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Al Fadl (, ALA-LC: Āl Faḍl) were an Arab tribe that dominated the Syrian Desert and Syrian steppe during the Middle Ages, and whose modern-day descendants largely live in southern Syria and eastern Lebanon. The Al Fadl's progenitor, Fadl ibn Rabi'ah, was a descendant of the Banu Tayy through his ancestor, Mufarrij al-Jarrah. The tribe rose to prominence by assisting the Burid dynasty and Zengid dynasty against the Crusaders. The Ayyubid dynasty often appointed them to the office of Amir al-ʿarab, giving the Al Fadl (princes or lords) command over the Bedouin tribes of northern Syria. Their function was often to serve as auxiliary troops.
Starting with Emir Isa ibn Muhanna, the Al Fadl became the hereditary holders of the office by order of the Mamluk sultans and were given substantial iqtaʿat (fiefs) in Salamiyah, Palmyra and other places in the steppe. By then their tribal territory spanned the region between Homs in the west and Qal'at Ja'bar to east, and between the Euphrates River in the north to central Arabia in the south. Isa's sons and successors Muhanna and Fadl vacillated between the Mamluks and the latter's Ilkhanate enemies, but generally they were highly favored by Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad. During late Mamluk rule, the tribe was occupied by internal strife.
The Ottoman Empire preserved the Al Fadl's hereditary leadership of the Bedouin tribes. By the mid-16th century, the leading emirs joined the Mawali tribe and became known as Al Abu Risha, while their rivals within the tribe were driven out towards the Beqaa Valley and continued to go by the name "Al Fadl". The Mawali dominated northern Syria until the arrival of the Annazah tribesmen in the 18th century. During that same period, the Al Fadl in Beqaa split into the Hourrouk and Fa'our branches. The latter made its home in the Golan Heights where they often fought over pasture rights with Kurdish and Turkmen settlers, and later against Druze and Circassian newcomers.
Toward the end of the 19th century, the Al Fadl became semi-sedentism; they settled in various Golan villages, but continued to shepherd their flocks, while their emir settled in Damascus and effectively became an absentee landlord who collected rent from his tribesmen. The Al Fadl were displaced from their homes in the Hula Valley and Golan during the 1948 and Six-Day War Arab-Israeli wars, respectively, and most settled in and around Damascus. As a result of the wars and Syrian agrarian reforms that stripped the emir of much of his land, his relationship with the tribe shifted from benevolent landlord to symbolic leader and political representative. By the 1990s, there were up to 30,000 Al Fadl tribesmen in Syria (not counting those who were affiliated with the Mawali) along with a significant population in eastern Lebanon.
Fadl was noted in Muslim chronicles as an emir (prince) of the tribe by 1107. He and his brothers Mira, Thabit and Daghfal, and their father Rabi'ah, provided and commanded mounted auxiliary troops for Toghtekin (r. 1104-1128), the Burid dynasty ruler of Damascus, and his Zengid dynasty successors. By the time the Zengids gained control of the Syrian interior in the mid-12th century, the Banu Rabi'ah had become the dominant tribe in the Syrian Desert. Relations between the tribes and the various Muslim states were not always cooperative.Hiyari 1975, p. 514. During periods of strained relations the tribes would plunder the villages of the countryside and Hajj pilgrimage caravans.
The Tayyid roots of the tribe are supported and verified by Muslim historians. However, members of the Al Fadl have claimed fictitious lineages in the past, which have been dismissed by both medieval and modern historians.Van der Steen 2010, p. 76. Among these legends was that the tribe descended from the Barmakids, a Persian household that held high office in the Abbasid government in Baghdad.Tritton 1948, p. 567. That claim was disparaged by 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. Some modern-era tribesmen have claimed descent from al-Abbas, the Abbasids' namesake and ancestor, and through him trace their lineage to the Quraysh tribe of the prophet Muhammad.Chatty 1986, p. 392. In another story, descent is claimed from Abbasa, a sister of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid.
