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Documentation
of "AL AWAYID" i.e. the customary laws of Awlad
Ali tribes in the western desert of Egypt and tracing
changes occurred through the last forty years"
Mohamed
Abdo Mahgoub
Department
of Anthropology
Alexandria
University, Egypt.
"AL AWAYID" i.e.
the customary laws- is an Arabic plural noun word, the
single means: a custom, habit, tradition and/or folk rule."
AL AWAYID" which is prevailing among the different
ethnic groups (AL SAADI, AL MURABITEEN and AL GIMIAAT)
consists of sixty seven rules." AL AWAYID" is
the tribal laws which are commonly honored among all Awlad
Ali in desert semi Bedouin and rural regions. Not only the
tribal chiefs and judges who know the rules of "AL
AWAYID" but also it is a shame to be ignored (i.e.
"AL AWAYID") among aged Awlad Ali tribesmen.
"AL AWAYID" is a principle component of Awlad
Ali knowledge and their sub-culture. The sixty seven rules which
constitute "Al AWAYID" are popular among all
Awlad Ali different ethnic and tribal groups in the
western desert of Egypt, and it its also prevailing among
their "cousins" specially in Al Behira
governorate in the Nile valley and even in Libyan desert.
The aim of this paper is to present some of the findings
of an anthropological field research project was conducted
in 1966/1967. At that time the author was a research
assistant and by chance he succeeded to find a hand
writing undated document headed by the following sentence:
"A copy of AWAYID Awlad Ali upon which tribal
government is going on in the western desert of Egypt.
The introduction clarifies
that the recoding of AL AWAYID happened in the beginnings
of the eighteenth century. The rules of AL AWAYID govern
all activities and social institutions of Awlad Ali such
as: individual, family kin group i.e. blood feud, tribal
fission and fusion, lineage, and tribal extended
responsibility, women, slaves and boys responsibility,
physical offences, murder, theft acquisitions, land tenure,
water resources rights, market organization and commercial
disputes, sexual crimes, neighborhoods rights, holding ,
firing and borrowing of weapons, aged men, political and
religious chiefs statuses and roles, endogamous marriage,
and joking relations among men of different categories in
Awlad Ali tribal stratification. Because of ecological,
administrative, economic, political and cultural reasons,
sedentarization projects and even global reasons many
structural changes had occurred in the tribal social
structure of Awlad Ali.
Through a field studies
accomplished by the author and some of his assistants the
impact of those factors on AL AWAYID had been documented
especially concerning the position of woman, the status
and roles of tribal chiefs, the role of state authorities
in social control and community development in the desert
societies and the increasing of depending on formal
authorities i.e. the police and formal i.e. state judge.
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