in the ongoing war in the Balkans and expressed a strong dislike of the Turks.^[7]

In November 1877 Kitchener visited the Beni Sakher again. This time they were camped in Wadi Farrah having left the area around Zerin in the Jezreel Valley following the murder near Nazareth of a British man, Mr Gale, about which they had come under suspicion. Sheikh Fendy was absent at Bosra selling camel to pilgrims on the Haj. The Beni Sakher were close to having a monopoly in this trade and could make £1,500 in a season. Whilst in Bosra the sheikh was arrested. His son was killed in a rescue attempt. The father was released and is reported as having said "My son and I were servants of the Sultan, now he has one less". This was taken to mean that the tribe would not engage in a blood feud.^[8]

In 1891 missionaries reported fighting north of Kerak between the Beni Sakher and the Hameidah. And again in 1893 the route between Kerak and Madaba was closed due to fighting between the Beni Sakher and the Anazi.^[9]

In June 1917 Fawaz el Fayez, one of the leaders of the Bani Sakher, had a secret meeting with T.E. Lawrence. El Fayez was a member of an anti-Turkish committee in Damascus and Lawrence was seeking support for his military campaign. Immediately after the meeting Lawrence fled fearing betrayal. El Fayez was killed shortly afterwards. By June 1918 the Bani Sakher were united in their opposition to the Turks and were offering to provide the Husseini forces with at least eleven thousand men costing £30,000 (£1,715,944.76 adjusted to inflation as of April 2020) a month. In addition they would donate the harvest of Kerak and Madeba.^[10]

In 1923 Ibn Saud's Ikhwan initiated their first attack on the Emirate of Transjordan by massacring two villages 12 miles south of Amman belonging to the tribe of Bani Sakher. In a two-day battle, the tribesmen of Bani Sakher assisted by the Hadid tribe managed to defeat the raiders.^[11] The raiders were intercepted by British armored cars and planes only after they had begun to withdraw.^[12]^[13]

On 8 April 1933 Sheikh Mithqal Pasha al-Fayez, Chief of the Al-Fayez and the Beni Sakher, was a member of a delegation which met the President of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, and the head of the Zionist political department in Palestine, Chaim Arlosoroff, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.^[14]

A series of events in the 1920s and 1930s put further pressure on their nomadic lifestyle, eventually leading to famine. The Bani Sakher were saved from this by the British government ruling Jordan at the time. In exchange, the British required the Bani Sakher to give up their nomadic lifestyle and turned more towards a semi-nomadic life. In the decades since then, pressures on the Bani Sakher to give up part of their land have led to occasional tension between them and the Jordanian government. However, this tribe has always been counted as stalwart allies of the Hashemite ruling family since the days of King Abdullah I.^[15]

In 1938, the tribe was estimated to consist of 1,140 tents, dispersed across the region from Amman to Madaba and from the Balqa region to Wadi Sirhan.^[16]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mithqal Al-Fayez</span> Jordanian political leader (1885-1967)

Mithqal bin Sattam bin Fendi Al-Fayez (Arabic: مثقال الفايز, was a Jordanian political and tribal figure whose work helped the establishment of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Mithqal was one of the two leading sheikhs of Bani Sakhr; he took power in the early twentieth century, and headed the Bani Sakhr tribe generally and the Al-Twaga half of the tribe specifically, which consisted of the four major clans, Al Ghbeyen, Al Ghuful, Al A'lqam, and Al Tabtab, which comprise 32 sub-clans which further divide into more sub-clans. He also headed his own clan, Al-Fayez.

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The House of Fayez(Arabic: الفايز or, colloquially: Al-Fayez, Alfayez, Al Fayez, Al Faiz, Al Fayiz) is a noble sheikhly Jordanian family that heads the major Jordanian clan Bani Sakher. The family's influence and prominence in the region was at its ultimate under Fendi Al-Fayez, who led the family in the 1840s and gradually became the leader of the entire Bani Sakher. Fendi would rule large parts of Jordan and Palestine, including the ancient Kingdoms of Moab and Ammon, and parts of modern-day Saudi Arabia until the late 1860s when a series of battles with the Ottoman Empire decreased the family's resources and claimed a portion of its holdings. After Fendi, his young son Sattam led the tribe in a push to cultivate the lands and live a more sedentary lifestyle, then under Mithqal Alfayez as a permanent political power in modern Jordan. The family was the largest owner of land in Jordan and owned portions of modern day Palestine, and Mithqal was the single largest owner of private land in the kingdom in 1922. The Al-Fayez family is active in Jordanian and Arabian politics and is currently headed by former Prime Minister Faisal Al-Fayez.

Fendi bin Abbas bin Awad Al Fayez was an Arab tribal leader and a sovereign Emir from the Al-Fayez family who was the paramount Sheikh of the Bani Sakher clan from the 1820s up until his death. He is widely regarded as the most influential figure in the Bani Sakher, dubbed the Old King east of the Jordan and one of the most powerful tribal figures in Arabia in the 19th century. Fendi's first documented tribal battle was as early as 1820 when he was just twenty years old.

