The shaykh of the tribe is its leading man, not a legislator. He exerts authority by personal influence and moral suasion and cannot constrain otherwise, in theory at least, any member of his tribe. The preëminence is likely to remain in his family if it continues noble and well-to-do, a useful object of pride to the tribe. If a higher organization of the tribal life should follow upon extension of power, the leading man may become a prince or emir or even a conqueror and ruler, as on several occasions in history.
The passions of the Arab are intense. His hungry life for so large a part of the year, his picturesque imagination, and simple demands join with a chivalry born of the tribal manners to make him cultivate at once ideals of generosity and vengeful hate. To be a noble host of the wayfarer and the implacable foe of the one who has harmed him are equally demanded by his code. ‛Abd al-Malik the son of ‛Abd ar-Rahim, a poet of the Sons of Dayyan, sang:
“Like rain of the heaven are we; there is not in all our line
One blunt of heart, nor among us is counted a niggard.
We say nay whenso we will to the words of other men:
But no man to us says nay when we give sentence.
When passes a lord of our line, in his stead there rises straight
A lord to say the say and do the deeds of the noble.
Our beacon is never quenched to the wanderer of the night
Nor has ever a guest blamed us where men meet together.”