Libyan Bedouin

By Donald P. Cole

Bedouin of Cyrenaica; Bedouin of the Western Desert; Egyptian Bedouin

The Libyan Bedouin are Arab people of tribal and nomadic pastoralist backgrounds who have ties to the Libyan Desert. This desert comprises the western part of the Arab Republic of Egypt, where it is known as the Western Desert, and the eastern part of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Great Jamahiriya. The inland areas of this vast territory--itself a part of the Great Sahara--are hyper-arid and contain only a few settlements inhabited by mainly non-Bedouin oasis dwellers. The Libyan Bedouin are especially associated with the desert's northern steppe plateau, the highland area of Libya's Jabal al-Akhdar, and the semiarid Mediterranean coast between Alexandria in Egypt and Banghazi in Libya.

Principal tribe-based identities and groupings include 'Abaidat, 'Abid, 'Ailat Fayid, 'Awaqir, Awlad 'Ali, Bara'asa, Darsa, Hasa, and Magharba. Awlad 'Ali are mainly in Egypt, while all the other groups are found primarily in eastern Libya. These, and other related tribes long settled in Egypt, share descent from the Arabian Peninsula tribe of Bani Sulaim and also have a common ancestress, Sa'ada, who provides the basis for a collective identity and status as the Sa'adi tribes. Other large and small tribes of diverse ancestral backgrounds constitute integral components of the Libyan Bedouin. A partial listing of these others includes Awlad al-Shaikh, Awlad Sulaiman, 'Awwama, Farjan, Fawakhir, Huta, Jawabis, Jumi'at, Masamir, Minifa, Mu'alaq, Qit'an, Sa'it, Samalus, Sarahna, and Zuwaya. Not included under the rubric of "Libyan Bedouin" as used here are Bedouin in the western part of Libya. These western Bedouin are somewhat distinct from their eastern compatriots and, like Bedouin in Egypt's Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula, do not share a common existence and history within the context of the Libyan Desert.

Census data do not identify the Bedouin as such, and thus no precise statistics exist on this category of people. However, most of Egypt's Libyan Bedouin are concentrated in the governorate of Matruh where they make up perhaps three-quarters of Matruh's 1996 population of 209,649 (Arab Republic of Egypt 1997:15), or about 157,000 people. These include almost all of the governorate's rural population and about half of its urban dwellers. The total population of Libya in the middle 1990s is estimated to be about five million, with the Bedouin forming a minority. Roughly, the people described here number in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million.

Libyan Bedouin are speakers of Arabic. They often use distinctive dialects of colloquial Arabic when engaged in discourse among themselves, and many of them consider that knowledge and use of these dialects are important markers of their identity as Bedouin. Classical Arabic is the model for their written communication, while most adapt their speech to urban Egyptian or urban Libyan dialects of colloquial Arabic when speaking with non-Bedouin Arabs.

History constitutes a core element in the culture of the Libyan Bedouin. Their region has a complex history that includes the ancient existence of various local peoples who engaged in mixed farming and herding activities and also in peaceful and, sometimes, warlike relations with pharaonic Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were directly involved in the eastern part of the area, which was included within their political and cultural domain. Ancient Greeks established colonies in eastern Libya during the 7th century BC and developed major settlements there. The Ptolemies ruled the area from 322 to 96 BC from their capital in Alexandria. Ancient Roman control followed and, during the first three centuries or so AD, eastern Libya and northwestern Egypt flourished with the development of roads and major agricultural expansion (Bates 1970; Johnson 1973:92-144).

Following a long period of decline under Byzantine rule, Arab Muslims conquered the area in 642 AD and incorporated it into the religious-political domain of Islam. During 1050-52 AD, the Arabian tribes of Bani Sulaim and Bani Hilal were sent into the area and farther west throughout northern Africa by the Fatimid Muslim ruler of Egypt. Nowadays, at the end of the 20th century, Libyan Bedouin mark their own history in the area as having begun with their ancestors' glorious participation in the Islamic conquest or as part of the migration of the noble Bani Sulaim, who eventually settled in the region as nomadic pastoralists and also engaged in crop production.