Sattam bin Fendi bin Abbas Al Fayez (Arabic: سطام الفايز, was a tribal chief or emir who led the Bani Sakher tribe from 1881 until his death in 1891. He was the de facto ruler of the Bani Sakher after his father Fendi Al-Fayez gave him most of his responsibilities in the late 1870s, and was the first person to have led Westerners to view the Moabite Stone in 1868. Sattam was also the first tribal sheikh to begin cultivating land in the 1860s, which began the sedentary settlement process of many of the biggest tribes in Jordan. In September 1881, after the reunification of the Al-Fayez family under Sattam, he was recognized by the Ottoman Administration as the Emir of Al-Jizah and the paramount Shaykh of the Bani Sakher clan.

Sheikha Al Anoud bint Dahham Al Fayez is a Jordanian noblewoman and former Saudi royal. She is the daughter of one of the sheikhs of the Al-Fayez clan from Bani Sakher, Sheikh Daham bin Dardah Al-Bakhit Al-Fayez and his wife Gutnah bint Mithqal Pasha Al-Fayez, daughter of the paramount Sheikh of the Bani Sakher. She was the wife of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from 1972 to 2003 following a divorce. She is the mother of four daughters: Jawaher, Hala, Maha, and Sahar Al-Saud.

Sami Mithqal Al-Fayez was a Jordanian senator and Arabian tribal figure who was the paramount sheikh the Bani Sakher.

References

↑ Falconry in Arabia, Mark Allen; 1980, p.33.
↑ Muhammad, Ghazi bin (1999). The Tribes of Jordan at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (first ed.). p. 10. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
↑ Peters, F. E. (1994). The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 161. ISBN 0-691-02120-1.
↑ Macalister and Masterman, 1906, p. 114.
↑ Glubb, 1978, pp. 157-8.
↑ Tyrwhitt Drake, 1875, pp. 28, 32
↑ Kitchener, 1877, p. 164; Kitchener, 1878, p. 11; Reports dated 23 August and 7 September 1877.
↑ Kitchener, 1878, p. 63
↑ Forder, 1902, pp. 16, 27
↑ Wilson, Jeremy (1989) Lawrence of Arabia: the authorised biography of T.E.Lawrence. Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-87235-0. Pages 415, 515. The figure of 11,000 comes from a report by Lawrence.
↑ Joab B. Eilon, Yoav Alon (2007-04-15). The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism and the Modern State. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781845111380 . Retrieved 2016-05-20.
↑ Peter W. Wilson, Douglas Graham. Saudi Arabia: the coming storm . M.E.Sharpe, 1994: p.143
↑ Glubb, 1978, p. 156
↑ Cohen, Aharon (1970) Israel and the Arab World. W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-00003-0. Pages 252-255.
↑ "Land and People: Baduw". September 2007.
↑ Epstein, Eliahu (1938). "The Bedouin of Transjordan: Their social and economic problems". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 25 (2): 232. doi:10.1080/03068373808730853. ISSN 0035-8789.

Bibliography

Forder, Archibald (1902). "With the Arabs in tent and town; an account of missionary work, life, and experiences in Moab and Edom, and the first missionary journey into Arabia from the north" (3 ed.). London: Marshall Brothers.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Glubb, John (1978). Arabian Adventures. Ten years of joyful service. Cassel. ISBN 0-304-30171-X.
Kitchener, H. H. (1877). "Journal of the Survey". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 9: 162–164.
Kitchener, H. H. (1878). "Lieut. Kitchener´s report". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 10: 11–14.
Kitchener, H. H. (1878). "Journal of the Survey". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 10 (2): 62–67. doi:10.1179/peq.1878.10.2.62.
Macalister, R. A. Stewart; Masterman, E. W. G. (1906). "Occasional Papers on the Modern inhabitants of Palestine, part VI". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 38: 110–114. doi:10.1179/peq.1906.38.2.110.
Tyrwhitt Drake, C.F. (1875). "Mr Tyrwhitt Drake´s report". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 7: 27–34.

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[1] Falconry in Arabia, Mark Allen; 1980, p.33.

[2] Muhammad, Ghazi bin (1999). The Tribes of Jordan at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (first ed.). p. 10. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2016.

[3] Peters, F. E. (1994). The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 161. ISBN 0-691-02120-1.

[4] Macalister and Masterman, 1906, p. 114.

[5] Glubb, 1978, pp. 157-8.

[6] Tyrwhitt Drake, 1875, pp. 28, 32

[7] Kitchener, 1877, p. 164; Kitchener, 1878, p. 11; Reports dated 23 August and 7 September 1877.

[8] Kitchener, 1878, p. 63

[9] Forder, 1902, pp. 16, 27

[10] Wilson, Jeremy (1989) Lawrence of Arabia: the authorised biography of T.E.Lawrence. Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-87235-0. Pages 415, 515. The figure of 11,000 comes from a report by Lawrence.

[11] Joab B. Eilon, Yoav Alon (2007-04-15). The Making of Jordan: Tribes, Colonialism and the Modern State. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781845111380 . Retrieved 2016-05-20.

[wilson143-12] Peter W. Wilson, Douglas Graham. Saudi Arabia: the coming storm . M.E.Sharpe, 1994: p.143

[13] Glubb, 1978, p. 156

[14] Cohen, Aharon (1970) Israel and the Arab World. W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-00003-0. Pages 252-255.

[15] "Land and People: Baduw". September 2007.

[16] Epstein, Eliahu (1938). "The Bedouin of Transjordan: Their social and economic problems". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 25 (2): 232. doi:10.1080/03068373808730853. ISSN 0035-8789.

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