Al-Minqari
A family name (nisba) to Banū Minqar of Tamīm — a section on the limb of Saʿd ibn Zayd Manāt, not on that of Ḥanẓala, which later writing frequently confuses.
- Type
- Tribal nisba
- Attributed to
- Banū Minqar of Saʿd ibn Zayd Manāt, of Banū Tamīm
- Root
- n-q-r (minqar, a beak or boring iron)
- Note
- On the Saʿd limb of Tamīm, not the Ḥanẓala limb
Overview
Al-Minqari (al-Minqarī) is attributed to Banū Minqar, a section of Banū Tamīm whom the genealogists set on the limb of Saʿd ibn Zayd Manāt; the nisba is familiar in the Baṣran material. Minqar in Lisān al-ʿArab is a bill or beak, and by extension the boring iron of the same shape, the tool that pecks at stone.
Names easily confused
The live confusion here is one of limb. Tamīm parts early into Ḥanẓala and Saʿd, and Minqar belongs to Saʿd; a good deal of later writing files it under Ḥanẓala instead, or glosses al-Minqarī as a kind of al-Dārimī, which the classical arrangement does not support. Two Tamīmī families, one Minqarī and one Dārimī, separate well above the point at which either name begins. Beyond that, minqar is an ordinary word, so the name can arise as a by-name from the tool or the beak with no tribal reference at all; and the form is read both al-Minqarī and al-Munqirī, the script settling neither.
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.
Sources
- ابن حزم الأندلسي، جمهرة أنساب العرب، 456هـ — سعد بن زيد مناة — منقر؛ يُراجَع ويُوثَّق قبل إثبات التفاصيل
- ابن منظور، لسان العرب، 711هـ — مادة: نقر
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Last reviewed: 2026-09-07