by Sulayman Thani al-Dhiyabat al-Huwayti
translated and adapted by William Tamplin
You wanted to hear my story, so I’ll tell you. My name’s Thani al-Dhiyabat, from the Dhiyabat section of the Huwaytat tribe. In 1930, when I was around twenty-one, I went raiding for camels in al-Jawf, in northern Saudi Arabia, with some of my fellow tribesmen.
During the journey, my camel got tired. She had been injured a year prior. We came to a large black sandstone hill on the eastern side of the Nafud Desert called Thirst Mountain, and my camel began to sit down every so often. We’d be walking along, and she’d just plop down. So my camel and I were straggling and starting to get cut off.
One of my Dhiyabat kinsmen taunted me, saying, “Back home in front of the ladies, you passed yourself off as a big bad raider. And now you want to leave your camel behind at Thirst Mountain?”
“If I leave her behind,” I replied, “I wouldn’t be the first man to do so. And if I take her home, I wouldn’t be the first man to do that either. My father Salem died when I was just six months old, so it’s not like I was to the manor born. I’m the one who brought this camel along; she didn’t bring me. At the end of the day, whether I leave her behind or take her home, she’s just a camel. But I swear that from here on out, I can’t keep up with you.”
The leader of the raiding party was a man named Daghish Abu Tayeh, whose nom de guerre was Akhu Sanda: Sanda’s Brother.
We set up camp. That night, we met to deliberate.
“Daghish,” said a man named Zaal ibn Mutlag, “don’t get us Huwaytat tribesmen killed by exposing us to Ibn Saud, to the Ikhwan, while half our tribesmen’s camels are straggling far behind us in the desert. Instead, let’s set our course to the right, southward, where we’ll find the Hazem and Harb tribes.”
By the way, Hazem and Harb are the tribes whose camels are black. They’re good-quality mounts.
“Tomorrow I’ll be leading us through that pass over there,” said Daghish. “Whoever wants to follow me can follow me, and whoever doesn’t can go to hell.”
A section of Huwaytat men split off and went with Daghish.
Then it was just me and two others: a man named Juma from the Abu Smayyih section of the Huwaytat, and a man named Farhan we’d nicknamed Walad al-Dhalul: Dhalul’s Son, after his mother. Farhan was from the Abu Rashidah section of the Shararat tribe.
In the morning, we turned back.
By now, Juma’s camel was worn out like mine. Every so often, she’d plop down to rest. And the country we were in was a real wasteland.
Then the third day of our return journey came. We camped on the edge of an erg—a long sandy ridge about twenty miles long. In the morning, when the sun rose, Juma’s camel was still resting. Farhan’s camel and my own were up and grazing. We rousted Juma’s camel.
Then I heard voices. I heard the sound of hooves.
“Gents,” I said, “I hear voices coming from over there.”
Juma and Farhan told me that my fear was making me hear things. “That’s your fear talking!” Juma said. “You can’t even hold yourself together!”
“I’m telling you, man,” I said, “I hear voices!”
We ran up the side of the erg, and when we crested it, we saw men driving their camels ahead of them—camels they’d raided. They were laying into the beasts hard.
I recognized the riders: Alayan al-Flayo and Mislim al-Flayo – both of whom were Shararat – and a man named al-Hosni, who was half-Sharari and half-Huwayti. They’d been on the very same raid I’d been on, and by the look of it, they’d made off with some loot and were headed home. They were moving fast. They had in tow a young Sharari man named Hedayyan.
None of my comrades called out to them, so I did.
“Alayan!” I said, “Mislim! Al-Hosni! Don’t leave us behind! Our mounts are weak and straggling. Don’t abandon us!”
But the riders were whipping their mounts and spurring them on with their shouts. The riding song they were singing went like this:
The enemy’s camels—steal ’em away!
And if they can’t keep up—leave ’em behind!
They were yelling at their stolen camels and driving them hard. When they had gotten some distance from us, they stopped and turned.
“Alayan al-Flayo?” Alayan asked, feigning ignorance. “Who are you to claim to know him? Alayan is a brave and fearsome leader of raids. And Mislim, his nephew, is also a brave and formidable man.”
“Seriously, brother?” I said. “‘Who are you to claim to know him?’—lay off it! The whole world knows you, Alayan! I’m Thani. This is Juma Abu Smayyih, and that’s Farhan Abu Rashidah, Dhalul’s Son. Don’t leave us behind!”
“Then spur on your mounts and follow us!” Alayan said.
“Go on, brothers, follow those men,” I told Juma and Farhan, “and I’ll go back and get our mounts.”
I went back for our mounts and drove them hard.
We followed them. From sunup until the ghada tree is as tall as its shadow, we traveled. We kept pace with them, neither catching up with them nor falling behind. I was driving the camels on my feet.
The four men stopped their camels ahead of us. They had with them some camels who had recently given birth and been separated from their young in the raid.
We went about tying the camels’ noses tight so their udders would fill up with milk out of fear and pain. A camel generally won’t lactate unless her young’s around—or unless she’s forced to.
So we milked the camels and diluted the milk with some water. We had a bowl we put a measuring stone in, and when the mixture of water and milk covered the stone, we’d give it to someone to drink so that everyone got an equal portion.
Before the bowl got to me, the liquid left in the bowl was dwindling. There was barely any left. Then it came my turn. One of the Shararat offered it to me, but al-Hosni snatched it away.
“Brother, that man’s a slave whether he lives or dies,” al-Hosni said. “Give it here.”
If Juma had been as brave as I was, we could have killed them all over al-Hosni’s words.
