The Bani Sakhr confederacy is one of the largest and most influential tribal confederacies in Jordan. The Bani Sakhr began migrating to the Levant from the Hejaz as early as the 16th century and their influence continued growing until they became the most powerful tribe in northwestern Arabia around the mid-18th century.Falconry in Arabia, Mark Allen; 1980, p.33.
The Bani Sakhr is made up of many clans, both through ancestry and alliances. These clans are primarily separated into three groups: the Al-Twaqa, headed by the princely Al-Fayez family; the Al-Ka'abneh, headed by the Khreisha family; and the Al-Khdeir.
Tribal area and mode of living The Banu Sakhr were historically a fully Bedouin (nomadic), camel-raising tribe. By the start of the 19th century, their (tribal territory) spanned much of the area that would constitute central Jordan, with summergrounds down the length of the Balqa highlands from the area around Amman in the north to the area around Karak in the south. Their wintergrounds extended east of this region toward the Wadi Sirhan, where the modern eastern border of Jordan with Saudi Arabia is formed.
From at least the 18th century, the tribesmen made their living from raising camels, collecting tribute known as () from the townspeople of Salt and Karak, and from the annual Mecca-bound Hajj caravans marshalled in Damascus which passed through their territory. From the Hajj pilgrims, they collected payments for supplying camels and desert guides and from the authorities they collected dues for ensuring the caravan's protection through their territory. Starting in the mid-to-late 19th century, the sheikhs (chiefs) of the Sakhr began to register ownership of the lands they long dominated with the government and became large-scale landowners. Rather than take up a settled life as farmers, the Sakhr preserved their nomadic Bedouin lifestyle by using their landownership to form plantation enterprises, forming sharecropping agreements with peasants who cultivated their lands and shared with the sheikhs a portion of the harvests. As late as the 1930s, the Sakhr maintained their seasonal migrations, wintering with their camelherds deep into the desert, while maintaining control of their cultivable lands in western Jordan. The majority of the tribesmen continued to live in traditional goat-hair tents in the 1950s, with less than a fifth living in stone or wooden houses.
History Origins and early history (14th–early 18th centuries) A tribe by the name 'Banu Sakhr' is recorded by the Mamluk historians Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari (d. 1341) and al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) as inhabiting the plateaus in the eastern part of Karak province (southern Transjordan). These historians affiliated the tribe with the Judham, a tribe that dominated the region during the early Islamic period, and the Qahtan, the ancestor of the 'southern Arabs' in the Arab geneaoligical tradition. The Sakhr were divided into six subgroups: the Da'jiyyun, Banu Shaja', al-Dabiyyun, al-Atwiyyun, Banu Wahran and Banu Hubir. Ottoman tax registers for the district of Jabal Ajlun record the Banu Sakhr tribe in the 16th century. The tribe consisted of twelve subgroups, each with a sheikh (chief), totaling 643 households and 34 bachelors. The tribe was taxed 38,000 akces-worth in livestock ( tax) in the 1530s. The tribe was deemed to be rebelling against the state in 1551 in conjunction with the Bedouin Turabay emirs of Lajjun in northern Palestine. The Sakhr were accused of taking over four villages in the Lajat area and dispersing their inhabitants; an Ottoman force sent to punish them was thwarted by the local guards of the highway who sympathized with the tribesmen and facilitated their escape into Palestine.
The oral traditions of the Sakhr, as recorded in the early 20th century, date their entry into Transjordan to the 18th century. The Sakhr narrative claims they descended from the Harb tribe, which continues to live in the southern Hejaz in modern Saudi Arabia. According to these traditions, the Sakhr's entry into Transjordan was preceded by two successive migrations to the hill country of al-Ula in the northern Hejaz by its two constituent divisions, the Ka'abna and the Tuwaqa. The Ka'abna, who claimed descent from the Banu Muhammad branch of the Banu Salim section of the Harb, were first to break off from Harb territory for al-Ula, followed years later by the Tuwaqa, who claimed descent from the Ahamda branch of the Harb. After a period of eighty to one hundred years (according to the narrative), the tribe gradually migrated to the more fertile areas of Transjordan where they eventually entered into conflict with the main tribal power in this region, the Sardiyya. According to historian Nora Barakat, "It is difficult to discern" ties between the Sakhr who lived in Transjordan during the 14th–16th centuries with the Sakhr which emerges there in the 18th century. While the oral tradition does not mention them joining counterparts already established in Transjordan, Barakat raises the possibility that the Sakhr migrants maintained contact with descendants of the Sakhr recorded in the region in earlier centuries.
Role in the Hajj caravan (late 17th–early 19th centuries) The tribe may have vied with the Sardiyya over the lucrative rights to protect the annual Hajj pilgrim caravan to Mecca as early as the late 17th century. The tribe was first listed in a register detailing allocations to the Bedouins by the provincial government in Damascus for this purpose in 1672, when their share was eclipsed by that of the Sardiyya emirs. The leaders of the Sakhr, chiefly Dabis al-Fayiz of the Tuwaqa and Sulayman al-Khuraysha of the Ka'abna, forged an agreement with the Sharif of Mecca, Sa'd ibn Zayd, in 1703, which augmented their security responsbilities and pay. This was reflected in the register of 1703, showing a substantial increase (roughly 2,300%) in their pay from 1674. Also gaining in Hajj responsibilities and payments at that time were the Anaza Bedouins, who had begun to migrate in great numbers to the Syrian Desert and steppe in the late 17th century and who were known to frequently threaten the Hajj caravan as it passed through the Hejaz.
