Al-Fazari

Overview

Al-Fazari (al-Fazārī) is the nisba of Fazāra ibn Dhubyān, reckoned by the genealogists to Ghaṭafān under Qays ʿAylān, with its remembered range in Najd and northward toward the Levant and Egypt, where the nisba is frequent in the early literature. The root f-z-r is in Lisān al-ʿArab splitting or cleaving, al-fazr; the lexicographers also report fazāra as a name for the female of the leopard and refer the tribal name to it, as reported.

Names easily confused

What needs separating here is width and status rather than spelling. Fazāra lies below Dhubyān, which lies below Ghaṭafān, so al-Fazārī, al-Dhubyānī and al-Ghaṭafānī can each be used of the same line, at three different widths, without any of them contradicting the others; the narrow one says the most and is the one to look for. As to status, the nisba is common in the early Levantine and Egyptian scholarly literature, and a bearer there may belong to the tribe by descent or carry its nisba as a mawlā by clientage — the sources note the difference only where they know it, so the name records an attachment rather than a demonstrated line.

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.