Al-Sulami

Overview

Al-Sulami (al-Sulamī, with ḍamma) is the nisba of Banū Sulaym, a large tribe whose country the geographies place in the volcanic ḥarrah of the northern Ḥijāz, east of Medina — a ḥarrah the sources name after the tribe itself. Ibn Khaldūn and the medieval historians report a large westward movement of Sulaym alongside Banū Hilāl into North Africa in the fifth century AH, which is why the nisba is attested far outside Arabia as well as within it.

Two nisbas, one spelling

Unvowelled, al-Sulamī is written exactly like al-Salamī, the nisba to Banū Salima of the Anṣār of Medina — a different group with a different line. Only the vowels tell them apart, and the compilers of the biographical dictionaries were careful to specify which they meant, precisely because copyists confuse them. Where a family's own record is unvowelled, the spelling settles nothing on its own. As with any nisba, bearing it may reflect descent, alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ); families should verify their own documented lineage.