Al-Khathami

Overview

Al-Khathami (al-Khathʿamī) is the nisba of Khathʿam, which held the highland country of ʿAsīr and the southern Sarāt. It is an old nisba, met throughout the genealogical and biographical literature. Shahrān and Balqarn are reckoned to Khathʿam in the sources, and a nisba may be taken at any tier — to a section, to a tribe, or to the wider grouping above it — so the broad name and a narrower one are not rival claims about the same family.

A placement the sources dispute

Khathʿam's own attribution is one of the questions the classical genealogists could not close: some attach it to the Qaḥṭānī line through Anmār, others argue otherwise. Where the sources differ this reference reports the disagreement rather than choosing between them — and a nisba whose parent branch is unsettled in the books cannot settle anything about a living family.

Note

A shared nisba is not proof of shared descent. Besides descent, the recorded routes into a tribal name are alliance (ḥilf) and clientage (walāʾ); a family's own documents are what establish its line.