Following al-Adil's death in 1218, control over the office of amir al-ʿarab regularly switched between different lines of the Al Fadl and Al Faraj, the latter being another sub-tribe of the Banu Rabi'ah. Under Sultan al-Kamil, the emirate (principality) that Haditha ruled was divided between his son Maniʿ and his Al Faraj kinsman Ghannam ibn Abi Tahir ibn Ghannam following Haditha's death (sometime between 1218 and the 1220s). Ghannam was later dismissed by al-Kamil, who concurrently bestowed authority over the entire emirate to Maniʿ for his close cooperation with the Ayyubids of Egypt and Syria and his assistance in their military campaigns. Maniʿ died in 1232/33 and was succeeded by his son Muhanna after being confirmed for the post in an agreement between the respective Ayyubid emirs of Damascus and Homs, al-Ashraf Musa and al-Mujahid.Hiyari 1975, p. 516.
Between Muhanna's accession and the Mamluk conquest of Syria in 1260, details about the Al Fadl/Tayyid emirate are obscure or absent in the Muslim sources. It is known that in 1240 Tahir ibn Ghannam of the Al Faraj was made amir al-ʿarab by the Ayyubid emir of Aleppo, an-Nasir Yusuf, and that sometime later Ali ibn Hadithah of the Al Fadl (Muhanna's uncle) was given the post, which he held until the Mamluks' ascent. According to historian Reuven Amitai-Preiss, it was not Ali but his son and successor Abu Bakr who was appointed amir al-ʿarab in the years just prior to the Mamluks' annexation of Syria.
During the Mamluk era, the Al Fadl's territory spanned the area between Homs in the west to Qal'at Ja'bar in the northeast and all along the Euphrates valley through the countryside of Basra southward to the Washm region in central Najd.Hiyari 1975, pp. 513–514. Mamluk patronage of the Al Fadl enabled them to dominate the other Bedouin tribes of the Syrian Desert.Amitai-Preiss 1995, pp. 65–66. A rival sub-branch of Al Fadl, the Al ʿAli, controlled the Ghouta region of Damascus and the northern regions of Tayma and Sakakah, while Al Mira controlled the area of Golan Heights southward to the al-Harrah hot springs in Hejaz. Other branches of the Banu Tayy controlled regions within the Banu Rabi'ah's territory. Among them were the Shammar and Banu Lam in the north Arabian mountains of Jabal Ajaʾ and Salma Mountains.
The wealth and power of the Al Fadl allowed them to reside near inhabited areas, rather than depend on pasturage in the desert. Their leaders were entrusted by Baybars and his successors with protecting Syria up to the borders with Ilkhanid-held Iraq (the Ilkhanids were Mongol enemies of the Mamluks). In exchange for protecting the Syrian frontier and aiding the Mamluks as auxiliary troops, the Al Fadl and some of their Banu Rabi'ah kin were bestowed with official assignments, iqtaʿat and gifts. While the Mamluk sultans cultivated an alliance with the Al Fadl, they generally considered the tribe to be "vacillating and untrustworthy", according to historian Janusz Bylinsky.Bylinsky 1999, p. 163. Nonetheless, the Al Fadl were the most favored Bedouin tribe in Syria and their leaders consistently held the title of amir al-ʿarab and were given official receptions by Mamluk sultans.
Toward the end of ʿIsa's reign, in 1281, Palmyra was granted to the Al Fadl as an iqtaʿ, and it became one of the tribe's principal towns and sources of income, along with Salamiyah. The Al Fadl became patrons of public works in Palmyra and played a significant role in regulating the town's affairs.Bylinsky 1999, pp. 163–164. The central mosque of Palmyra contains inscriptions either attributing the Al Fadl with the mosque's construction or other works in Palmyra. A mosque built at the town's periphery has been attributed to the Al Fadl, and was likely constructed for use by the Bedouin as opposed to the settled population in the town itself.
When ʿIsa died in 1284, he was succeeded by his son Muhanna.Hiyari 1975, p. 518. He and his brother Fadl ruled the emirate for nearly half a century with two interruptions. The first was when Qalawun's successor, Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil, had them and their sons imprisoned in Cairo. Their cousin, Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr (grandson of Ali ibn Haditha) presided over the emirate until Muhanna was reinstalled in 1295, after al-Ashraf Khalil's death. Muhanna's allegiance vacillated between the Mamluks and the Ilkhanids between 1311 and 1330, after which he became firmly loyal to the Mamluk sultan, an-Nasir Muhammad. He died five years later and for the next seventy years, his sons and grandsons held the post with occasional interruptions during which Fadl's offspring or distant cousins were appointed.
