Al-Damri

Overview

Al-Damri (al-Ḍamrī) is the nisba of Ḍamra ibn Bakr ibn ʿAbd Manāt, reckoned by the genealogists to Kināna, brother in the ordering to Layth, with a remembered range on the coastal side of the Hijaz between Medina and the sea. The root ḍ-m-r is in Lisān al-ʿArab leanness and the drawing in of flesh — the ḍāmir, the lean horse trained down for the ride, and ḍamīr, the thing folded away inside — and the name is read within that sense.

Names easily confused

Ḍamra is a widespread personal name, and the books record more than one man and more than one section so called outside Kināna, all of which yield al-Ḍamrī; the written form does not say which is meant. It should also be kept apart from al-Ḍumayrī and similar diminutive formations, which are built on a different base even where a careless hand runs them together. Within the tribal reading, Ghifār ibn Mulayl stands beneath Ḍamra in the classical ordering, so al-Ghifārī and al-Ḍamrī may be met for one line in different books without contradiction — the narrower nisba naming a section, the wider one the parent. Neither of them settles by itself whether the attachment came by descent, alliance or clientage.

Bearing the name

A tribal nisba records what a family is called, not who its ancestors were. It may follow descent (ṣarīḥ), alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ), and only a family's own documented record tells those apart.