We continued a little ways, and I began to lag behind. My rifle was strapped to my camel, and she was running on ahead with the rest of the herd.
“Hey there, killer,” I said to Hedayyan, “I want you to look after my camel and rifle for me. I can’t keep up.”
Hedayyan’s camel had been killed in the raid. She was one of those black camels, a good-quality mount. To replace her, Hedayyan had recently broken a bakra, a camel-filly, and tied a rein through her nose and a rein through her jowls. She was a solid camel. And long-eared, too.
“Alayan,” Hedayyan called out, “Alayan, al-Hosni, Mislim! Keep an eye on Thani’s camel for me. Let me take him to the watering hole.”
We had come to a watering hole called Gheran al-Banat: Three Girls’ Hollow. Hedayyan came back for me and mounted me on his camel. When Hedayyan got that camel going, she ran as fast as an antelope. We didn’t stay at the spring for long. We had hardly drunk and filled our waterskins when the rest of the group arrived to drink.
“Alayan, brothers,” I said, “I’m riding a camel called Geheiwa: Cappuccino. She’s an excellent camel who warns of raiders and returns the stolen herd. But even the best camels have their days. And she’s spent. Whoever has a camel for me to ride, let me swap her for Cappuccino, and name the guarantor of your choosing. Tribesmen of mine who’ll vouch for me are Refeifan ibn Dhiyab, Saleh al-Ghashim, and Muhammad ibn Munawer. And you know what, on top of that, you can consider Cappuccino yours. I just need a camel that’ll save me, that’ll get me out of here,” I said, “because our mounts and our men are far out in the desert.”
“If you’re real men with any sense of shame, any sense of manliness,” one of the Flayo men said, “you won’t accompany us from here on out. We’re being followed by Ibn Suayyid, who’ll kill a man and mutilate his remains. And you’re just a bunch of unlucky guys separated from your herds. Hedayyan, however, is our responsibility. We won’t leave him behind.”
“No, gentlemen, please!” I said.
Now, Hedayyan had two camels. An algaha – a heavily pregnant one – and a mouasher – only a few months pregnant. The mouasher was tan and bore the brand of the Rwala tribe.
“I have two camels,” Hedayyan said, “so choose one for the both of you.”
“Let’s take the algaha,” Juma said to me.
“Hell no,” I said. “She’ll just get skinnier and skinnier from all the riding and abort her fetus. Then she’ll tire out, and we’ll get left behind again. Let’s take the mouasher. She’ll be just fine.” A camel in the early stages of her pregnancy will run insanely fast.
I took the saddle off Cappuccino and started in on the mouasher. I sat her down and hobbled her. She was unbroken, had never been ridden before, didn’t even know her own name. I bridled her with a lahi, a rein you put through the jowls, and put a rein through her nose too. We tied our new camel to Juma’s old one, and I started whipping them with a bamboo cane.
Once we got a little distance, the others began to catch up with us—al-Hosni and the two Flayos, Alayan and Mislim.”
“Juma,” I said, “damn it, man, look at them catching up with us. They’ll want to take back the camel they just lent us. They’re driving Cappuccino with them. Juma, look, brother, the two Flayo men—they’ll be easy to take, easy as pie. What I need you to do is kill that bastard al-Hosni for me. Because if they take these mounts from us, we’re as good as dead. If they take our mounts, they’ll be killing us. So we’re justified.”
Juma started to act like a coward.
“You mean we’re going to kill our own brothers?!” Juma said.
I figured I could kill at least two of them on my own. But the third one would kill me. And I figured Hedayyan wouldn’t interfere.
They were catching up.
Later on, when my hands were tied and the shadow of the sword passed above my head, I didn’t weep like I did then.
Then they caught up with us.
“Brother Thani,” they said, “soon enough, your Dhiyabat kinsmen will force you to give us that camel back. They’ll see she’s an excellent camel – who warns of raiders and returns the stolen herd – and that you’ve made an unfair deal with us. And that you’re ruining her. So take your own camel back.”
Then they took her from me by force. I had no say in the matter. I put my bags and belongings back on Cappuccino. Farhan went along with the four men, who left me and Juma behind.
Juma and I hurried on.
Then it was sunset.
We had a bit of flour left, so I began kneading it. The loaf was so small it wasn’t even necessary to flip it in the fire to cook it on both sides. We only had a tiny bit of water left. But that was okay. It was a small piece of bread in a very hot fire. I divvied up the bread, gave one piece to Juma and kept one for myself. We ate it as we walked, driving our camels.
At this point, we were traveling by night. Just before dawn, it started to rain. Juma’s camel started getting tired again, and every so often she would sit down.
“Juma,” I called out, “let’s leave your camel behind, drape our water over Cappuccino and get a move on. Anyone could pick up our tracks, catch up with us in three days, and kill us.”
“I won’t leave my camel behind,” Juma said. “If you want to leave, leave.”
While his pathetic camel rested, Juma wrapped a shawl around his head and slept. I collected some firewood and made a fire. We were in a little hollow, where a campfire couldn’t be seen from afar.
When the light of dawn appeared and gave us enough light to aim a rifle, to see as far as we could see. It was then that I shook Juma awake. I smacked the camel with the bamboo cane, and she jumped right up. Juma and I walked on, driving our camels.
Off to our side was an erg, a long sand ridge. I didn’t know it then, but the enemy was encamped on the other side of it. The Ikhwan. We passed the ridge traveling two abreast. Juma was on my left, and I was on Juma’s right. We were driving our camels on foot. Juma had his rifle slung over his shoulder while I was holding mine in my hand like a staff. We were driving our camels hard.
