Salim bin Ghabaisha

Portrait of Salim bin Ghabaisha, a young tribesman of the Bayt Imani lineage of Rashid Bedouin, in the Jabal Qara mountains.Salim bin Ghabaisha, a teenage boy from Bayt Imani lineage of the Rashid Bedouin, would have been approximately seventeen years old when he joined Wilfred Thesiger's party in 1948 (1960: 200). Salim bin Ghabaisha first came to Thesiger's attention as the friend of his young companion Salim bin Kabina. Attractive and boisterous, Wilfred Thesiger described Salim bin Ghabaisha as having 'a face of classic beauty, pensive and rather sad in repose, but which lit up when he smiled, like a pool touched by the sun' (1960: 172).

Despite his young age, Salim bin Ghabaisha proved to be an important addition to the party. Thesiger described Salim bin Ghabaisha in Arabian Sands as one of the most competent of his companions: 'the others tended to rely on his judgment, as I did myself. He was certainly the best rider and the best shot, and always graceful in everything he did. He had a quick smile and a gentle manner, but I already suspected that he could be both reckless and ruthless, and I was not surprised when within two years he had become one of the most daring outlaws on the Trucial Coast with half a dozen blood-feuds on his hands' (1960: 208–9).

References

Wilfred Thesiger, 1960. Arabian Sands, Longmans, Green and Co Ltd: London.

Photographs of Salim bin Ghabaisha