The descendants of Hayar came to be known as Al Abu Risha, which means "house the father of the plume".Bakhit 1982, p. 204. (2026). 9781438110257, Facts On File, Inc.. ISBN 9781438110257 They acquired this name in 1574 when their emir was officially recognized by the Ottomans as the hereditary amir al-ʿarab and adorned with a plume-crowned turban to consecrate his official status. The Al Abu Risha took over leadership of the Mawali tribal confederation, whose member tribes, many of whom were descended from non-Arab slaves, were not necessarily related to each other through blood ties.Van der Steen 2010, pp. 210–211. The Ottomans entrusted Al Abu Risha with protecting the caravan and Hajj pilgrimage routes of northern Syria in exchange for an annual salary. Under the leadership of the Abu Risha emirs, the Mawali drove out rival Al Fadl sheikhs and their families from northern Syria.Van der Steen 2010, p. 108. The latter consequently migrated to the Beqaa Valley. The Fadl tribesmen who remained became part of the Mawali confederation like their Abu Risha kinsmen. The Mawali were the dominant tribe of northern Syria until the invasions of Anazzah tribesmen throughout the 18th century.
According to Fadl al-Fa'our, the author of a 1963 dissertation about his tribe, the Al Fadl tribesmen who fled to the Beqaa split into two factions in the 18th century as a result of a feud with the Bani Khalid tribe. One of the factions, led by its emir, Fa'our, migrated to the Golan Heights (known in Arabic as Jawlan). This emir is the namesake and ancestor of Beit Fa'our, the Al Fadl household that has since led the tribe. The Fadl tribesmen who stayed in Beqaa were the Hourrouk branch, which continues to inhabit the Beqaa.Chatty 1986, p. 394. The lines of descent connecting the Fa'our and Hourrouk branches with the Mamluk-era Al Fadl emirs has not been specifically defined. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Al Fadl used the Golan Heights as a grazing area for their flocks, along with the Banu Nu'aym tribe.Chatty 2010, p. 112. They successfully fought off Syrian Turkmens and Kurds groups in the Golan Heights for control of pasture lands. Later, in the 1870s, Circassians from other parts of the empire settled in the Golan Heights, and their cultivation of the land threatened the Al Fadl's traditional pasture grounds.Chatty 2010, p. 113. At the time, the tribe's presence in the area consisted of 320 tents along with several villages which they inhabited in the winter. They fought a number of skirmishes with the Circassians, during which one of their leaders, Sheikh Shadadi al-Fadl was killed.
By 1887, peace was established between the Al Fadl and their Circassian and Druze rivals as a result of Ottoman recognition of the tribe's pasture rights and territorial boundaries. As a result, the territory of the Fa'our branch of the Al Fadl included large parts of the Golan Heights, part of the Hauran plain, and the eastern Hula Valley. These lands were registered in the name of the emir, who thereafter collected rent from its tenants. Most of the tenants were Fadl tribesmen who had shifted from a to a semi-sedentism that combined agriculture and grazing. The emir, who resided in Damascus, was in effect an absentee landlord, and he and his immediate family became wealthy members of the Damascene social elite. The emir married a woman from the well-known Kurdish Damascene family, Buzu. Some Kurdish families, including the Buzu, were afterward incorporated into Al Fadl. Despite the absence of blood relations, the newer households held great pride and respect for their association with the tribe's leading household, the Fa'our.
By 1958, the power of the Al Fadl's emir, Fa'our al-Fa'our, was greatly reduced as a result of his lands being confiscated in the agrarian reforms initiated during the United Arab Republic period in Syria.Chatty 1986, p. 395. Land rent was Fa'ours main source of income and with its loss, he was no longer able to wield power over his tribesmen and continue the tradition of distributing wealth to lesser-ranking members of the tribe.
Fa'ours leadership role was resuscitated after an incident in 1960 in which his car broke down, forcing him to seek assistance from the nearest village inhabited by his tribesmen. The sight of the emir being forced to walk while all other tribal leaders drove trucks provoked a sense of dishonor among the tribesmen of the village, who launched efforts to pool funds from Al Fadl's members to buy a new car for Fa'our. Some tribesmen sent sheep and goats as compensatory gifts to Fa'our as well. The reaction of the tribesmen to his dire financial situation spurred Fa'our, who was based in Beirut, to reassert his political leadership of Al Fadl. To that end, he increased contacts with his tribesmen and negotiated on their behalf.
