They found themselves, in fact, in conflict with two forces, which in principle were in their service, but which in reality held the power - the tai.
Their language, the most distinctively Lao-Tai attribute which they have, plainly shows their very close relationship with the latter race and its present branches, the Shans (Tai Long) and the Ahom of Assam, while their appearance, customs, written character and religion bear strong evidence of their affinity with the Khmers.
Like Abu Tammam, he was of the tribe of Tai.
About that time parts of a confederation of tribes which had taken the name of Shammar from a moun tain in their neighbourhood, moved northwards from Central Arabia in search of better pasture, &c. Successfully displacing their forerunners, they made themselves at home in the Syrian steppe - until their possession was in turn disputed by a later emigrant from Arabia, for whom they finally made room by moving on into Mesopotamia, over which they spread, driving before them their predecessors the Tai (whose name the Mesopotamian Aramaeans had adopted as a designation for Arab in general), partly north of the Sinjar, partly over the Tigris.
One of Sufug's widows had fled to her Tai kindred in Central Arabia with her youngest son Faris; but when he grew up she brought him back in the seventies, and he immediately attracted a great following.