In front of us, there was a little depression with a rock in it the size of a large bucket that was just smaller than a man sitting down. From where we were, the ridge was low, with a pass in it. And between us and the pass was a flat, open area. A plain. Cappuccino turned her head to the right. When I saw her turn like that, I turned and looked myself.
There were five men. One of the five men’s camels was groaning and twisting her head around behind her, so I could tell she had recently been separated from her young, possibly in a raid.
* * *
For background, we Dhiyabat had a craftsman attached to our tribe named Humoud. Humoud was always making duweiraat—decorative cloths of braided leather to drape over camels’ shoulders. And Humoud’s camel sported one such duweira. She was a light-colored racing camel, and her hooves were white. As I looked, I saw that the five riders had a light-colored camel with white hooves and a duweira draped over her.
“That must be one of our comrades from the raid we split up from,” I thought.
“Look, Juma,” I said, “it’s our buddies, look! They have Humoud with them. Look at them, they’re riding at us, on the attack, coming to take our mounts. Soon enough, when we’re all back home, they’ll make fun of us and claim that if we’d been their enemies, we wouldn’t have been brave enough to defend ourselves. So shoot, but don’t shoot at Humoud’s camel. Let’s kill one of the mounts and later on say we mistook them for the enemy.”
“I swear,” Juma said, “I’ve never met someone like you. Ruthless and cowardly. Why would we kill our own comrade’s camel? You’re a coward, vile and pathetic.”
I shaded my eyes with my hand and saw they were wearing turbans.
Juma and I scrambled over to take cover behind the bucket-sized rock. My rifle had five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. In those days, rifles were of German make.
“Gents, who are you?” I called out to them. “Tell me now, before there’s a misunderstanding!”
“Who are you, not to recognize the Ikhwan?” they replied.
As soon as they said that, the riders began driving their mounts at us as hard as they could. Their camels were sprinting.
From the cover of the rock, I shot the point man, who was riding Humoud’s camel with the braided leather gleaming in the sun. When I shot him, he fell backward off his mount as far as the length of his jadilah, the braided rope attached to the reins. The remaining four men jumped off their mounts and fled.
The wounded man still had some life in him. He was calling out to his fleeing comrades, trying to spur them on.
“Men,” he said, “men of the Jaafirah!” Then I knew that they were from the Aniza tribe. “It’s only two men!” he continued. “Don’t let two men defeat you and take your mounts!”
Juma sprinted over and grabbed me by the shoulders. “What the hell, man?! You’ve just gotten us killed!” he said.
Juma had attacked me when I was seated and at a disadvantage, so I reached for my dagger and brandished it. Then I heard the sound of gunfire. An army of Ikhwan appeared in the pass in the ridge. The sun was low in the sky, and there were so many Ikhwan that they blocked it out. The five men were just an advance party.
I slashed at Juma with the dagger, and he let me go. Then I ran.
The five men’s camels were still there, halted. I looked around, and the injured man’s camel – Humoud’s old camel – was turning around and around, circling him. Then I realized that Humoud’s camel would be the one to get me out of there. I scrambled over to her, grabbing the reins, but the injured man had wound them around his arm. I tried again and again to shake the reins free. Finally, the man let them go. Then I hit him in the mouth with my rifle’s buttstock.
I didn’t know where Juma had gone.
There were two men out in front of the approaching group of Ikhwan.
I hadn’t mounted her yet. I cut the reins with my dagger and threw them over the saddle horn. The Ikhwan weren’t going to give me the time to sit the camel down so I could mount her properly, so I jumped onto the bend in her neck to climb on to her back, and she set off.
The two men in pursuit were a graybeard and a young man with a black moustache named Ali ibn Deheim, from the Aniza tribe.
“Ali! Ali!” the graybeard said, “God bless the good woman who named her son Ali! Kill the no-account slave!”
I got a good distance on them, but I still hadn’t settled properly into the saddle. As for Juma, if I’d had any luck, God would have kept him far away from me.
Once I got situated in the saddle and began to steer my new camel properly, I saw Juma running west as fast as he could. He was right in my path, his rifle slung over his shoulder. I sped up.
“Juma, don’t worry, we’ll be back home before you know it,” I said, catching up with him.
But the graybeard had really put the fear of God into Ali, the little bastard. Ali fixed his feet in the stirrups, and he was straddling his camel to anchor himself. He fired, and even though the shot missed, it put a smoking hole in my clothes. The graybearded bastard was calling out to him, “Ali! Ali! God bless the good woman who named her son Ali! Kill the no-account slave!” I put Juma behind me, and we set off.
From sunup of that day, the Ikhwan pursued us. The main force of the Ikhwan fell behind, and only three men remained close behind: the graybeard and two other riders.
There’s a wadi in those parts called Muayy, southwest of the town of al-Jawf. From its highest point, Wadi Muayy splits into two channels.
When we began descending the wadi, I steered our mount down the channel on the left. That camel took us far, and fast.
The day started to wane. It was just after the ‘asr, the afternoon prayer. I sat the camel down next to a large ghada tree. Juma and I could just make out our pursuers, and the main body of the Ikhwan army started to turn back. I sat our camel down, and we drank.
Now we were in an area called al-Jilf. The ground was covered with black rocks. And there was a trail.
“Juma, brother,” I said, “take the reins from me and steer our camel down that trail. If anyone comes at us from behind, I’ll handle them, easy as pie. You cover our front.”
“Why don’t we go back to Gheran al-Banat?” I thought to myself. “We went raiding on two camels, and we’ll be returning on one. Our friends and family are going to laugh at us.”
