certain extent adopted the nomad life.

Both among the nomad and settled Arabs the organization is essentially
tribal. The affairs of the tribe are administered by the sheiks, or
heads of clans and families; the position of sheik in itself gives no
real governing power, his word and counsel carry weight, but his
influence depends on his own personal qualities. All matters affecting
the community are discussed in the _majlis_ or assembly, to which any
tribesman has access; here, too, are brought the tribesmen's causes;
both sides plead and judgment is given impartially, the loser is fined
so many head of small cattle or camels, which he must pay or go into
exile. Murder can be expiated by the payment of _diya_ or blood-money,
if the kinsmen of the murdered man consent; they may, however, claim the
life of the murderer, and long and troublesome blood feuds often ensue,
involving the relatives of both sides for generations.

Apart from the tribesmen there is in Hejaz and south Arabia a
privileged, religious class, the Sharifs or Seyyids, who claim descent
from Mahomet through his daughter Fatima. Until the Egyptian invasion in
1814 the Sharifs of Mecca were the recognized rulers of Hejaz, and
though the Turks have attempted to suppress their importance, the Sharif
still executes justice according to the Mahommedan law in the holy
cities, though, nominally, as a Turkish official. In Yemen and Hadramut
many villages are occupied exclusively by this religious hierarchy, who
are known as Ashraf, Sada or Kudha (i.e. Sharifs, Seyyids or Kadhis);
the religious affairs of the tribes are left in their hands; they do
not, however, interfere in tribal matters generally, or join in
fighting.

Below these two classes, which may be looked on as the priestly and the
military castes, there is, especially in the settled districts, a large
population of artisans and labourers, besides negro slaves and their
descendants, slave or free. The population of Khaibar consists almost
entirely of the latter, and in Hail Huber estimates the pure Arab
inhabitants at only one-third of the whole. In the desert, too, there is
a widely scattered tribe, the Salubi, which from its name (_Salib_,
cross) is conjectured to be of early Christian origin; they are great
hunters, killing ostriches and gazelles; the Arabs despise them as an
inferior race, but do not harm them; they pay a small tax to the tribe
under whose protection they live, and render servic