the land of median

I first took the opportunity of rectifying my notes on the origin of the Huwayta’t tribe.92 According to their own oral genealogists, the first forefather was a lad called ‘Alayán, who, travelling in company with certain Shurafá (“descendants of the Apostle”), and ergò held by his descendants to have been also a Sherif, fell sick on the way. At El-‘Akabah he was taken in charge by ‘Atíyyah, Shaykh of the then powerful Ma’ázah tribe, who owned the land upon which the fort stands. A “clerk,” able to read and to write, he served his adopted father by superintending the accounts of stores and provisions supplied to the Hajj. The Arabs, who before that time embezzled at discretion, called him El–Huwayti’ (“the Man of the Little Wall”) because his learning was a fence against their frauds He was sent for by his Egyptian friends; these, however, were satisfied by a false report of his death: he married his benefactor’s daughter; he became Shaykh after the demise of his father-inlaw; he drove the Ma’ázah from El-‘Akabah, and he left four sons, the progenitors and eponymi of the Midianite Huwaytát. Their names are ‘Alwán, ‘Imrán, Suway’id, and Sa’id; and the list of nineteen tribes, which I gave in “The Gold–Mines of Midian,” is confined to the descendants of the third brother.



We also consulted Shaykh Hasan and his cousin Ahmed, alias Abú Khartúm, concerning the origin of his tribe, the Beni ‘Ukbah. According to our friend Furayj, the name means “Sons of the Heel” (‘Akab) because, in the early wars and conquests of El–Islám, they fought during the day by the Moslems’ side; and at night, when going over to the Nazarenes, they lost the “spoor” by wearing their sandals heel foremost, and by shoeing their horses the wrong way. All this they indignantly deny; and they are borne out by the written genealogies, who derive them from “Ukbah, the son of Maghrabah, son of Heram,” of the Kahtániyyah (Joctanite) Arabs, some of the noblest of Bedawi blood. They preserve the memory of their ancestor ‘Ukbah, and declare that they come from the south; that is, they are of Hejázi descent, consequently far more ancient than the Huwaytát. At first called “El–Musálimah,” they were lords of all the broad lands extending southward between Shámah (Syria) and the Wady Dámah below the port of Zibá; and this fine valley retains, under its Huwayti occupants, the title of ‘Ukbíyyah—‘Ukbah-land. Thus they still claim as Milk, or “unalienable property,” the Wadys Gharr, Sharmá, ‘Aynúnah, and others; whilst their right to the ground upon which Fort el-Muwaylah is built has never been questioned.