Three times I put my feet in the stirrups, fully prepared to ride off and leave Juma behind. But I thought to myself, “If I claim that Juma was killed, and then Juma survives and returns, people will say, ‘You didn’t take care of your buddy.’ And if I admit to his family that I abandoned him, then shame on me.” So I was between a rock and a hard place.
Afterwards, I realized I’d made a mistake. I could have held Juma at gunpoint and driven him on ahead of me.
“I swear,” said Juma, “from here on out, I can’t go on like this.”
“Juma,” I said, “you ride in the saddle if you want us to go back and surrender to them.”
At this point, we could barely see. We began descending Wadi Muayy.
I looked up and saw a group of men on the ridge.
Up ahead there was a bend in the wadi covered with ghada trees.
“Juma,” I said, “look to your left. There’s a big group of men!”
“Man, what are you afraid of this time?” Juma asked. “That’s just a herd of gazelles.”
I was looking around like so, my head on a swivel. I saw a man’s head weaving in and out of the ghada trees up ahead.
“Juma, goddamit,” I said, “Look! There’s a man on your left! On your left!”
Then we entered a raised thicket. Juma spurred on our mount. The poor thing had been on the run since morning and burdened the whole time with two riders.
Then the Ikhwan fell upon us. In the end, we were up against fifty well-trained war camels. The smaller group of men we then faced were the same ones from earlier that day, whom we thought we’d left behind: Ali ibn Deheim and the graybeard.
This time they had with them a young black man riding a hamra, a light-colored camel, light as buckskin and fast as an antelope, the damn thing. But the young black man didn’t have a rifle. When he whipped his camel with his bamboo cane, foam came flying out of her mouth like a zaghrouda, an Arab woman’s ululations at a wedding. He was whipping her hard, and she was jumping over bushes and trees.
“Juma,” I called out, “rein in our camel and let me dismount so I can take a shot at that bastard riding at us. If I kill one, we’ll each have a camel to escape on.”
“No,” said Juma, “let me shoot instead.”
I leaned over to jump off the camel so I could shoot, and that bastard the graybeard from earlier called out, “Ali! Ali! God bless the good woman who named her son Ali! Kill the no-account slave!”
Ali fired and hit Juma in the back of his head, which split open like a watermelon. But I had never seen a dead body before, so I thought Juma might still be alive, might just be unconscious.
Juma weaved back and forth, and I grabbed him and steadied him so he wouldn’t fall out of the saddle. Our camel took us a little ways. I pushed Juma ever so slightly, and he fell off the camel. His head fell to the side. The camel took me a bit farther, but I turned her around and returned to Juma. When I got back to him, I jumped down on to the ground and straddled him.
So there I was, straddling Juma, his face turned toward the east.
Seeing as Ali was the most lethal of the Ikhwan, I told myself that if I could kill him, I could kill the other forty-nine of them with no trouble at all.
Ali and the graybeard had parked their camels to the west of my position, under the setting sun. The rest of the Ikhwan had parked their camels to the east. Not a rifle sounded from any of them. Not a shot was fired. And I sat there straddling Juma.
Then Ali fired at me.
When I shot back, the bullets passed through Ali’s clothes, leaving smoking holes. When Ali returned fire, his bullets did the same to mine. I was wearing a thobe and a kibir, and they’d begun to look like the ears of baby rabbits from all the bullet holes. The graybeard, the old bastard, was still calling out to Ali, “Ali! Ali! God bless the good woman who named her son Ali! Kill the no-account slave! Kill the no-account!”
One of Ali’s rounds struck Juma as I was straddling him and facing west. It hit Juma in the fleshy part of his hip. The bullet split one of his haunches open and caused Juma’s thobe to fly back. When I looked down, I could see white fat from below Juma’s skin exposed. He wasn’t stirring. And then I knew Juma was dead.
So I turned around and saw my camel standing not far away, her legs apart, grazing in the brush. I scrambled over to her. And then, faster than you could splash water on your face, I jumped on her back and dug my heels into her sides. Then I heard the graybeard say, “What a speedy camel, Ali! I wish I had one just like her! Dammit, Ali, God damn the breast you suckled from! That camel whats-her-name really has run off with him.”
The wadi took a turn. Off to the side, there was a pass in the ridge, a shortcut. If I had followed the longer course of the wadi, I would have come out all right. But I pitied my camel, who had been on the run since daybreak. So I went up toward the pass.
My camel took me up there just as the sun was setting. But there was a group of men looking down at me from atop the ridge, and they were the enemy. One of them had a Mauser rifle that he’d tricked out, a Gewehr 98, known as a sayyadah: a sharpshooter.
When my camel crested the ridge, the man shot her. The round entered her just where the tail meets the back, went through the length of her, and exited near where the neck meets the torso. I felt her shake, and I chided her, yelling “Gee up!” Her ears went flat against her head out of fear and pain. She ran a short distance, and all of a sudden she was dead. She started to go down, then hit the ground, and blood began gushing out of her chest.
At that point, night had fallen. I fell off her, jumped right back up, grabbed the bandolier, and saw that it had no rounds left in it. I did a quick brass check and saw there were only two bullets left: one in the chamber and one in the magazine. I’d been fighting, riding and running all day. And as soon as that camel fell, my strength ran out such that I was dragging the rifle by the barrel.
The small team following me turned their mounts around, and the main body of Ikhwan met them at around the time of the ‘isha, the evening prayer.
Someone from the main group asked, “Where did that group go, the one you were chasing?”
“One was killed and the other escaped and is still alive.”
“No way.”
“His camel’s somewhere over there,” one of them replied. “We shot her and she fell.”
“Well, if that’s the case, go back and look for him. He’s severely dehydrated, so you’ll find him.”
