Al-Taifi

Overview

Al-Taifi (al-Ṭāʾifī) is the nisba to al-Ṭāʾif, the walled highland town above Mecca. The word is from the root ṭ-w-f, going round: Yāqūt reports the town named for the wall built around it, which ṭāfa bihi — went round it — and passes on other stories of the name as stories, without vouching for them.

A town and a tribe

Al-Thaqafī, the nisba to Thaqīf, whom the classical sources place at al-Ṭāʾif, and al-Ṭāʾifī point at one country from opposite directions, and they do not mean the same thing. Al-Thaqafī is a tribal nisba and carries the whole tribal question with it — descent, alliance, clientage. Al-Ṭāʾifī places a man at the town and says nothing whatever about his people: a man attributed to al-Ṭāʾif may be of Thaqīf, of another tribe settled there, or of no tribal attribution at all. This holds for every pair of this kind.

Names easily confused

Ṭāʾif is also an ordinary word — one who goes round, a patrol, a thing that comes upon a man — so al-Ṭāʾifī can be read as a byname rather than a place-name. As a family name it is the town.

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.