route between Kerak and Madaba was closed due to fighting between the Beni Sakher and the Anazi. In June 1917 Fawaz el Fayez, one of the leaders of the Bani Sakher, had a secret meeting with T.E. Lawrence. El Fayez was a member of an anti-Turkish committee in Damascus and Lawrence was seeking support for his military campaign. Immediately after the meeting Lawrence fled fearing betrayal. El Fayez was killed shortly afterwards. By June 1918 the Bani Sakher were united in their opposition to the Turks and were offering to provide the Husseini forces with at least eleven thousand men costing £30,000 (£1,715,944.76 adjusted to inflation as of April 2020) a month. In addition they would donate the harvest of Kerak and Madeba. In 1923 Ibn Saud's Ikhwan Ikhwan initiated their first attack on the Emirate of Transjordan by massacring two villages 12 miles south of Amman belonging to the tribe of Bani Sakher. In a two-day battle, the tribesmen of Bani Sakher assisted by the Hadid tribe managed to defeat the raiders. The raiders were intercepted by British armored cars and planes only after they had begun to withdraw. On 8 April 1933 Sheikh Mithqal Pasha al-Fayez, Chief of the Al-Fayez of Beni Sakher, was a member of a delegation which met the President of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, and the head of the Zionist political department in Palestine, Chaim Arlosoroff, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. A series of events in the 1920s and 1930s put further pressure on their nomadic lifestyle, eventually leading to famine. The Bani Sakher were saved from this by the British government ruling Jordan at the time. In exchange, the British required the Bani Sakher to give up their nomadic lifestyle and turned more towards a semi-nomadic life. In the decades since then, pressures on the Bani Sakher to give up part of their land have led to occasional tension between them and the Jordanian government. However, this tribe has always been counted as stalwart allies of the Hashemite ruling family since the days of King Abdullah I. See also Fendi Al-Fayez Mithqal Al Fayez Hadith Al-Kraisha Faisal Al Fayez Al-Fayez References Bibliography Tribes of Arabia Tribes of Saudi Arabia Bedouin groups Tribes of Jordan