Important events in "recent" history, according to oral accounts, are conflicts over territories in eastern Libya and the subsequent "expulsion" of various tribes back into Egypt, notably Awlad 'Ali "about 300 years ago." Development of the modern Egyptian state and relations with it under Muhammad 'Ali Pasha during the first four decades of the 19th century are seen by Awlad 'Ali as especially significant. The role of the Sanusiya religious reform movement (Evans-Pritchard 1949) after the middle of the 19th century was of major importance in western Egypt until its suppression by the British during the first world war and in Libya until at least 1969, when the Sanusi monarchy was overthrown.

Italian settlers and colonial rule in Libya and British colonial rule in Egypt figure prominently in Bedouin discourse about the first half of the 20th century, which also brought first world war battles to the area and then culminated with massive destruction in their homelands during the second world war. Meanwhile, the second half of the 20th century has brought independence and revolutions to both Egypt and Libya, development of the oil industry in Libya, and numerous development programs and projects in both countries. These changes, and others associated with them, have transformed the lives of the region's Bedouin, especially since the 1960s.

Sedentarization began to take place among the Libyan Bedouin during the 19th century and perhaps earlier. However, the wide majority were nomadic and lived in tents until the 1960s. Since then, they have all settled in permanent housing in dispersed homesteads, villages, towns, or main cities such as Alexandria and Banghazi. Some, especially those in small desert communities, continue to keep tents for ceremonial and social occasions but no longer regularly use them for shelter.

Their settlement has involved a complex process of interaction among tribe and clan kindreds, state institutions and development agencies, cooperatives, markets, and private initiatives (see Bujra 1973). Thus, Awlad 'Ali in Egypt joined state-sponsored agricultural cooperative societies in the 1960s and, as members of the cooperatives, received food and fodder aid dispersed by the United Nation's World Food Program (WFP), which also provided support to people to build a house. Most of the food and fodder aid was sold in the market and the proceeds used to finance expansion or upgrading of a basic housing unit acquired with support from the WFP and also the government of Egypt. Meanwhile, these Bedouin designed their own housing according to their self-perceived needs and located it as they saw fit on land that by custom belonged to them as individual members of clans.

The Libyan state, during the 1960s, initiated a program to construct standardized housing in planned new settlements in isolated areas or adjacent to already existing communities. The housing was intended for distribution to Bedouin in return for payment of modest rents. At first, the Bedouin found the state-designed housing inappropriate, and it remained virtually unoccupied until the early to middle 1970s. Changes in Libya's national economy triggered changes in the Bedouin's pastoral production system, both of which helped foster sedentarization. Bedouin eventually accepted the housing but transformed it to meet their tastes, and also built housing of their own in the new settlements. Moreover, they tended to occupy the settlements on the basis of patrilocally extended households locating themselves near kin, with the result that many of the new settlements or neighborhoods are composed of majorities of residents from among the same lineage or clan (Behnke 1980:80-84; Davis 1988:80-88).

A mixture of livestock raising and crop production dependent on meager and variable rainfall and diverse habitats has prevailed since antiquity, or even earlier, in areas where the Libyan Bedouin live. Goats, sheep, cattle, and camels have been their main herd animals, with each species occupying a specific niche within the regional ecology and economy. Barley and, to a lesser degree, wheat cultivation have been integral parts of the Bedouin's production system, while donkeys were essential for transportation and horses important as symbols of prestige and also for raiding and ceremonial horsemanship displays. Nomadic migrations were regular features of their herding routine and also for cultivation. Thus, animals were taken to seasonal grazing areas, the exact location of which was subject to change from year to year because of variable rainfall patterns. Cultivation took place annually in the same local area but could be shifted elsewhere during a period of drought. Most work related to production and processing of animal products and crops was organized domestically and according to an age- and gender-based division of labor. However, reciprocal labor parties existed for some tasks, while sharecroppers and contracted shepherds paid in kind were not uncommon.

