Territorial increase is rarely attempted, for if
of a whole clan but a single boy escape he will one day assert his
claim to the land, and be assisted by all the Ashab, or
[p.114] allies of the slain.
By paying to man, woman, or child, a small
sum, varying, according to your means, from a few pence worth of
trinkets to a couple of dollars, you share bread and salt with the
tribe, you and your horse become Dakhil (protected), and every one must
afford you brother-help. If traveller or trader attempt to pass through
the land without paying Al-Akhawah or Al-Rifkah, as it is termed, he
must expect to be plundered, and, resisting, to be slain: it is no
dishonour to pay it, and he clearly is in the wrong who refuses to
conform to custom. The Rafik, under different names, exists throughout
this part of the world; at Sinai he was called a Ghafir, a Rabia in
Eastern Arabia, amongst the Somal an Abban, and by the Gallas a Mogasa.
I have called the tax “black-mail”; it deserves a better name, being
clearly the rudest form of those transit-dues and octrois which are in
nowise improved by “progress.” The Ahl Bayt,[FN#51] or dwellers in the
Black Tents, levy the tax from the Ahl Hayt, or the People of Walls;
that is to say, townsmen and villagers who have forfeited right to be
held Badawin.
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