1/6 Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, [ch. xxiv. 



In the days of the Damascus Caliphate, a certain 

 son of the Caliph was sent on an embassy to the 

 court of Justinian the second at Constantinople, and 

 attracted there the notice of the Empress Theodora, 

 who honoured him with her affection to the extent 

 that, when he left her court, she determined to give 

 him an independent position in his own country. 

 She sent him away therefore with substantial pre- 

 sents and a large number of male and female slaves, 

 enablino; him to found the tribe which has been ever 

 since known as the ]\Ioali or 'property tribe. As 

 evidence of the truth of this story, it is certain that 

 the Bedouins of pure race look down on the rank 

 and file of the Moali, while they hold in high honour 

 the family of its sheykhs, giving them the title of 

 Beg, otherwise unknown in the desert.'"' 



These Modli occupied the right bank of the 

 Euphrates, and the Tai, a pure Arab race, the upper 

 plains of Mesopotamia, while, subject to them, were 

 the Weldi, the Aghedaat, the Jiburi, and the Had- 

 dadin, whose descendants still exist in reduced 

 circumstances along the valleys of the Euphrates 

 and Tigris. The valleys themselves, though already 

 partially ruined by the Tartar and Ottoman con- 

 quests, were still agricultural districts, and througli 

 them the trade with India passed. Benjamin of 

 Tudela, our only authority as to their condition in 

 the Middle Ages, describes them as containing 



* Niebulir gives El Bushir as the family name of tlie Modli 

 Sheykhs. 