Then they turned back toward me. As they were approaching, I could hear the voices of the graybeard and Ali.
The graybeard said, “Ali, Ali, God bless her who named her son Ali—those are Huwaytat men. We pay them visits and seek their protection when we need to. But we Aniza prey only on the weak and helpless—at least we have ever since we took up with the Ikhwan. The man is nearby, and he’s severely dehydrated, so take him prisoner in the Huwaytat manner—kindly, that is.”
I was concealed in a stand of ghada trees, and the approaching men began to hesitate and pussyfoot out of fear.
Ali approached and said, “Come on out! Give yourself up, and you’ll be under my protection. I swear to God, no one will lay a finger on you.”
“Whose protection?” I asked. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Ali ibn Deheim,” he replied.
“Then treat me as civilly as the Huwaytat treat their prisoners, with God as your witness,” I said. “I’m a dead man walking, and with the ammunition I have left, you could very well die before me.”
“You’ll be under my protection, and that of Ibn Saud,” said Ali. “As long as you’re with me, not a fly can harm you.”
I emerged, dragging myself out of the thicket. I handed over my rifle.
The men tore my clothes off and divvied them up among themselves. They only let me keep my headscarf. They had a kid with them, an adolescent boy. And the kid – the little punk bastard – whacked me with a bamboo cane three times.
“Ali,” I said, “God damn you! You didn’t protect me like you said you would, and you didn’t let me get revenge with my own hands.”
Ali walked over to the kid and hit him with the butt of my rifle. The kid lost his balance and staggered off. “God curse you bullies,” Ali said, “who prey only on the weak and helpless.”
The men fell upon me, tied me up and put me on the back of a camel behind the little punk. The camel was black and bore the brand of the Najadat, a branch of the Huwaytat. She was bare – with no saddle or trappings on her at all. If only my hands had been free! By her stride and pace, I could tell she was fiercer and faster than the one I’d ridden all day, and she could have ridden off with me under the night sky. I could have strangled the boy and gone off with her. But I was tied up. As far as I was concerned, I was a dead man.
A few hours later, we arrived at the Ikhwan encampment, which was at a spring called al-Shuayyireh.
At al-Shuayyireh, there were too many people to count.
Our raiding party had originally set out from al-Fukouk, the wadi to the east of Wadi al-Hasah in eastern Jordan. In al-Fukouk, we Dhiyabat had horses and camels, and it was where our families and relatives lived.
When the Ikhwan took me down off the camel, I caught a glimpse of their campfire, blazing high as a Bedouin’s goat-hair tent. When I looked around, I saw camels I knew to be my family’s. I could see the Dhiyabat’s camels, the Dhiyabat’s horses. I could see the mares of Refeifan, Milhi, and Muhammad ibn Munawer. All the Dhiyabat’s horses—and all of them here!
“And to think I’d been worried about myself!” I thought. The Ikhwan hadn’t brought along my family and relatives with the camels and horses. “They must all be dead,” I thought.
Then the Ikhwan took me and presented me before their amir, their commander. He was from the craftsman class and from the town of Shagra, which is southeast of Hayil. His name was Ibrahim al-Nashmi.
I looked around and saw a man from the Abu Tayeh section of my own tribe sitting there—Mad’hi al-Ghamawi. He had been raiding with the Ikhwan, but now he was their prisoner.
A Sharari man came running. “Amir, sir, and may God prolong your life,” he began, “do you see this son of a bitch here? If there had been five more like him, not one of our fifty men would have survived to tell the tale.”
I looked at the Sharari.
“To hell with you and your petty little insult, son of a bitch,” I said. “I’m no different than you are. I’m Akhu Thanwa – Thanwa’s Brother – and that’s no mean thing! And if my hands were free, I’d show you something else! Son of a bitch … the real son of a bitch is the one who turned tail and ran scared like a hyena, earlier today when I was armed and free.”
“Go,” al-Nashmi told the Sharari man. “Off with you.”
Al-Nashmi patted me on the chest, right over my heart, to comfort me.
“It’s a lucky man who has the Huwaytat on his side in battle,” al-Nashmi said. “But God damn you Aniza,” he said to his raiders. “I’ll send fifty or sixty of you out, and you won’t bring me back a thing—no news, no intel!”
I could see a grayhaired man sitting down. He had Daghish’s rifle right there in front of him—a cavalry gun with a decorative hook near the end of the barrel. Daghish’s camel was sitting nearby. And the man was wearing Daghish’s cloak.
“You there!” al-Nashmi said to me. “Bring me news of Daghish the camel-raider. Is he dead or alive?”
God gave me an unprecedented courage.
“Amir,” I replied, “and may God prolong your life—if Daghish is dead, then so have many men died before him. And if he’s still alive, you’ll hear about him.”
“Are you a slave or a freedman?” asked Mad’hi al-Ghamawi, the Abu Tayeh man.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied. “Whoever wants to buy a slave, that’s his business.”
“Amir, sir,” Mad’hi responded, “that black camel over there belongs to him, as does this light-colored one. The Huwaytat’s blacks have houses and property.”
“What the hell?” I exclaimed. “I don’t know this man. I’ve never seen him in my life! Where’s he from anyway?”
“He’s an Abu Tayeh man,” al-Nashmi replied.
“We Dhiyabat are about as friendly with the Abu Tayeh as we are with you lot,” I said.
“So what brings you to these parts?” al-Nashmi asked.
“Amir, sir, and may God prolong your life,” I said, “it’s not right, and it’s not fair, that your women ride on the backs of camels, drink milk, and have houses and furniture while our Huwaytat women have to walk around on their own two feet.”
