We didn't need a tent, because we were spending our first night in a concrete shack, and our second in a Palmyrene guest house, and we didn't need weapons, because Bedouin raids are a thing of the past.

In the 8th and 9th centuries, the monastery suffered Bedouin raids, followed in the 11th century by attacks from irate Muslims, and in the 15th century, a revolt by bloodthirsty servants that resulted in the massacre of the monks.

In order to protect their districts from Bedouin raids, tax evasion and personal property damage, departing governors normally entrusted their authority with the rulers of the neighboring sanjak.

In the late 19th-century, Furqlus, which by then had been re-inhabited, suffered a major Bedouin raid, a common occurrence in the town which was surrounded by Bedouin encampments.

The Ottomans did little to revitalize Homs or ensure its security against Bedouin raids.

The countryside of Homs saw an increase in Bedouin raids in the first half of the 19th-century, interrupted by its occupation by Muhammad Ali's Egypt led by Ibrahim Pasha between 1832 and 1840.

While its residents were relatively protected from Bedouin raids because of the village's high walls, their livestock was often plundered.

As a defense against Bedouin raids, many villagers in Ottoman Palestine built homes in the central hills and descended to the plains seasonally to sow crops and harvest them.

An agha and 150 nominal cavalry troops were stationed there in order to protect regional towns from Bedouin raids, principally launched by clans belonging to the Anizzah tribe.

"It was a real ghazia," one man said balefully, glaring at the Saudi guards and using the Arabic word for an old Bedouin raid.