Bedouin

Many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous ~ Oscar Wilde

The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (Arabic: بَدْو badū, singular بَدَوِي badawī) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert but spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam. The English word bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī, which means 'desert dweller', and is traditionally contrasted with ḥāḍir, the term for sedentary people. Bedouin 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. The vast majority of Bedouins adhere to Islam, although there are some fewer numbers of Christian Bedouins present in the Fertile Crescent.

Quotes

• Above th’ encampments of the Bedouins, ere
  Their watchfires were extinct,
  • Thomas Campbell, "The Dead Eagle (Written at Oran)"

• And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous
  To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy paladin.
  • Oscar Wilde, "The Sphinx"

• From the Desert I come to thee
    On a stallion shod with fire;
  And the winds are left behind
    In the speed of my desire.
  Under thy window I stand,
    And the midnight hears my cry:
  I love thee, I love but thee,
    With a love that shall not die
        Till the sun grows cold,
        And the stars are old,
        And the leaves of the Judgment
              Book unfold!
  Look from thy window and see
    My passion and my pain;
  I lie on the sands below,
    And I faint in thy disdain.
  Let the night-winds touch thy brow
    With the heat of my burning sigh,
  And melt thee to hear the vow
    Of a love that shall not die
        Till the sun grows cold, ...
  My steps are nightly driven,
    By the fever in my breast,
  To hear from thy lattice breathed
    The word that shall give me rest.
  Open the door of thy heart,
    And open thy chamber door,
  And my kisses shall teach thy lips
    The love that shall fade no more
        Till the sun grows cold, ...
  • Bayard Taylor, Melodies of Verse (1884), pp. 19–20