Āl Faḍl

The Āl Faḍl were the leading Bedouin dynasty of the Syrian Desert, a branch of the Banu Rabiʿah of the Banu Tayy. Their forebear Faḍl ibn Rabiʿah was recorded as an emir by 1107, and the family rose by supplying cavalry against the Crusaders.

The Ayyubids gave them the office of amir al-ʿarab, commander of northern Syria's Bedouin tribes. After the Mamluk conquest in 1260, Isa ibn Muhanna made it hereditary; he led the tribal right wing against the Ilkhanate at the Second Battle of Homs in 1281. His sons kept the office through much of the fourteenth century.

Weakened by feuds, the Āl Faḍl kept their emirate under the Ottomans. In the mid-sixteenth century their leading house merged with the Mawali and became Al Abu Risha, while a rival branch retained the name in the Beqaa Valley.