تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.66.9

13.66.9

In the land of al-Mulaybār there are twelve infidel sultans. Some of them are strong, with armies of fifty thousand, and some weak, with armies of three thousand, yet there is no strife at all between them, and the strong do not covet seizing what the weak possess. Between the land of one and that of his neighbour there is a wooden gate inscribed with the name of the one whose jurisdiction begins there, which they call "the gate of safety of so-and-so." If a Muslim or an infidel flees from the land of one of them on account of a crime and reaches the gate of safety of another, his life is safe, and the one he fled from cannot seize him, even if he is the strong one with numbers and armies. The sultans of that country bequeath their kingdom to their sister's son rather than to their own children; I have seen no one do this except the Massūfa, the people of the veil, whom we shall mention later. When a sultan of the people of al-Mulaybār wishes to stop people from buying and selling, he orders one of his servants, who hangs some leafy tree branches on the shops, and no one buys or sells as long as those branches remain on them.