Households produced the grain, milk, milk products, and meat they consumed, as well as wool for blankets and kilims, and other necessities. However, dates were a traditional staple food that had to be obtained from other producers, usually oasis dwellers. Many elements of clothing, household utensils, and herding and farming equipment were procured from outside the Bedouin production system. Thus, Libyan Bedouin always engaged in exchange with non-Bedouin producers, often indirectly through markets; but they were self-sufficient in most food items until the 1960s, when food purchased in markets (or obtained as aid) rapidly replaced their own domestic production. This change was accompanied by commercialization of agro-pastoral production and by significant occupational change among Bedouin in both western Egypt and eastern Libya. In the 1990s, livestock are still moved about to take advantage of ecologically diverse grazing areas; however, families remain sedentary and no longer accompany the animals, which a re looked after by one or two shepherds who may or may not be family members.

Although rare in the 1990s, camels bred and raised by Libyan Bedouin in the drier interior parts of the region have been marketed for use as transport and for meat in Egypt's Nile delta since at least the 19th century. Sheep from the area have a long history of sale for consumption as mutton in the Nile region and in Libyan towns and small cities. Wool is a commodity also marketed by Libyan Bedouin sheep owners. However, production for use value predominated until the 1960s when market-oriented production became the norm among those Bedouin who continued to engage in livestock raising and crop production. Bedouin livestock raising has become fully commercial and, in the 1990s, involves the purchase of fodder, cash rental of grazing areas, the use of hired shepherds paid in cash, the sale of sheep and goats--often after fattening--in regional and national markets and for export to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A similar transformation in crop production has involved the introduction of new crops destined for sale in urban markets.

Some Libyan Bedouin have long engaged in trade networks within the Libyan Desert and beyond. For examples, Awlad 'Ali in Egypt organized commercial caravans that transported the date production of the oases of Siwa and of Egypt's New Valley for sale in the Nile region, while the Zuwaya described by Davis (1988) operated a far-flung network of trans-Saharan trade from a base in the oasis of Kufra in southern Libya.

Meanwhile, many in the 1990s specialize as livestock traders at local, regional, national, and international levels, while others work as fodder merchants and as transporters and wholesalers of figs and other new commercial crops. Other Libyan Bedouin pursue a wide spectrum of income-generating activities in retail trade, real estate sales, tourism, banking, and other modern services including work as professionals in medicine, law, and in military and police forces and other government service. Except for ancestral ties to the arid ranges and dry farm areas of the Libyan Desert and, for some, continued involvement with livestock raising, these Bedouin are similar at the end of the 20th century to their non-Bedouin compatriots from peasant village and small town backgrounds in terms of their participation in national economies and the modern occupations they hold.

Gender provided the main principle for the division of labor in the old agro-pastoral system of tent-dwelling households which prevailed until the 1960s. In that system, women collected firewood, fetched water, processed grain and milk products, baked bread, cooked meals, processed wool, wove kilims and blankets, made and maintained tents, herded and milked sheep and goats in nearby areas, and helped out in the harvesting of barley, wheat, or other crops.

Men plowed and planted, did much of the work of harvesting, sometimes herded animals in nearby areas and always took them to remote pastures, assisted in milking, shored the sheep, bought and sold animals, marketed wool and other products, and procured household needs not produced domestically. Men also worked as shepherds for others and performed heavy labor for pay, such as digging and/or hewing cisterns and underground silos. Trade and transport were also the work of men.

In the 1990s, Libyan Bedouin men work as wage-laborers, traders, contractors, ranchers, farmers, and in professional and other services. A few and growing number of Bedouin women engage in modern occupations outside their households; however, many women remain restricted in their ability to move about away from their residences or neighborhoods and are therefore confined mainly to domestic work.