“Hot damn!” the amir exclaimed. “I knew it! I knew you were out raiding! Just as I said earlier, it’s a lucky man who has the Huwaytat on his side in battle.”
“You’ve taken everything we own, left us down and out,” I said.
* * *
There was a Dhiyabat woman named Jidaya. She was the sister of Auda, the master horse trainer. And God be praised, Jidaya was beautiful. She was also barren. Whomever she wanted to marry didn’t want to marry her. And whoever wanted to marry her, she didn’t want to marry. Then along came a man from the Bani Sakhr tribe named Matar al-Shagawi. Matar married her, carried her off, and fell in with the religious nutcakes, the Ikhwan. He became a kind of secretary to the amir, Ibrahim al-Nashmi.
While I was still in al-Nashmi’s presence, the graybearded Anizi man from earlier – Ali’s companion – said, “Amir, sir, and may God prolong your life—our brothers-in-arms died out there. May God have mercy on their souls. We buried them on the top of that ridge,” he said, pointing.
In other words, the graybeard was asking al-Nashmi to have me executed for killing his buddies.
The amir wasn’t a boorish man, so he picked up on the graybeard’s meaning.
“You’re an upstanding man,” al-Nashmi replied. “So I know you’ll understand the proverb: you win some, you lose some. And this man here and his comrades,” he said, pointing to me, “wasn’t sneaking around like a thief. He was out raiding, openly and nobly.”
At this point, Mad’hi al-Ghamawi got up and started pleading with the amir for mercy.
Al-Nashmi told him, “To hell with you, you traitor. No one feels sorry for you. One might feel sorry for this young man and his comrade, for Daghish and his men, and for the men buried atop that ridge, may God have mercy on them. But you? You came to us and gave us your word, with God as your witness, that you’d recruit the shaykhs of the Northern tribes to the cause of the Ikhwan. And to that end, we kitted you out. We gave you three camels. The thobe and jacket you’re now wearing were from us. The shawl and Jawf-style cloak you’re wearing were also gifts. And on top of that, you turncoat, you’ve betrayed your own comrades. You’ve mobilized the people of the North against us! Years from now, I hope it’s never said that you were slain in battle, that you died an honorable death. Killing an innocent, defenseless woman would be worthier than killing you.”
* * *
“Summon so-and-so for us!” the men at the council said. “Let him punish his brother.”
I didn’t know what the word punish meant in their dialect.
The men kept calling out, “Hey, so-and-so, present yourself, present yourself!”
After a while, a black man appeared, blacker than a whip snake you’d find in a wasteland. In his hand hung a sword, gleaming like a whip snake’s tongue.
“At your service, amir, sir” he said to al-Nashmi, “and may God prolong your life.”
“Punish your brother,” al-Nashmi ordered.
And then I understood that by punish they meant cut my head off.
The executioner sized me up. As he did, he said, “Amir, and may God grant you long life–you might as well kill me first. It’s unheard of for one brother to kill another. If he were white like you, even if there were fifty men like him, I’d cut off all their heads—as long as the decision and responsibility lay with you, of course.”
“God damn your father!” al-Nashmi said. “God curse him! You’re from Najd, and he’s from the North. What do you two have to do with each other?”
“My brother amir,” the executioner said, “my blood and his are one. We look alike. And my flesh and his are one.”
“Off with you, then,” al-Nashmi replied. “Let the young man keep his fellow prisoners company tonight. He’ll appear before Ibn Suayyid tomorrow, and then the matter will be decided.”
It was then that I saw Matar al-Shagawi in the majlis. I recognized him. But neither one of us could reveal that he knew the other because al-Nashmi might have suspected collusion.
Matar stood up to go home. He and his men mounted up and rode off.
* * *
When Matar got home, his Huwaytat wife Jidaya asked him, “Were there any Huwaytat slain in the battle?”
“May God protect you from their evil,” Matar replied. “Not one of them is left alive save Thani. Daghish and his men – thirty-six in all – were killed. Thani and Mad’hi al-Ghamawi, that is.”
That night, Jidaya set out, taking with her a large group of people. She also took with her a little girl named Tarfa, who was only ten years old. Tarfa’s father – Jidaya’s brother – had died, and little Tarfa’s mother had remarried. So Tarfa was Jidaya’s niece.
When the sun came up, the group – a caravan, really – approached the Ikhwan camp. There were around sixty camels in the caravan, with men, women and children—all of them come to beg favors from the amir. The people were starving, thin from hunger. To some al-Nashmi gave one camel, and to others he gave two, and so on and so forth.
They loaded me onto a camel and strapped me to her. I was still tied up, fettered. Their intent was to send me to Ibn Suayyid’s executioner, who might have fewer qualms about beheading me. They did the same to Mad’hi Abu Tayeh.
Then the amir and his retinue stopped their camels to greet the caravan.
When Jidaya and the caravan stopped and sat their camels down, I saw that she was covered in an abaya with only the upper part of her face showing. She held a bamboo cane, a camel whip. Despite her foreign dress, and despite the fact that I didn’t know it was her, she stood out to me as a native of my country. And I saw that she had a child with her. I was sure it was a little girl, and her head shone with blond hair.
At the time, I was reflecting. Not about my death, but about my family, my people. My kin must have all died. They wouldn’t have given their camels and livestock away without a fight, not as long as one of them were still alive. I figured the Ikhwan must have raided our camp at dawn and overrun them. How ironic! My people went out to raid, and it was our camp that ended up getting raided. I wondered who of my people had died and who had lived. There was no doubt in my mind that, had any one of them survived, he would have fought to defend his people and property. So the Ikhwan must have killed them all.
