Notes on Oppenheim's "Die Beduinen"

Abstract

I still recall the thrill of pleasure with which I, as a student at the University of California, pored over the first volume of Baron von Oppenheim's Die Beduinen 1, published in I939 with the collaboration of Erich Braunlich and Werner Caskel, and the way in which the book slaked one's thirst for knowledge of the nomads. Not until after the war was I able to get a copy of the second volume, brought out in I944 (though dated 1943) in the face of formidable difficulties. In 1945 Braunlich died a prisoner in Jugoslavia 2, and the following year Oppenheim died an octogenarian 3, leaving only Caskel of the original three to carry on the work. Much of the material painstakingly gathered over the years had been destroyed, but Caskel succeeded in putting together a volume measuring up to the standard of its predecessors. This comprehensive study of the Bedouin tribes of the Near East upholds the best tradition of German scholarship. The evidence of written sources has been combined with the reports of well informed Arabs to provide the finest account available in any language of the historical development of the modem tribes, as well as abundant details on their present status. The authors, however, have not had within reach certain written sources. Among these may be mentioned Arabic manuscripts dealing with the recent history of Arabia, copies of which are rare outside the Peninsula 4, and in English the massive Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 'Omdn, and Central Arabia, compiled by J. G. Lorimer from British official records and printed in Calcutta I908-I9I5. Lorimer's work was