Al-Lakhmi

Overview

Al-Lakhmi (al-Lakhmī) is the nisba of Lakhm, a tribe the genealogists reckon to the Kahlān line of the southern scheme and enter beside Judhām as a brother. Its recorded country is the desert edge between the Ḥijāz and the Levant, and afterwards the frontier country of ʿIrāq, Egypt and the Syrian towns. The root l-kh-m is in Lisān al-ʿArab that of lakhama, to strike the face, and of al-lukham, a great sea fish; the sources report Lakhm itself as a laqab given to the man rather than his given name, and they differ.

Names easily confused

Al-Lakhmī and al-Judhāmī are the pair most often exchanged for one another. The books enter Lakhm and Judhām as brothers, place them in the same country and name them together in almost every notice, and later writing slides from one to the other as though the two were variants; they are two tribes and two nisbas, and the classical entries keep them separate.

The nisba also carries a historical weight that is not genealogical. Later writing associates the name with rule on the frontier of ʿIrāq, and the form is therefore met in historical narrative about that frontier far more often than as a living family name. No ruling line is traced on this page, and the nisba as a form connects a family with no house. Finally, the movement west means al-Lakhmī is met in Egyptian, Maghribi and Andalusi records — where it is the name that travelled, not a documented 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.