When Jidaya arrived, she went immediately to al-Nashmi with Tarfa in tow. I’ll say again, Jidaya was beautiful, too beautiful even to be a Dhiyabat girl, one might say. She had a very long neck. Jidaya was talking and gesticulating with her bamboo cane, shaking it.
“Amir, sir,” Jidaya said, “I’ve come to you for those two Huwaytat men. In my family, we were seven sisters and seven brothers. But now there’s no one left whose protection I can flee to, except for God Almighty and that boy there—Thani. So please don’t finish us off, please don’t cut off our line.”
“You can have the black one,” al-Nashmi replied, “but the white one won’t see dawn tomorrow.”
But of course, I didn’t hear any of that.
* * *
A man named Muhammad Ibn Zarea, a swordsmith and al-Nashmi’s retainer, came bolting toward me. Ibn Zarea was wearing a flimsy thobe, and his heels were black with dirt. He was riding hard, fast as a bullet. He came right up to me, still strapped to the camel.
“Hey, you!” he said. “What’s your name?”
“What do you want with my name?” I said.
“Tell it to me,” he said. Then he turned around. “Come on, tell me,” he said. “Tell me your name.”
“My name’s Thani,” I said, “and may God not return you to your people alive.” God gave me the courage to speak those words.
Ibn Zarea went off, riding hard. He stopped and talked for a while with al-Nashmi, and he came running back. Then I knew something was up.
Now, I hadn’t seen Jidaya for seven years, and I didn’t know she’d taken up with that ragtag group of bandits, the Ikhwan.
Ibn Zarea came back and asked me, “Do you have any kin in these parts? The amir wants to know. Do you have any kin in these parts?”
“I have a relative named Jidaya, the wife of Matar al-Shagawi,” I said. “But I haven’t seen or heard from her in seven years. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”
Then Ibn Zarea spun about and rode off. And again, he talked with al-Nashmi, and talked, and talked some more.
This time, both al-Nashmi and Ibn Zarea came back. They took hold of the camel I was strapped to and sat her down. Ibn Zarea leaned over me.
“Thani,” he said, “rest assured, you’re safe now.”
“This doesn’t seem too safe to me,” I said.
When I approached them, I saw Jidaya. She greeted me with tears streaming down her face, which wasn’t covered in the manner of the wives of the Ikhwan.
“Don’t cry,” I told her. “I’m no better than those men of ours who died.”
“Brother Thani,” she said, “I can’t hug you. If I were to show you any affection, they’d cut my head off.” So she took my hand.
I was wearing my headscarf as a loincloth. Save for that headscarf, I was naked as the day I was born. And my feet were shackled in irons.
Then they carried off the Abu Tayeh man, Mad’hi al-Ghamawi.
* * *
When the caravan of beggars arrived, so did five riders. The five came from the north, riding hard. They claimed to have come across enemy tracks, possibly those of raiders, and they had come to inform the amir. They’d picked up the tracks near Aweisit, also known as Tabarjal, a three days’ ride from al-Shuayyireh by camel.
The raiders who had made the tracks were from the North, from tribes bordering the settled areas of the Levant. They had left behind oak tannins when they were cleaning out their waterskins, and oaks only grow in the North. So the five riders came to inform al-Nashmi of this incursion and ask for his help.
“Let’s camp here in al-Shuayyireh until we track down those enemies,” al-Nashmi said.
We camped there for seven days.
On the eighth day, we set off, and they moved me to the town of Dumat al-Jandal, also known as al-Jawf. I was imprisoned in a castle—Qasr Marid, an ancient clay castle with a mosque where they cut people’s heads off.
The night we arrived, the executioner had his sword strapped to him and kept asking, “Where is he? Where’s the infidel? Where’s your prisoner, the infidel?”
“Ibn Suayyid,” al-Nashmi said, addressing the amir of al-Jawf, “we’re your guests tonight. This man here, Thani, has been with us for seven days. He’s become like a brother to us. If you kill him tonight, you’ll really ruin our mood. So why don’t you feed us dinner, and then we’ll have some coffee, and soon enough – I mean, Friday’s execution day, and it’s staring us in the face! Then we’ll bring him to you, and God willing, you can cut—”
“I have to cut his head off tonight,” Ibn Suayyid said.
“Well, whether you cut it off or not,” al-Nashmi said, “look—”
They began to argue.
“By God,” al-Nashmi said, “don’t cut his head off. We don’t want your dinner or your coffee.”
“If we were up North, I’d have to kill him,” Ibn Suayyid said.
“If you cut his head off, I’ll cut off yours, I will,” said al-Nashmi.
They continued to argue.
Meanwhile, Jidaya snuck over to Ibn Zarea.
“Ibn Zarea,” she said, “go speak with Ibn Suayyid. Tell him that if he pardons Thani, this little girl here, Tarfa, who’s only ten years old—well, when she comes of age, there’ll be no one left responsible for marrying her off besides Thani. I’ll have Thani give her to you.”
And Tarfa was beautiful, by God. Ibn Zarea, however, was an ugly, useless, one-eyed man. And a townsman to boot.
The morning came, but God didn’t decree that I be executed that day.
* * *
For seven months I was a prisoner there. Every Friday, they would bring me out to the town square to cut my head off, but the blade never swung for me.
The thirtieth Friday was the day our Lord failed to guide Ibn Suayyid.
I knelt there, and the executioner poked me with the tip of his sword, saying “Your shoulders are wide, like the shoulders of camels from the North.”
I knew I was going to die, so I said the shahadah, the Islamic profession of faith.
