Al-Dili

Overview

Al-Dili (al-Dīlī) is the nisba to Banū al-Dīl, whom the genealogists carry within ʿAbd al-Qays on the eastern coast, the tribe reckoned under Rabīʿa. Taken with the qualifier — al-Dīl of ʿAbd al-Qays — the name is clear; taken alone, it is one of the most confusable forms in the whole subject.

Names easily confused

The classical books distinguish al-Dīl, al-Dāl and al-Duʾil, carried by separate groups, and the difference is not a scribal matter but a real distinction between lines: one of these belongs within Kināna, another is the one here in ʿAbd al-Qays, and the sources take pains to keep them apart. The vowelling itself was disputed by the philologists, who record more than one reading of the word, and manuscripts vary. The practical consequence is plain: a family name of this shape, met without its qualifier, does not place a family, and reading one al-Dīl for another moves it between unconnected branches of the genealogical scheme. Where a source gives the qualifier, use it; where it does not, the name is simply undetermined.

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.