Concepts underlying land tenure among the Bedouin derive from their customary law ('URF) and accord with Islamic law (SHARI'A). Land and water resources that have been developed can be, and are, held as private property that can be bought and sold. Wild vegetation on the open range is not owned individually or collectively and is thus open to all users. However, water resources developed in the form of cisterns or wells are owned by individuals or kindreds; and while Bedouin custom allows humans to drink freely from the water, its use for watering herds and flocks must be negotiated with the owner(s), who may charge a fee. Thus, access to grazing areas was traditionally controlled not by the ownership of range-land but by the ownership of water resources, usually by kindreds.

Plots of land for cultivation are usually located within territories recognized by 'URF as pertaining to particular kindreds, usually maximal or minimal lineages. Individual families cultivate what are locally considered to be their own plots of land within these areas. Rights to the plots can be sold, even to outsiders if members of the wider kindred agree.

Libyan Bedouin land tenure concepts are not, however, officially recognized. According to state law, all undemarcated land in the desert outside of built-up communities is state property which the state can, and does, dispose of as it wishes and without consulting Bedouin or other users. From the state's point of view, these users are squatters without legal ownership of the land as either private or communal property. Conflicts related to land use are common, at least in parts of the area.

Kinship among the Libyan Bedouin is patrilineal and provides a major framework of identity as individuals -- both men and women -- are included in descent groups that become more and more inclusive as one proceeds "up" the genealogy. Thus, Awlad 'Ali distinguish entities from the smallest to the largest using an Arabic terminology that can be glossed as follows: (little) house; family; house; (big) family; (little) tribe; tribe; tribes. In an anthropological parlance, these can be listed as household, extended family, minimal lineage, maximal lineage, clan, tribe, and confederation of tribes. Each specific grouping in this system is identified by the name of an ancestor. Among themselves, mention of the ancestral name is usually sufficient for a person to know the level of grouping referred to, especially the more inclusive ones.

Although descent groups are defined patrilineally, women's names appear in the genealogies, and descent through such women provides identity and status -- as in the case of the Sa'adi tribes mentioned above. Moreover, many of the kindreds include non-kin who have been "written," or adopted, into the groups. For most people on an everyday basis descent groups at all levels simply provide sets of relatives and a framework of identities. None of the groups are standing corporate units. They are primarily social and, in practical application, provide individuals with one way of, say, structuring access to grazing areas, or of maintaining "law and order" within and among descent groups. In addition to kinship, Islam, states, and markets also structure relations among the Libyan Bedouin and between them and others.

Kinship terminology, as in Arabic generally, is that of the descriptive "Sudanese" type. Separate terms exist for son, daughter, brother, sister, father, mother, father's brother, father's sister, mother's brother, mother's sister, father's brother's son, father's brother's daughter, mother's brother's son, mother's brother's daughter, grandfather, and grandmother. Although each term is particularizing and is so applied in practice, some of the terms are also used in a classificatory sense. Thus, "IBN 'AMM" explicitly refers to one's own father's brother's son; it may also be used as a term of reference or of address for a distant patrilateral relative or even non-relative whom one wishes to identify as being like a "real" paternal cousin.

Patrilateral parallel cousin marriage is idealized but not normative among the Libyan Bedouin. By custom, a man has a "right" to marry his father's brother's daughter. However, other endogamous marriages from within one's closer descent groups and exogamous marriages from among other distantly related or non-related Bedouin descent groups are common. Bedouin men also marry women from non-Bedouin backgrounds; but marriages between Bedouin women and non-Bedouin men are very rare. Marriages among the Bedouin are arranged by fathers and mothers and other senior relatives, with the wishes of the potential bride and groom usually taken into consideration as at least a relevant, if not determinant, factor. Marriages between Bedouin men and non-Bedouin women probably are not arranged, at least in some cases.

