Al-Ijli
A family name (nisba) to ʿIjl of Bakr ibn Wāʾil; ʿijl is also the ordinary word for a calf and a personal name, and al-ʿAjalī and al-ʿAjlānī are different names again.
- Type
- Tribal nisba
- Attributed to
- ʿIjl of Lujaym, of Bakr ibn Wāʾil
- Root
- ʿ-j-l (ʿijl, the calf)
- Note
- Al-ʿAjalī and al-ʿAjlānī are separate names
Overview
Al-Ijli (al-ʿIjlī) is attributed to ʿIjl, whom the genealogists place under Lujaym of Bakr ibn Wāʾil and reckon a brother line to Ḥanīfa; the sources record them moving from eastern Arabia into the Iraqi countryside. ʿIjl in Lisān al-ʿArab is the young of the cow, and the personal name is taken straight from it.
Names easily confused
Arabic script does not carry the vowels, and three names collapse into one shape when it is left bare. Al-ʿIjlī, with kasra, is the nisba to ʿIjl. Al-ʿAjalī, with fatḥas, goes back to ʿajala — haste — a different sense drawn from the same root and no tribal reference at all. Al-ʿAjlānī is a third name, built on ʿAjlān. Since ʿIjl is besides an ordinary personal name that a family may carry from any forebear who bore it, the tribal reading of al-ʿIjlī is a likelihood rather than a certainty, and a vowelled old copy settles more than a modern one.
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.
Sources
- ابن حزم الأندلسي، جمهرة أنساب العرب، 456هـ — بكر بن وائل — عجل بن لجيم؛ يُراجَع ويُوثَّق قبل إثبات التفاصيل
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب، 711هـ — مادة: عجل
This page is an educational, historical reference compiled from published sources. It is not an authority on lineage. Where sources differ, we report the difference without taking a position. Corrections are welcome via our contact page.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-07