Salim bin Tamtaim

Portrait of Salim bin Tamtaim, one of the leaders of Wilfred Thesiger's travelling party, at a well in the Ghanim Sands during the party's journey from Khasfah well to Matki well.Wilfred Thesiger was introduced to Salim bin Tamtaim by the Wali of Salalah in November 1945. A senior sheikh of the Bayt Ghuwas lineage of Bayt Kathir Bedouin, Salim bin Tamtaim had travelled with Bertram Thomas during his 1930 crossing of the Empty Quarter. Salim bin Tamtain joined Wilfred Thesiger's party for the 1945–6 locust-monitoring research trip from Salalah to Mughshin, the 1946 Salalah to Al Mukalla expedition, and accompanied Thesiger from Salalah to Mughshin on Thesiger's First Crossing of the Empty Quarter in 1946–7.

In Arabian Sands, Wilfred Thesiger describes Salim bin Tamtaim as a kindly elder 'with a fringe of white beard and twinkling eyes' (1960: 35). Although at least eighty years old when he met Thesiger, Salim bin Tamtaim had no difficulty keeping up with the unrelenting pace of travel. In Arabian Sands, Thesiger wrote that one of his favorite memories of travelling with Salim bin Tamtaim was witnessing him as he 'shuffled round in a war-dance when he got off his camel, to prove that he at any rate was still as fresh as ever' (1960: 78). Salim bin Tamtaim was one of the first people to greet Thesiger's party when they arrived hungry and exhausted at Boi following their First Crossing of the Empty Quarter in early 1947 (1960: 178).

References

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

Photographs of Salim bin Tamtaim