Al-Nuʿaym

Overview

Al-Nuʿaym — written النعيم, and also written آل نعيم — is reported in ʿUmān and in the lower Gulf, in the inland oasis country and the open ground west and north of it. The reports of its origin differ: some place it with the Azd of ʿUmān, others reckon it Nizārī, that is on the ʿAdnānī side, and the classical books settle neither. That is what the reports say, and this page says no more than they do: it describes a historical tribe as reported, and makes no claim about any modern family.

The name is borne by more than one group

Nuʿaym is among the commonest of Arabic personal names, and groups called al-Nuʿaym or Āl Nuʿaym are reported in more than one part of Arabia, in country far apart, with no relation asserted between them. A shared name of this kind is weak evidence: it as easily records two separate ancestors who happened to carry a common name as one ancestor with many descendants. This page keeps such groups apart rather than joining them.

The name

Ibn Manẓūr enters the root n-ʿ-m for ease and plenty — al-naʿīm, the easeful life — and for al-naʿam, the grazing herds; Nuʿaym is a diminutive formed on it, beside Naʿm, Naʿīm and Nuʿmān. The lexicon explains the word. It does not say why a people came to be called by it, and it does not mention this tribe.

On sources

The classical works this reference cites — Ibn Ḥazm, al-Qalqashandī, al-Hamdānī, Yāqūt, Ibn Manẓūr and Ibn Khaldūn — do not document al-Nuʿaym. Al-Hamdānī describes ʿUmān and its country, and Yāqūt gives the place, but neither names this tribe, and a citation for a land is not a citation for a people living in it. The tribe's present shape is later than all six works by centuries, and what is reported about it comes from oral tradition and from modern writing that lies outside what this reference may use. The page therefore records the name and the country it is reported in, not a descent. Later writing often sorts the tribes of ʿUmān into two alignments, Ghāfirī and Hināwī; that is a political alignment of the eighteenth century, not a genealogy, and it lies outside every source this reference cites, so it is not used here as a way of classifying anybody.

On lineage

Branch lists and affiliations here are given as reported, and the genealogists differ among themselves. Nothing on this page establishes any living family's descent: a shared name may reflect descent, alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ), and the sources usually say which only when they know.