Bedouim of the Syrian Desert Story of a Family

Foreword

When I was fifteen years old, the stories of T.E.Lawrence, a British Army officer and archaeologist known as "Lawrence of Arabia," captured my heart and imagination. Ever since, I have been drawn to the desert and been enchanted with the Arab world. It was my desire to convey to others the essence of that world, which inspired me to become a photographer.

I first visited Syria in 1987, and since 11995 have spent pan of every year living with a Medonin family in the Syrian desert. When I got married in 2001, we went there on our honeymoon, and I introduced my husband to the family. Then, in 2004 when our son was just sixteen months old, I look him with me, and we have been going there together ever since. I believe I am the only person in the world who has had the opportunity to have photographed the Bedouin people of Syria for some seventeen years.

Syria's official name is The Syrian Arab Republic. It is situated at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The name "Syria" is believed to have derived either from Assyria, a civilization that once flourished in Mesopotamia, or from Tyrus, which today is Tyre, located in the southwestern area of Lebanon. A desert stretches all the way from the south to the central part of Syria. The Euphrates River flows from the north to the east, and to the west is the Orontes River. The land within the vast watershed surrounding these two rivers is agricultural. Along the coast of the Mediterranean runs a chain of mountains as high as 1,500 meters above sea level; another mountain chain in the southwestern part rises 2,800 meters. In this area there are forests and prairies thanks to abundant rainfall and moisture coming from the Mediterranean.

All these lands form a part of the Fertile Crescent, which extends from the Euphrates and Tigris watershed in Iraq to Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. It was in this area that agriculture was first practiced, and the first phonetic alphabet was invented. It was also the birthplace of three world religions. All of these achievements, as well as architectural and other cultural and scientific innovations, profoundly influenced the development not only of European, but of all the world civilizations. Damascus, Syria's capital, has a history that stretches back to the time of the Old Testament, making it one of the world's oldest permanently inhabited cities. It is registered as one of the six UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Syria.

"Bedouin" (from the Arabic badiya, or "people who live in the wasteland") refers to nomads of Arab ethnicity. In fact, "Arab" was at one time synonymous with "Bedouin," and even today the Bedouin people in the Syrian desert proudly refer to themselves as Arab. Most of them speak Arabic as their native language. They live throughout the deserts of the Middle East, but are centered around the Arabian Peninsula and particularly in the Syrian desert, an inland area that includes Palmyra, another World Heritage Site. Raising sheep, goats, and camels, they live a nomadic lifestyle informed by a tribalism that stresses the importance of direct blood relationships.

The Syrian desert is not a land of waves of fine sand; rather, it is comprised of soil and stones, with sparsely growing grass. The Bedouin have winter (October―April) and summer (May―September) habitations that are divided by the Euphrates River. They move the distance between the two places (some 200 kilometers) by truck. The area of the land inhabited by a Bedouin family is typically thirty kilometers in diameter. Within that area, each year they move the location of their Beit Sha'ar (Bedouin's home) as well as their pastures so as not to severely degrade the land, since their sheep feed on grasses down to the roots. The household and animal waste that is left behind eventually becomes compost, enriching the soil.

As Muslims, the Bedouin are polygamous. A man is permitted to have up to four wives, each of whom is given a separate dwelling, where she lives together with her children. Marriages are arranged by the respective parents of the betrothed, and necessarily between members of the same tribe; marriages between cousins are not unusual. Their Beit Sha'ar are woven from goat hair and are divided into several living spaces and rooms for guests. The father holds absolute power in the household and is to be accorded both affection and respect from his family. The head of my host family, Sallal Muhammad Faddous, is a quiet, warm-hearted man who was blessed with twenty-six children―two with his now deceased first wife, Radwa, eleven with his second wife, Arabiya, and thirteen with his third wife, Sara.