Living in Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Iraq, and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, Bedouin are distinct from other Arabs because of their nomadic, pastoral lifestyle and their more extensive kinship networks, which provide them with community support and the basic necessities for survival. Such networks have traditionally served to ensure the safety of families and to protect their property.

As contemporary Middle Eastern governments have encouraged the Bedouin to settle, large family networks and the nomadic lifestyle have been diminishing. Nevertheless, the Bedouin continue to be hailed by other Arabs as "ideal" Arabs, especially because of their rich oral poetic tradition, their herding lifestyle, and their traditional code of honor.

While Arabic poetry and literature are very important for all Arabs, the Bedouin are masters at oral verse, an emotional and evocative form of poetry that is recited from memory in classical Arabic. These people believe displays of unchecked emotions weaken the group's solidarity, so they use poetry to express such strong feelings as sadness, love, and anger. Among other Arabs, poetry is also a way to convey feelings that might be difficult to express in everyday life.

A few Bedouin continue to travel the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, and Libya by camel. They live in tents and tend their herds as they have for centuries. But pressures from modern governments and the relatively recent phenomenon of national boundaries are making huge incursions into the Bedouin’s nomadic way of life, and at most only 10 percent of them remain nomads.