Al-Taruti

Overview

Al-Taruti (al-Tārūtī) is the nisba to Tārūt, the island lying close inshore on the eastern coast, within the stretch the geographers call al-Khaṭṭ and the district of al-Qaṭīf. The island's best-known landmark in the classical books is its anchorage at Dārīn, which Yāqūt records and which the lexicographers cite for the musk trade; a family name to the island and one to the port are two different names for two different places, the smaller inside the larger.

The word

Tārūt does not resolve into a familiar Arabic root in the lexicon, and the permitted classical dictionaries treat it as a name rather than deriving it. This reference therefore records the form and does not offer an etymology for it. What can be said is that, unlike the ordinary words that stand behind many nisbas of this coast, this one is not also a common noun, so it is at least unlikely to have arisen as a byname from a shared vocabulary word.

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.