Bridewealth is presented as a dower by the groom to the bride, as required in Islam, although the bride's father sometimes takes part of the dower and holds it, theoretically, in "trust" for his daughter. Polygynous marriages exist but constitute a minority of cases. Divorce is not uncommon and is almost always initiated by the husband. Generally, adult men are always married; some adult women, especially divorcees and widowers, remain unmarried.

Upon marriage, a bride moves into the groom's household which is usually within the household of his father. Although neolocal residence and nuclear family units increasingly exist in the 1990s among Libyan Bedouin, especially in urban areas, viri-patrilocal residence and the three generation extended family under the authority of a senior man remain common. Joint households composed of brothers, their wives, and children and with property held "together," or JUMLA, also exist.

Property is classified as either movable or immobile. Fathers usually give their daughters "movable" wealth in the form of livestock and/or other items when they get married. This wealth is reckoned to constitute their share in the inheritance of his property, a consideration that accords with 'URF but not with SHARI'A. Immobile property in the form of land, cisterns, wells, and permanent buildings are inherited by sons, with the moral injunction to take care of their mothers and, in case of need, their sisters. Immobile property inherited from fathers is often held jointly as JUMLA for several years or so until it is divided equally among the brothers.

Child-rearing is the responsibility of women, with older girls often assisting in the care of younger brothers and sisters. In dispersed homesteads in remote areas, children grow up almost exclusively among family and other kin; in larger communities, boys and growing numbers of girls go to school and receive significant socialization in those state institutions. Although changing, Libyan Bedouin families in the 1990s still socialize their children to show deference to elders, maintain significant gender differentiation and segregation, and to take pride in their Bedouin identity.

Aside from the kin-based descent groups mentioned above, other aspects of social organization that are specific to the Libyan Bedouin are those relationships that exist between the Sa'adi and other tribes. The non-Sa'adi tribes are mainly groups classified as MURABTIN, "tied." Differentiated among themselves, they were generally under the protection of Sa'adi tribes in the past and sometimes paid "tribute" of one kind or another to their Sa'adi protectors. The Sa'adi/MURABTIN differentiation exists in the 1990s mainly as a memory, with the relative social position of people no longer determined by descent so much as by class.

Politically, Libyan Bedouin are citizens of either Egypt or Libya and legally participate in those polities on an equal footing with other citizens. They have no particular political or state administrative existence as Bedouin or as tribes. Among themselves, they have leaders that include the 'AQILA, or "wise man," who plays a major role in the settlement of disputes, and others who have influence and often moral authority but who do not exercise formal power. All formal positions of leadership among the Bedouin are state appointments. That said, many of their attitudes and much of their participation in local and national politics are strongly influenced by tribe or clan identities and a Bedouin ethos that places a high value on autonomy and non-interference by "outsiders" in their affairs.

Social control is maintained among the Libyan Bedouin through strict adherence to what Abu-Lughod identifies as the "honor code" and its alternative, the "modesty code" (1986:78-117). Honor is highly valued and widely seen as an attribute of one's origin. Thus, a man who lies, cheats, hoards wealth, is disrespectful to elders, or mistreats women is said to have no ancestry, no past and therefore no present or future. Deviance from accepted norms is subject to severe shaming and in, extreme cases, results in BARAWA, "expulsion," from a kindred, which is an act taken against deviant kinsmen by senior men and recorded in writing.

The modesty code especially applies to women, who are subject to veiling and seclusion and are enjoined to control themselves strictly in their interactions with men. Young men are also expected to act modestly in the presence of seniors and to neither disrupt nor challenge their authority directly or indirectly. Bedouin women, and the young men, are members of their patrilineal descent groups and thus share the nobility of ancestry with the senior patriarchs and also the honor associated with that nobility. The threat of shame thus acts as a constraint to ensure conformity.

