There are no men who respect pledges more than the Arabians.
-Herodotus, Book 3, Chapter 8
I doubt we would have made it all the way to Egypt without the two pledges, the one that Abu Jaib gave, entrusting us to the safekeeping of his drovers, the other that KhairAllah gave to keep us safe on the trail. Even though neither were Arabian, they spoke Arabic and thus honored their language’s concept of Himāya, Protection, a word that Lane defines in the context of nomads protecting tribal pasture.