Until recent decades most of the Middle East's population lived in rural areas and could be characterized as tribal in terms of political organization, social patterns of behaviors, ideology and economy. Even today, most Middle Eastern societies retain many features of tribal life, which modern conditions and the emergence of centralized states have been unable to erode. However, tribal societies and their leaders have received only limited attention from scholars, historians of the region in particular. Tribal shaykhs have led many societies in the region until recently; many still do to the present day. The important old office of the tribal shaykh has characterized these societies for hundreds of years and survived well into the twentieth century. It was then that it faced major challenges, sometimes leading to its complete disappearance. Surprisingly, this important and wide-spread office has been under-studied. Although tribal shaykhs crop up in many histories and ethnographies of the Middle East there is hardly any research dedicated to the understanding of such a critical political, social and cultural phenomenon. This paper demonstrates the benefits in studying tribal shaykhs by focusing on the biography of one historical figure. For nearly seventy years, Shaykh Mithqal al-Fayiz played a central role in imperial, regional, national and tribal politics in the Middle East. The narrative of his life and work thus allows us to trace both a fascinating individual life story and a central social, political and cultural office as it evolved during a time of major change. The paper shows that Mithqal al-Fayiz played a significant role in the development of modern Jordan. He had a great impact on the course of events that led to the creation of the Emirate in 1921 and to its consolidation as a new polity during the 1920s and 1930s. A wide range of archival sources in Jordan, Israel and the UK, together with press reports and oral testimonies, form the factual base of this study. This rich variety helps compensate for the lack of the – illiterate – shaykh’s own writings. The analysis draws on insights from the empirical and theoretical literature dealing with state-tribe relations. By doing so, it shows that Mithqal’s biography offers a basis for a broader conceptualization of the influential yet understudied office of tribal shaykh and thus greatly enhances our understanding of tribal societies in the Middle East in modern times.