Al-Uqayli

Overview

Al-Uqayli (al-ʿUqaylī) is the nisba of ʿUqayl ibn Kaʿb ibn Rabīʿa ibn ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, reckoned by the genealogists to Hawāzin under Muḍar, with its remembered range in Najd and, in the later sources, in Iraq and the Jazīra. The root ʿ-q-l is in Lisān al-ʿArab binding and holding fast — the ʿiqāl that hobbles a camel, and ʿaql, the faculty that restrains — and ʿUqayl is the diminutive formed from it.

Names easily confused

ʿAqīl, with fatḥa and a long second syllable, is a separate personal name of the same root, and the nisba built on it is al-ʿAqīlī; unvowelled, the two are identical on the page, and only a source that vocalises settles which is meant. A further confusion is with al-ʿUqayl or al-ʿAqīl in the bare article-plus-noun form, which is a family name of a different shape and not a nisba at all: it carries no attribution to the tribe of ʿUqayl, and reading one for the other imports a tribal claim the name does not make. Sisters of the same parent — al-Kilābī, al-Qushayrī, al-Numayrī — sit at the same tier and may be met for one line in different books.

Bearing the name

A tribal nisba records what a family is called, not who its ancestors were. It may follow descent (ṣarīḥ), alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ), and only a family's own documented record tells those apart.