“You know the shahadah, you little infidel?” asked the executioner in surprise. The Wahhabis assume that all their enemies are godless infidels.
The Wahhabis are also forbidden from executing anyone until after they pray. So after that day’s prayers, the first group of worshippers left the mosque, then the second. Al-Nashmi and his retinue, which included Matar al-Shagawi, were part of the second group.
Again the executioner poked me with the tip of his sword. While I was kneeling there, I could see the shadow of the sword on the ground as the blade rose above my head. I didn’t cry out to anyone for help or attempt to speak to al-Nashmi. I was facing south, toward Mecca, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see al-Nashmi looking at me.
“Ibn Suayyid!” al-Nashmi said. “Stay your hand! If that executioner raises his arm to strike him, I’ll cut your head off.”
Everyone there in the square began clapping for al-Nashmi, shouting, “Well done! Good on you, sir! God reward you!”
“But I have to kill him!” Ibn Suayyid said.
“Ibn Zarea! Take the prisoner away,” commanded al-Nashmi. “Set him free.”
Then the two amirs had words.
People came and freed me from my chains.
Once they had, they said, “Come on, now, get up! Run away! Flee!”
I tried to move my right leg, but it might as well have been pinned to the ground with a tent peg. Then I tried to move the left one, and the same thing happened.
“Men,” I told them, “I’m a dead man. Leave me be.”
Then al-Nashmi was standing there with them. “Carry him to the water,” he ordered.
Nearby there was a spring called Ayn Arous: Bride’s Spring. It has three palm trees and a tamarisk. There’s also a little rock ledge nearby. Its water is clearer than kerosene, and pure.
They took me to the water so I could drink. I cupped some water in my hands, but I couldn’t swallow it. It came out of my nostrils. I tried a second time, and the same thing happened. The third time I tried, al-Nashmi was there, standing over me.
“Carry him to the tent,” he ordered. “Melt some butter, and drip it into his nose to help with the dehydration.” This was according to traditional Bedouin medicine.
* * *
The two amirs – Ibrahim al-Nashmi and Abdulrahman Ibn Suayyid – took their dispute to Hayil and argued my case. Jidaya, too, traveled the two hundred miles from al-Jawf to Hayil to plead my case.
When they appeared before Ibn Musa‘id, the amir of Hayil, he asked them, “How many months has Thani been with you?”
“Seven months,” they replied.
“Has he betrayed you?” Ibn Musa‘id asked.
“No.”
“Has he done you any harm?”
“No.”
“Beforehand, had he come to you, agreed to work with you, and then betrayed you?”
“No. This young man was out raiding, openly and frankly.”
“Brother,” Ibn Musa‘id said, “you have every right to treat as an enemy whoever first treats you as one. But if you attack people and take their property, then you can expect them to attack you and take it back! Ibn Saud didn’t appoint you to kill whomever you catch. He appointed you to be an agent of his authority, to keep alive whom you keep alive and kill whom you kill. The decision about Thani is yours to make. I’m not here to bear the burden of every decision, to micromanage you. If you execute him, it’s not as if the women of the North are going to go barren, give up sex, and stop having babies who’ll grow up to be our enemies. But if you save his life, well, you, Ibn Suayyid, are an amir, and this young man might bring you more amirs from up North.”
After the case was heard, I was pardoned.
Then, Jidaya told me, “Go and kiss the amir on his forehead in thanks for pardoning you.”
“I swear to God, and as I am your brother,” I said, “I won’t debase myself by kissing his head. But I will perform the bayadh ceremony for him—stand outside his tent with a white banner and proclaim to the world what a great man he is.”
“Good on you, brother,” Jidaya replied.
So the Ikhwan released me after seven months.
* * *
When they released me, al-Nashmi told me, “Thani, you old rogue, apart from you, I can’t recall anyone who fell into our hands and survived. The only reason I kept you alive was your manly virtues and your good character.”
Al-Nashmi offered me the opportunity to stay on with the Ikhwan, but I refused. So al-Nashmi called on me for a favor.
“Thani, listen up,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“I need something from you. I want you to give me the names of the amirs of the North, the leaders of the townspeople and the Bedouins alike.”
“Amir, and may God prolong your life,” I said, “we Huwaytat and the Bani Sakhr are at war. But I can give you the names of all the amirs from here to al-Karak.”
“Very well,” said al-Nashmi. “The amirs of your lands—amirs of the Bedouins and the townspeople.”
And I named them. Shaykhs of the Majali tribe, of the Bani Hamida, and all the rest. Any and all shaykhs south and east of Mount Shihan and all throughout the muhaddar—the slope that extends south from Ras al-Nagab to Aqaba in southern Jordan.
Al-Nashmi gave me enough official letters to fill my camel’s saddlebags. Every letter came as a bound volume with the name of the shaykh in question printed on the front of it. The letters claimed that whoever came to the Ikhwan alongside me would do so safely and under God’s protection, and that if he left his family an unjust man, he would return to them safe and well after swearing allegiance to Ibn Saud.
Back then, in Jordan, folks were ignorant and politically inexperienced—simple folk.
I took the letters and gave them to Refeifan.
“I’ll go with you, Thani, and help deliver them,” Refeifan said.
But Refeifan destroyed my plan. He lit a fire, tore the letters up, and burned them all out of hatred for the Ikhwan.
If not for Refeifan, you’d find southern Jordan in northern Saudi Arabia.
Will Tamplin is a communications officer in the US Marine Corps. He is also a literary translator from Arabic with a PhD in comparative literature from Harvard. This is an adaption of a tale he recorded in the desert of Jordan in the summer of 2018.