Jarm

Jarm (Arabic: جرم) (also spelled Jurm or Banu Jurum) were an Arab tribe that, in the Middle Ages, lived in Palestine, Hawran and coastal Egypt.

The jarm was from the large Arab tribe of qadaea .[1][2] (Arabs whose origin is from Yemen).

In the Middle Ages, during Ayyubid and Mamluk rule, the Jarm inhabited the region between Gaza and through the coastal plain of Palestine.^[1] Their main encampments were between Deir al-Balah and Gaza,^[2][3] while they often migrated to the vicinity of Hebron in the summer.^[4] Beginning with Sultan Baybars, the Mamluks entrusted the Jarm, along with other Tayyid clans with protecting the countryside, providing Arabian horses for them.

The Jurm tribe, and other Qudah tribes, were known as "princes." [1] In the Mamluk hierarchy, the military rank of a prominent Jurm emir was equivalent to that of an emir with ten horsemen in Damascus, or an emir with twenty horsemen in Aleppo. [3] Mamluk records state that the Jurm tribe had a thousand horsemen, making them one of the most powerful tribes in the Levant.

In 1415, fierce battles took place between the Jurm and Eid tribes in the triangle encompassing Gaza, Ramla, and Jerusalem. [5] In 1494, a dispute arose over the official appointment of the prominent Jurm emir, a task usually entrusted to the Mamluk governors of Gaza or Jerusalem. Sultan Qaitbay eventually intervened and chose the Jerusalem candidate because the governor of that region paid a bribe of five hundred dinars. [6] The Jurm leaders retained the title of emir during the early Ottoman period in the sixteenth century and were listed in the tax records of the Sanjak of Gaza. [7] At that time, he had 12 branches and was encamped in the vicinity of Ramla.[8] He was paying 10,000 akçe to the Ottoman Sultan's treasury.[8]