ABSTRACT
As early as the eighteenth century, there had crystallized a bedouin tribal elite composed of heads of tribes (shēkhs) recognized by the authorities, heads of clans and heads of other descent groups. The main reasons for this phenomenon were their possession of lands and their integration in the Egyptian-Ottoman local administration, primarily in rural districts. Already at that stage the principal source of their power was ownership and control of land, mainly as tax farmers (multazims). It is true that ever since the second half of the eighteenth century, when ʿAli Bey al-Kabir, the independent ruler of Egypt, succeeded in subduing the chiefships of the Hawwāra in Upper Egypt and the Habaiba in Lower Egypt, they never succeeded in regaining the same degree of power and influence as they had previously possessed; but this did not prevent the shēkhs and bedouin dignitaries from holding key economic and administrative positions based on their status as tax farmers and allies of the rival Ottoman-Egyptian households and factions of the beys. Thus, they retained their lands and their wealth, and continued to enjoy a certain degree of influence, particularly in the border zones and rural areas.
