Al-Tihami

Overview

Al-Tihami (al-Tihāmī) is the nisba to Tihāma. The word is from t-h-m: in Lisān al-ʿArab tahima of air is for it to change and grow heavy, and al-taham is stagnant, unmoving heat. The lowland is named for its air, and it is the standing counterpart to highland Najd — where one ends the other begins.

Not one country

Tihāma is not a district but the whole coastal strip, running from Yemen northwards along the Red Sea to the Ḥijāz. A man attributed to it may be from the Yemeni coast, from the lowland below ʿAsīr, or from the shore under Mecca, and the nisba does not choose between them. Where Tihāma ends and the Ḥijāz begins is itself disputed in the geographers, and some of them count Mecca as Tihāmī; a family name of this kind therefore fixes a family to a kind of country rather than to a place on a map.

Names easily confused

Tuhama — an accusation, from the root w-h-m — is a different word entirely, and in transliteration and in careless writing it is close enough to be mistaken for this one. The two share nothing but their shape.

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.