The Sardiyya leaders still often held the formal offices of (commander of the Hajj) and (chief of the [southern] Syrian Bedouin) until at least 1718, but by the mid-18th century no longer appear in the Hajj allocations. Thus, by the early 18th century, the Sakhr and Anaza decisively overtook the Sardiyya as the main Bedouin beneficiaries of the Hajj economy. This period saw reforms consolidating command of the Hajj to the governor of Damascus rather than local powerbrokers like the Sardiyya emirs and increasing security on the caravan route by building and repairing fortified way stations. Amid the reforms, the Sakhr leadership secured large and stable government subsidies to the tribe in relation to their protection of the Hajj caravans, which continued into the early 19th century. From 1703 to 1803, the registers listed between 39 and 41 extended households of the Sakhr, each headed by a sheikh, to whom the subsidies were paid.
The Sakhr were recruited by Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, the governor of Damascus, to assist in his siege of Tiberias in 1742, along with the Banu Saqr of the Beisan Valley; both tribes had been opposed to the increasingly powerful (tax farmer) of Tiberias, Daher al-Umar. In October 1748, the Sakhr again came to the assistance of the governor of Damascus, now Sulayman's nephew As'ad Pasha al-Azm, by helping repulse a raid against the Midan suburb of Damascus by disgruntled janissaries and their Druze allies from the Talhuq clan. Relations between As'ad Pasha and the Sakhr became tense in the later years of his governorship (). While As'ad Pasha compromised with the more powerful Bedouin confederations, like the Anaza and the Harb, he frequently subdued the smaller tribes and withheld the customary Hajj protection subsidies from the Sakhr.
As'ad Pasha's successor, Husayn Pasha ibn Makki, similarly withheld the customary subsidies from the Sakhr and the smaller tribes in their orbit, including the Sardiyya, who were determined to regain their priviliged place as guardians of the Hajj caravan from the more powerful and numerous Anaza. In September 1757, the Sakhr and their allies led by Qa'dan al-Fa'iz, the son and successor of Dabis al-Fa'iz, staged a wide-scale assault against the Hajj caravan between Tabuk and Dhat Hajj, after having annihilated the relief force sent to escort it between Ma'an and Qatrana. The attack and its aftermath ended with the deaths of thousands of pilgrims, including the sister of the Ottoman sultan, and the plunder of all its goods. The scale of the assault shocked the Ottoman world and led to severe repercussions against the governor and leading imperial officials for their complicity or incompetence. In addition to economic factors and the suspected encouragement of Daher al-Umar, the Sakhr's attack was largely cast as revenge for the Damascus government's withholding of the tribe's customary subsidies. At the time that it occurred, the Anaza, the Sakhr's chief rival over these dues, were seasonally withdrawn deep into the Najd desert, afforing the Sakhr unhindered ability to launch the assault.
The following year, in June 1758, the Sakhr were attacked and defeated in advance of the Hajj by the new governor Çeteci Abdullah Pasha. Suppressed, they did not attempt a second assault against the caravan, sending a petition instead seeking reinstatement of their subsidies, which Abdullah Pasha ignored. In response, the Sakhr staged an assault against the relief force sent to escort the caravan on its return to Damascus, but were again defeated by government forces and their leader may have been captured and executed. In the 1760s, the Sakhr relocated to the Gaza–Ramla area of Palestine, where they soon displaced the older-established tribes and took over the duties of transporting grain to the chain of forts along the caravan routes to Mecca. They allied with the dominant tribe of this region, the Wuhaydat (or 'Wahidat'). Their growing strength led to conflict with the governor of Gaza, who they killed in battle in the mid-1760s. By the 1770s, (or the 1780s), the Sakhr were driven back east of the Jordan River, where they resumed their traditional Hajj guardian duties and their generous subsidies were restored by the government. The governor of Damascus, Muhammad Pasha al-Azm, ensured the safety of the Hajj caravan of 1772 from Bedouin attack by hiring transport animals from both the Sakhr and Anaza, thereby appeasing both tribes. Qa'dan was succeeded by his son Awad al-Fa'iz, who is recorded as the beneficiary of the 1803 Hajj allocations.
External challenges (late 18th–early 19th centuries) In 1799, the Sakhr joined other tribes in the ranks of an Ottoman army at the Battle of Mount Tabor against a force from Napoleon's army under the command of General Kleber. The fighting occurred south of Nazareth, with the French having such an advantage in terms of guns and artillery that Amir Rabah, the leader of the Bani Sakher, commenting on the effectiveness of his spear, said that he "could not swim in hell with a stick."Macalister and Masterman 1906, p. 114.