Libyan Bedouin frequently say that they do not have conflicts because they solve them. Indeed, their system of dispute settlement is a source of pride for many. Their conflict resolution procedures are detailed in 'URF customary laws and are regarded by them as a form of social control that is more effective than the legal control of police and much quicker than the state courts. These procedures include special meetings or sittings to hear cases, formal negotiations and arbitration, the ritual swearing of oaths, sets of specified fines, and the use of designated "wise men" ('AQILAs), and various types of specialized experts.

Libyan Bedouin are Sunni Muslims and most of them follow the Maliki school of law.

Some traditional healers and others believed to have special powers have existed among the Libyan Bedouin and have also included "brethren" who were members of the Sanusiya religious movement. In the 1990s, "religious practitioners" are mainly men who are formally connected to Islam as imams of mosques.

Ceremonial occasions are those of rites of passage, especially for male circumcision, weddings, and funerals, and the celebration of the Muslim feasts of 'ID AL-ADHA which coincides with the Holy Pilgrimage (HAJ) to Makka and the 'ID AL-FITR after the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Art consists mainly of the weaving of kilims designed and produced by Bedouin women and, most notably, a rich corpus of songs and poems by men and women that, in some cases, express personal sentiments and feelings (see Abu-Lughod 1986) and, in others, record oral histories of the various Libyan Bedouin peoples and the multiple and changing relations among themselves and with others.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number. The Libyan-Bedouin file contains ethnographies which provide rich accounts and varying perspectives of Libyan-Bedouin culture and society. They also stand out in the general anthropological literature for their theoretical insight and sophistication. These works include Evans-Pritchard's historical and sociological analysis of the Sansusi Order (Evans-Pritchard 1949, no. 3), Emry's study of power in Bedouin society (Emry 1987, no. 17), Behnke's study of Bedouin political ecology, and Abu-Lughod's studies of gender and poetry (Abu-Lughod 1986, no. 10; 1990, no. 11; 1993, no. 13). These works are complimented by other studies in sociopolitical organization (Obermeyer 1969, no.1; Murray 1935, no. 9) and customary law (Mohsen 1971, no. 2; Kennett 1925, no. 8; Murray n.d., no. 16). Three studies examine more recent changes in Bedouin society as a result of sedentization, intrusion of the state, and economic development (Abou-Zeid 1959, no. 7; Davis 1987, no. 15; Sherbiny 1992, no. 18). For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations proceeding each document.

The culture summary was written by Donald P. Cole, November 1997.

• BIYUT--descent group--613

• DIYA--bloodwit--68*, 627

• GABILLA--descent group--613, 619

• GHINNAWA--love poems--5310, 831

• HASHAM--propriety--577

• MALIK--real property--423

• RAMADAN--Islamic holy days--796

• RIZIK--mobile property--422

• WATAN--flood plain--133, 137

Abu-Lughod, Lila. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. 317 p, xix.

Arab Republic of Egypt. Statistical Yearbook: 1991-1996. Cairo: Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, 1997. 360 p.

Bates, Oric. The Eastern Libyans : An Essay. London: Frank Cass and Company, 1970 (First published 1914). 298 p., xxii.

Behnke, Roy H. The Herders of Cyrenaica : Ecology, Economy, and Kinship Among the Bedouin of Eastern Libya. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980. 197 p.

Bujra, Abdalla Said. The Social Implications of Development Policies : A Case Study From Egypt. In: The Desert and the Sown: Nomads in the Wider Society, ed. Cynthia Nelson, 143-157. Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, Research Series, No. 21, 1973. 173 p., ix.

Davis, John. Libyan Politics: Tribe and Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. 297 p., xii.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. The Sanusi of Cyrenaica. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949. 240 p., v.

Johnson, Douglas L. Jabal al-Akhdar, Cyrenaica: An Historical Geography of Settlement and Livelihood. Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper, No. 148, 1973. 215 p.