Harasi, Arabized

The Harasis (Harasiis) are a Bedouin tribe of the Jiddat al-Harasis, the 27,000 km² gravel plain of central Oman that bears their name. They reached it in the late 19th century, and the British explorer Bertram Thomas, who called them the 'Tree People', confirmed their claim by arbitration; they belong to the Hinawi tribal confederation. Their language, Harsusi (Ḥersīyet), is a Modern South Arabian language close to Mehri; it had about 600 speakers in 2011 and is giving way to Mehri and Arabic. The tribe numbered about 125 households in 1981 and about 5,000 people by the 2010s. The name 'Arabized Harasi' used by some databases is misleading: Harsusi and Mehri are still spoken, although the young increasingly use Arabic.

The Harasis are camel and goat herders. Until the 1980s families sheltered under acacia and ghaf trees and moved camp three or four times a year; a household keeps about 25 camels, five or six of them in milk, for milk, racing and prestige. Since the 1980s the state has provided housing, a boarding school for boys, a day school for girls and a clinic at Haima. Today families split their time between houses in Haima, some of them villas, and 'azab, mobile herding camps with tents on raised platforms, air-conditioned cabins, solar panels and smartphones, while hired herders from Balochistan, Sindh and Sudan tend many of the animals. The tribe was entrusted with the Arabian oryx reintroduced to the Jiddat from 1980, and Harasis rangers guarded it.

The Harasis are Sunni Muslims. No study of their religious life was found; how they combine Islamic practice with Bedouin custom is undocumented.

No Scripture, JESUS Film or audio exists in Harsusi, and Global Recordings has no recordings. Literate Harasis can use Arabic Scripture and media. No believers or outreach are known.