Al-Sahiki

Overview

Al-Sahiki (al-Sāhikī) is the nisba to Umm al-Sāhik, one of the settlements of the al-Qaṭīf oasis on the coast the geographers call al-Khaṭṭ — the spring-watered palm country behind the shore of al-Baḥrayn, which the classical sources treat as one country rather than as a list of villages. The nisba is built on the second element, as it regularly is with umm- compounds, so the name of the village yields al-Sāhikī and not something built on umm.

The word

The second element answers to the root s-h-k. Ibn Manẓūr gives sahakat al-rīḥu al-turāb — the wind scoured the dust and stripped the ground — and rīḥ sāhika for a wind that runs hard and scours as it goes; the root also carries sahak for a rank smell. Whether the village was named from such a wind or from ground stripped by one, the sources do not say, and the page records the root without asserting the origin. A byname built on the ordinary participle would be written the same way.

On sources

The classical works this reference cites — Yāqūt, Ibn Manẓūr, Ibn Ḥazm, al-Qalqashandī, al-Hamdānī and Ibn Khaldūn — do not name this village. Yāqūt describes the coast under al-Khaṭṭ and names al-Qaṭīf; the lexicon gives the word. The page therefore records the name, its country and its root, and does not construct a history for either the village or the family name.

Bearing the name

A toponymic family name records a place an ancestor was attributed to — born there, settled there, known by it — as the name was applied to him, not a lineage. It attaches to no tribe, and two families bearing it need have no connection to one another beyond the place itself.