Abu Imran Fadl ibn Rabi'ah was an

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

emir in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

in the early 12th century. Most of what is known of him centers on his military activities in circa 1107. He was the ancestor of the

Al Fadl AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...

dynasty, which ruled the Bedouin tribes of the Syrian desert and steppe between the 12th and 18th centuries.

Biography

Fadl was a son of Rabi'ah ibn Hazim, a great-grandson of Mufarrij ibn Daghfal, the

Jarrahid The Jarrahids () (also known as Banu al-Jarrah) were an Arab dynasty that intermittently ruled Palestine and controlled Transjordan and northern Arabia in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. They were described by historian Marius Canar ...

ruler of

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The Jarrahids were part of the much larger

Banu Tayy , location = 2nd century CE–10th century: Jabal Tayy and Syrian Desert 10th century–16th century: Jabal Tayy, Syrian Desert, Jibal al-Sharat, al-Balqa, Palmyrene Steppe, Upper Mesopotamia, Northern Hejaz, Najd , parent_tribe = Madh'h ...

tribe. His father Rabi'ah was aligned with

Seljuks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turk ...

. But later Fadl quarreled with the

Burid The Burid dynasty was a dynasty of Turkish origin ''Burids'', R. LeTourneau, The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. I, ed. H.A.R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, É. Lévi-Provençal and J. Schacht, (Brill, 1986), 1332. which ruled over the Emirate of Damascus ...

ruler of

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Toghtekin Toghtekin or Tughtekin (Modern tr, Tuğtekin; Arabicised epithet: ''Zahir ad-Din Tughtikin''; died February 12, 1128), also spelled Tughtegin, was a Turkic military leader, who was ''atabeg'' of Damascus from 1104 to 1128. He was the founder o ...

, who expelled him from Syria in 1107/08. Afterward, he sought refuge with and formed a pact with Sadaqa, the Mazyadid ruler of

Hillah Hillah ( ar, ٱلْحِلَّة ''al-Ḥillah''), also spelled Hilla, is a city in central Iraq on the Hilla branch of the Euphrates River, south of Baghdad. The population is estimated at 364,700 in 1998. It is the capital of Babylon Province a ...

south of Baghdad. When Sadaqa challenged the

Seljuk Seljuk or Saljuq (سلجوق) may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * Seljuk (warlord) (di ...

sultan in Baghdad, Fadl at first fought alongside him in the vanguard, but then defected to the Seljuks. Upon his arrival in Baghdad, he and his tribesmen were rewarded and given lodging at Sadaqa's former Baghdad residence. Fadl sought to cut off Sadaqa's desert route toward Syria and asked permission to pursue his strategy. The Seljuks gave Fadl their blessing, but once he crossed the Euphrates river in Anbar, nothing is known of his fate.

Legacy

Fadl was the father of a certain Ghudayya, and the ancestor of his namesake tribe, the

, whose emirs and descendants ruled the Bedouin of the

Syrian desert The Syrian Desert ( ar, بادية الشام ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering of the Middle East, including parts of sou ...

and

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

on behalf of the

Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin h ...

Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') i ...

, and early

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

until at least the early 17th century. Later, part of Fadl's descendants became known as Al Abu Risha, and took over the leadership of the Mawali tribe, and continued to serve as the hereditary leaders of the Bedouin in the Syrian Desert until the invasion of

Anaza Anaza'' or ''anaza'' (sometimes also spelled anza'' or ''anza'') is a term for a short spear or staff which gained ritual significance in the early years of Islam after the Islamic prophet Muhammad planted his spear in the ground to mark th ...

tribesmen from

Najd Najd ( ar, نَجْدٌ, ), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia, accounting for about a third of the country's modern population and, since the Emirate of Diriyah, acting as the base for all unification campaigns by the H ...

in the 18th century. The other part of Al Fadl migrated to the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

and

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...

, where they eventually abandoned their nomadic way of life and adopted farming, and have continued to go by the name of Al Fadl. They were displaced from the Golan Heights after the Israeli occupation in the 1967

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

and have since lived in the vicinity of Damascus.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabiah, Fadl ibn 12th-century Arabs 12th-century deaths 12th century in the Abbasid Caliphate 12th century in the Seljuk Empire Tayy Bedouin tribal chiefs