 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-Muqaddam, as the muḥakkim (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 Ghudayya 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.
