Tribes are often seen as territorial, pugnacious, and collectivized. In fact, they are quite resilient, individualistic, and readily accepting of others’ practices. When one turns to the law, we can see these features at work in the Berber and Arab tribes of the Middle East, both currently and historically. By starting with the practices of the Berbers of North Africa and then comparing the features they exhibit in their customary law – both substantive and (more importantly) procedural – the similarities to Islamic law are striking. Moreover, it is suggested, this is not surprising, as much of the procedural aspects of classical and modern Islamic law developed out of the tribal background of the Prophet’s day and finds additional support in the precepts of sacred texts. Thus, the comparison of Berber tribal law and Islamic law underscores the continuity of Islamic law, one reasons why it could spread into diverse regions of the Middle East and North Africa so quickly, and why we need to see the spread of Islam not simply as having been carried by military conquest and economic contact but by a form of law that readily resonated with the tribes the new religion encountered.

Police practices substantiate legal abstractions, but frequently the police are influenced by normative frameworks beyond the framework of the civil laws that regulate their work.This chapter examines the interrelationship between Jordan’s tradition of legal pluralism and the hegemonic values that influence different kinds of social order. It also considers how the civil legal system takes account of tribal settlements with respect to the ‘personal right’ accorded to victims, and reviews how the blend of customary, formalised tribal, Islamic and civil legal traditions that co-exist in Jordan shape the field of practice within which the police manage grievances. Frequently exercising discretion, the police treat some of these grievances as crimes, and others as disputes between citizens, reflecting the common reticence of citizens to prosecute cases in the civil courts.

This chapter challenges a key precondition for many sustaining commons institutions - tight-knit communities. It argues that the gradual transformation of traditional nomadic societies into modern urban societies reflects a major change that has weakened the ability of kinship relations to serve as a social incentive to support sustainable common property regimes resulting in the fostering of a modern urban tragedy of the commons.

The chapter illuminates this argument by analyzing theories of social evolution and examining closely the urbanization processes undergone by Bedouin society in Israel, in which tight kinship relations traditionally supported sustainable management of the commons. The urbanization of Bedouin society challenged this traditional regime and triggered the evolution of private urban-style property units, on the one hand, and modern tragedies of the commons, on the other.

The chapter raises the question whether societies in which kinship ties have become less powerful can still produce strong enough incentives for collaboration.