 The groundwork for regulating Bedouin affairs in Syria was laid by the Ayyubid Sultanate 's founder , Saladin ( r . 1171 – 1193 ) ; in 1182 , the latter entrusted the governor of Damascus , Ibn al @-@ <unk> , as the <unk> ( arbitrator ) and overseer of " all the Arabs " and who was " responsible for ... making the customary payments to them and collecting the customary dues from them " . According to historian Mustafa A. Hiyari , Saladin 's brother and successor , Sultan al @-@ Adil ( r . 1200 – 1218 ) , founded the formal institution of the imarat al @-@ ʿarab ( emirate of the Bedouin ) and appointed Haditha ibn <unk> as the first amir al @-@ ʿarab . Haditha was a grandson of the Jarrahid emir Fadl ibn Rabi 'ah , the progenitor of the Al Fadl clan of Banu Rabi 'ah . Members of the clan were direct descendants of the Fatimid @-@ era Jarrahid governor of Palestine , Mufarrij ibn Daghfal ibn al @-@ Jarrah ( d . 1013 ) . By the late 12th century , the Banu Rabi 'ah and its sub @-@ clans , Al Fadl , Al Mira and Al Faraj , together with the sub @-@ clans of its ancestral tribe , the Tayy , dominated the desert and steppe regions between Homs in the west to the eastern banks of the Euphrates River and southward to central Najd and Hejaz . However , despite their influence , the Mamluk historian al @-@ Hamdani ( d . 1300 ) maintains that " no member of this clan [ Banu Rabi 'ah ] was appointed as amir al @-@ ʿarab by diploma from the sultan " until Haditha 's appointment by al @-@ Adil . 
