Bedouin culture is the traditional way of life of the Arabic-speaking nomads who lived in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia in the past.
Bedouins are desert dwellers—the people who live out in the open, in the desert. Bedouins speak their own Arabic language. Bedouin culture is the way of their lives—social structure, language, relationships, and family life.
The Cycles of Nomadic Life in Traditional Bedouin Culture
Pastures were usually dispersed in a predictable pattern according to the seasons. They travel to the desert in the spring and winter, when seasonal rains bring the desert to life. Grass and sedge grow between the dunes.
Herders traditionally moved their cattle between summer pastures in the mountains and winter camps on the steppes. They picked up and moved two or three times a year, usually between May and October, normally staying within a 25-square-mile area, and then resettled in a winter camp with some stone shelters for the animals from November to April.
The Cycles of Life and the Cycle of Love in Traditional Bedouin Culture
The nomadic life cycle reflects on the “ralya” and “ilhub” types of love relationships. The season of spring pasture brings normally “distant” people together in the mountains.
For instance, a poem tells the story of how a young man spends time with his lover. The last line of the poem depicts the man standing on a mountaintop and watching his family go one way and his lover go the other. “My eye flies east, and my heart to the west,” he sings. As we see, the sentiments of “ralya,” with affection, responsibility, and deep blood bonds, fly with his eyes to his family, while his heart, with passion and longing, goes with his lover.
Such poetic stories of love (see Wickering, 1997) are almost always depicted in the mountains. The mountains are far and away. Young people meet each other in the mountains. The emotions of “ilhub” love draw them together.
Stories of Death-defying Love in Bedouin Culture
In Tarabiin, some of Deborah Wickering’s closest friends confided in her about their relationships with lovers. Once, a young, unmarried man in her host family told her a story of the previous night.
“Last night I took Salem’s camel into the mountains to see my girlfriend.”
He asked Deborah to promise never to reveal her identity to anyone, then showed me a picture he had of her hidden between two others in his wallet.
“Did you see each other?” Deborah asked.
“No,” he replied. “Her father and her brother were riding in a jeep, looking out of the sides of their eyes for me. Ya Allah, how I want to see her. “
“What would have happened if they had caught you?” Deborah asked.
He made a motion slitting his own neck.
“I’ll try again tonight,” he said.
“I’ll try again tonight,” he said. “If I come to your house, Fatima, maybe late? I will take my brother’s camel saddle, which is stored in your room.”
“I’ll try again tonight,” he said.
“If I come to your house, Fatima, maybe late? I will take my brother’s camel saddle, which is stored in your room.”
Deborah agreed that he should announce himself and come in.
Perhaps because Deborah Wickering was an outsider to the network of those who would have sanctions over them, perhaps because, over time, they learned that Deborah would keep a secret, people told me about illicit, secret, and potentially dangerous relationships. Deborah’s own interests also invited such confidence.
Such “rendezvous” as Salama’s are common in Tarabiin. Girls in small groups, often accompanied by an elderly woman, take extended pasture trips. Every woman has a story about the old woman who looked the other way in camp at night and pretended to be sleeping. Girls sneak off; boyfriends visit. Such relationships are expected, even though they are dangerous and kept secret.
Modern Life and Modern Love in Bedouin Culture
Currently, there are both semi-nomadic and settled Bedouins. Most Bedouins now live in stable communities, although they maintain their nomadic traditions. Many governments in the Middle East have encouraged Bedouins to settle down and have made raiding illegal. Thus, Bedouins were forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyles and settle in concrete house villages in some areas.
In the modern social context, life has altered. Many people have settled or are semi-settled in the seaside neighborhood. However, concerns about love in cross-cousin marriages as well as tensions between “ralya” and “ilhub,” between nearness and distance, persist.
People’s physical proximity to each other has gotten closer. Girls are more likely to meet boys with whom they must wear a veil and who live far away. This proximity provided greater opportunities for “ilhub” relationships. However, such close proximity in residence also creates an obstacle for a girl by making her actions more visible to others. The vigilance of fathers and brothers is increased. Women are under pressure to stay home and avoid external communication.
On the other hand, sheep and goat herding continue to provide a chance for girls and women to get away from the community and out of sight. Girls and boys get to know each other on pasturing outings (Wickering 1997, pp. 81–82).
The Modern Issues of “Forbidden Love”
Many modern Bedouin women have more educational and employment opportunities. Yet, educated Bedouin women continue to encounter the traditional obstacles to love. The narratives of young Bedouin women from the Negev, a desert region of southern Israel, present such examples. They experience and strive to cope with “forbidden love,” “loveless marriage,” and challenging marital situations that occur due to their education and employment opportunities (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2007).
Several types of marital situations can arise: “matchless women,” “tragic heroines,” and “women ahead of their time.” The overarching theme was that these women had to sacrifice their emotions in order to achieve freedom (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2007).
They struggle with these challenges, utilizing various splitting mechanisms. They shift between attachment and detachment of body and mind, reason and emotion, and public and private spheres on the levels of consciousness and behavior.
The stories of Bedouin women who were the first in their tribes to study in higher education institutions are also dramatic in other respects. These women still encounter difficulties when it comes to love relationships with men from “forbidden tribes.”