Al-Jumahi

Overview

Al-Jumahi (al-Jumaḥī) is the nisba to Jumaḥ b. ʿAmr b. Huṣayṣ b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy, a clan of Quraysh at Mecca. The root is j-m-ḥ: in Lisān al-ʿArab a horse jamūḥ is one that overpowers its rider and runs where it will, and jamaḥa is to run headlong. Jumaḥ is reported as a byname earned in running rather than a name given at birth, and the sources differ in how they tell it.

What the nisba settles

Jumaḥ is scarcely used as a personal name outside the clan, so the form points at that clan and at nothing narrower. Many of the men recorded under it in the classical books were its clients (mawālī) and confederates, who carry a clan's nisba there exactly as its members do. And because Jumaḥ and Sahm are reported together in almost every Meccan notice, bearers of the two nisbas are often taken for one house; the genealogists keep them as two, sons of the same ʿAmr b. Huṣayṣ.

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.