Saving a Tribe’s Honour by the Bedouin Fire Test
Originally posted on November 22, 2015 It’s a beautiful story about a Bedouin tribe’s honour and a very unique, ancient ritual that is practiced by the Bedouin, the Ordeal by Fire . It is one of those rare cases where a Bedouin writes about their own culture, not an outsider: the story is told by the son of the Sheikh whose tribe was involved in the case. The son, Salim Alafenisch, went on to study in Europe, and now lives and works in Germany. Unfortunately his books, including this one about the Fire Test, are only available in German, but here is the story in a few words. The story starts in the Negev desert, before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In an area that was peaceful at the time someone gets shot and killed near the place the tribe of Salim lived. The footprints of the perpetrator were tracked by specialists from an independent tribe, who confirmed they didn’t lead to Salim’s settlement. Despite this, the victim’s tribe accuses Salim’s tribe of murder and want revenge. To keep t...