Al-Mahri

Overview

Al-Mahri (al-Mahrī) is the nisba of the tribe of al-Mahrah, in the far east of Yemen and the country adjoining Oman. What is most worth saying about this nisba is that it carries no assumption about language: Mehri is a separate Modern South Arabian language, a sister of Arabic rather than a dialect of it, and a bearer's household may speak Mehri rather than Arabic. The genealogists are reported to reckon al-Mahrah among the Qaḥṭānī tribes all the same, though they differ over the detail.

Al-Mahri in the lexicon

The lexicographers also record al-mahrī as a nisba of camels to Mahrah: the swift riding camels named for the tribe, so familiar in the classical texts that the word names the animal as readily as the man. In older sources it may therefore refer to a camel and not a person, and only the context separates the two.

Note

A tribal nisba does not by itself establish a specific line. A man may hold a tribal name by alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ) as well as by direct descent (ṣarīḥ), and the sources say which only when they know. Families should verify their own documented lineage.