Al-Nukri

Overview

Al-Nukri (al-Nukrī) is the nisba to al-Nukra, which the genealogists carry within Lukayz of ʿAbd al-Qays, the tribe reckoned under Rabīʿa and remembered on the eastern coast. It is a nisba to a division inside a section, and so among the narrower names on this coast: where a source gives it, it says more than al-Lukayzī, and much more than al-ʿAbdī.

The word

The root n-k-r is thoroughly ordinary. Lisān al-ʿArab gives nukr and nakīr for what is disowned or repudiated, ankara for to deny or fail to recognise, and further senses of shrewdness and of difficulty in the same entry. Because the letters are common, a byname or a nisba on this root can arise with no reference to the division at all, and the written form does not distinguish the two. Note also that this is a different word from Nakhla, from Bakr, and from other names of superficially similar shape; the sources keep them apart by their letters.

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.