Bedouin

The Bedouin are semi-nomadic Arab camel- and sheep-herding tribes of the Arabian, Syrian and North African deserts, known in Arabic as badw, desert-dwellers. In clans of common ancestry, they moved between wells and pastures, guarding caravans and raiding rivals in ghazw expeditions; early Islamic scholars held their speech the purest Classical Arabic.

As Islam spread they reached Sinai and the Negev, camping around Beersheba and Aqaba on the routes into Egypt. In 1326 ibn Battuta found an Egyptian customs post at Qatya, guarded by Bedouin hunting unauthorized travelers.

The Sinai and Delta shaykhs sided with the Ottomans against the Mamluks in 1517, but soon clashed with the new order, and Mamluk governors executed several in 1519. Under Ottoman rule the tribes held the desert, and raids on pilgrim caravans peaked in the eighteenth century, bloodiest in the Hajj massacre of 1757.