Al-Kilabi

Overview

Al-Kilabi (al-Kilābī) is the nisba of Kilāb ibn Rabīʿa ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, reckoned by the genealogists to Hawāzin under Muḍar and so to Qays ʿAylān, with its remembered range in Najd and, in the later sources, in the country of the northern Jazīra. Kilāb is in Lisān al-ʿArab the plural of kalb, and naming after animals of prey and the chase is ordinary in the early onomastic stock; the root is k-l-b.

Names easily confused

Al-Kilābī and al-Kalbī are two nisbas, not one. Al-Kalbī is the nisba of Kalb ibn Wabara, whom the genealogists reckon to Quḍāʿa — a wholly different grouping, with its remembered country in the Syrian desert and the northern approaches, not in the Najd of ʿĀmir. Between them lies one vowel and, in unpointed writing, almost nothing at all, and modern writing merges them constantly; the classical sources keep them apart without exception. A family that finds the two used interchangeably in a recent book has found an error in the book, not a variant of its own name, and should treat the forms as separate.

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.