It was a language of incredible subtleties and shadings of meaning. Hidden in every phrase was a treasure-house of ambiguities and implications. Every word came from a root, usually made up of three consonants. Vowels, prefixes and suffixes were inserted to provide specific meaning and grammatical context. Thus, words with widely diverse meanings were all derived from the same root and often implied each other.

He discovered that the art of conversation consisted not so much in surface communication, as in the exploration of the metaphors which are the only ways that human beings can truly communicate. Unlike westerners, who are concerned with apparent reality, Arabs, by virtue of the very language in which they thought, turned the most ordinary conversation into the abstractions of poetry. Arabs were not so much interested in facts as in truth, which is quite another thing.

The harshness of the desert forced a discipline among the Bedu. Their lives were bound by many rules. It was forbidden to drink alcohol or eat pork, to converse with women outside your family, or even for a man to approach his wife during her time of the month. Yet the Mutayr never spanked their children. Nor did a man ever beat his wife. Those were abominations. All that it ever took to discipline Nick and the other children was a reminder of how intimately bound together their lives were.

If a boy did something wrong, he would be told, “That is not the Mutayr way.” Once Youssef stood up after the iftar, which is the dinner that breaks the day-long fast throughout the holy month of Ramadan, without belching. It was a terrible breach of etiquette, comparable to a western boy spitting out his food in a restaurant. Sheikh Zaid looked at him with disgust and said: “Because of your bad manners I am ashamed to sit with my brothers. I wonder if you wouldn’t rather be a Hutaymi instead of a Mutayr.” Zaid stalked out of the tent and Youssef followed, his head hanging in shame.

Real learning among the Bedu was accomplished by telling stories. Once Bandar, who was Nick’s enemy and never passed Nick without a sneer or a muttered word, snuck up behind Jidha and jammed his dagger between the she-camel’s hind legs. Jidha bucked wildly as a bronco, tossing Nick to the ground. Nick rolled to his feet and grabbed Jidha by the lip. He calmed her and, wadding his kaffiyah head cloth into a bulky bandage, used it to stem the camel’s bleeding. Bandar stood by, laughing.

“Touch her again and I will forget that you are of the Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam against whom fighting is forbidden,” Nick said, his gray eyes smoky with anger.

“Ra’iya,” Bandar hissed. Ra’iya were human cattle, the lowest form of infidel.