BANIZOMENES a maritime tribe of the western coast of Arabia, towards the north of the Red Sea, situated next to the country of the Nabataei. Diodorus (Diod. 3.43) describes their coast as a bay 500 stadia deep, the mouth of which is so obstructed by precipitous rocks as to be inaccessible to ships. The inhabitants lived on the produce of their hunting. There was there a most sacred temple, held in great veneration by all the Arabs. Burckhardt describes the Beni-Omranas inhabiting the mountains between Akaba and Moeyleh, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea;and there is perhaps sufficient similarity between the names to justify Forster's identification, particularly if, as is said, the description of the gulf and of the three adjacent islands, in Diodorus, exactly corresponds with the Bay of Moilah, and the three islands off it to the south. (Forster, Arabia, vol. 1. p. 323, 2. p. 117.)
[G.W]