Ashjaʿ

Overview

Ashjaʿ is reckoned to Rayth ibn Ghaṭafān, which places it beside Baghīḍ — the father of Dhubyān — rather than beneath him, so the sources treat it as a branch of Ghaṭafān in its own right and not as a subdivision of Dhubyān. It is the least prominent of the Ghaṭafānī groups in the record, and its diyār are placed on the Ḥijāz side of Ghaṭafān's range, in the country toward Medina. This page describes a historical tribe and makes no statement about any modern family.

The name

The root sh-j-ʿ carries courage, and ashjaʿ is the ordinary comparative — braver. The lexicographers record the word without needing the tribe, which matters for a reader searching: a text that says ashjaʿ is far more often using the adjective than naming this tribe, and the two cannot be told apart by spelling alone.

In the sources

The accounts of the confederate campaign against Medina name Ashjaʿ among the tribes present, and it is named afterwards among those that entered Islam; thereafter it is a minor presence beside the two large Ghaṭafānī names. The genealogists list its branches; the lists are short and they differ, and none of them is reproduced here as settled.

On lineage

Branch lists and affiliations here are given as reported by the classical genealogists, who themselves disagree. 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.