Sons of Ishmael: a Study of the Egyptian Bedouin

Abstract

DURING the period of something more than a quarter of a century that Mr. Murray has been engaged in desert surveys, he has used his opportunities to observe and record the customs and ideas of the nomadsboth Arab and Beja with whom his profession has thrown him in contact. The knowledge so acquired and systematised has resulted in a notable book containing so much new information concerning the social usages of the Arabs, though its geographical field is limited to Egypt and Sinai, that it immediately takes rank with such classics as Burckhardt's “Bedouins and Wahabys”. Moreover, the book is almost as much one for the general reader as for the sociologist, the former being catered for by the mass of interesting detail to be found in every chapter, often enhanced by a somewhat grim attitude (the author calls it “nomad”) authentically of the

Sons of Ishmael: a Study of the Egyptian Bedouin

By G. W. Murray. Pp. xv + 344 + 32 plates. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1935.) 18s. net.