In 1964–1965, Faour secured permission for his tribesmen in the Beqaa in Lebanon to purchase land in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.Chatty 1986, pp. 395–396. The Beqaa tribesmen were not Lebanese citizens and thus not allowed to purchase land, but Fa'ours intercession with Interior Minister Kamal Jumblatt enabled them to acquire the land nonetheless. This success symbolized the change in the Al Fadl emir's traditional role, whereby he was no longer a wealthy benefactor and landlord of his tribesmen, but rather a political leader who represented their interests.Chatty 1986, p. 396. In addition, the Al Fadl emirs maintain a symbolic and moral legitimacy within the tribe based on their unproven claim of descent from Abbas and the Quraysh tribe.
After Israel's capture and occupation of the Golan in the 1967 Six-Day War, the Al Fadl of Golan were entirely displaced. Following the war, most members of the tribe settled in and around Damascus. In the city itself, they were concentrated in the Masakin Barzeh, Qaboun and Dweil'a quarters. After several years, many tribesmen left the city to settle in nearby suburbs, chiefly Qatana, but also Muadimiyah, Jdeidat Artouz and Artouz. Jdeidat al-Fadl, a working-class suburb of Jdeidat Artuz, is mostly populated by descendants of the Al Fadl. To a lesser extent, Fadl tribesmen have settled in al-Kiswah and in villages near the border with the occupied portion of the Golan, such as Sa'sa' and neighboring villages.
In the 1970s, Fa'our began efforts to acquire pasture lands in Saudi Arabia for some of his tribesmen displaced from the Golan, which entailed regular commuting between Beirut and the tribal council of King Khalid in Riyadh. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the Al Fadl's estimated numbers were between 20,000 and 30,000 (they were not counted in the Syrian census of 1981). Other than Syria, some members of the tribe immigrated to Lebanon, namely to villages in the Beqaa and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. A number of these refugees were given Lebanese citizenship in 1994.Chatty 2010, p. 114.
| A direct descendant of Mufarrij ibn Daghfal ibn al-Jarrah. Progenitor of the Al Fadl.Hiyari 1975, p. 513. |
| Grandson of Fadl ibn Rabi'ah. First member of dynasty appointed to the Ayyubid office of amir al-ʿarab. |
| Son of Haditha. |
| Son of Mani'. |
| Son of Haditha, progenitor of the Al Ali branch of Al Fadl. |
| Appointed as a reward for aiding the Mamluks. First member to rule under the Mamluks. |
| Imprisoned by the Mamluks. |
| Grandson of Ali ibn Haditha, appointed in place of Muhanna. |
| Second reign. |
| Brother of Muhanna. |
| Expelled with his tribe. |
| Second reign.Tritton 1948, p. 569. |
| Second reign. |
| Fourth reign. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Son of Fadl ibn Isa. |
| Son of Fadl ibn Isa. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Second reign. |
| Second reign. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Second reign. |
| Second reign; rebelled and was dismissed. |
| Son of Muhanna's brother Musa. |
| Third reign; rebelled and was dismissed. |
| Second reign; rebelled and was dismissed. |
| Son of Fadl ibn Isa. |
| Fourth reign. |
| Son of Muhanna. |
| Third reign; ruled with Mu'ayqil. |
| Second reign; ruled with Zamil. |
| Son of Hayar.Tritton 1948, p. 570. |
| Fourth reign. |
| Son of Qara. |
| Son of Hayar's brother Assaf. |
| Son of Hayar's brother 'Anqa. |
| Brother of Sulayman II. |
| Second reign. |
| Son of Nu'ayr.Tritton 1948, pp. 571–572. |
| Son of Nu'ayr. |
| Son of Sayf ibn Fadl. |
| Son of Nu'ayr. |
| Grandson of Nu'ayr. |
| Grandson of Nu'ayr, brother of Adhra. |
| Grandson of Nu'ayr. The killer of both Adhra and Mudlij. Unclear if he was amir al-arab. |
| Grandson of Nu'ayr. |
| Son of Sayf II. |
| Great-grandson of Ijl. Served during the final years of the Mamluk Sultanate, continued to rule under the Ottomans. |
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