Banū Mālik ibn Ḥanẓala

Overview

Mālik ibn Ḥanẓala is one of the houses the genealogists set under Ḥanẓala ibn Mālik ibn Zayd Manāt ibn Tamīm, and it carries some of the best-attested Tamīmī names in the early literature. From it the sources reckon Dārim, under whom further houses are named, and Rabīʿa, whom the books mention under a byname. The account here is of a historical tribe as the classical genealogists recorded it; it makes no claim about any modern family.

How often the name Mālik repeats

The single most useful thing to know about this name is how easily it is confused, and the confusion begins inside Tamīm itself. Mālik ibn Zayd Manāt stands high in the chain; Mālik ibn Ḥanẓala stands two generations below him; and the name recurs again lower down. Beyond Tamīm the difficulty widens, because Banū Mālik is borne by groups in the Sarāt, the Ḥijāz and Yemen that the sources reckon to altogether different lines. A bare Banū Mālik therefore identifies nobody. Only the full chain does, which is why the genealogists write it out.

Branches as reported

Dārim is the branch the books return to most, and houses such as Mujāshiʿ, Nahshal and ʿAbdullāh are named beneath it. Rabīʿa ibn Mālik is recorded alongside Dārim. As always in this literature the ordering is not uniform: what one book makes a son another makes a grandson, and the lists differ in length.

Homeland

The Ḥanẓala houses are placed with the body of Tamīm in eastern Najd and the country reaching towards al-Yamāma, and afterwards among the Tamīmī settlement in the towns of Iraq, where much of this genealogy was collected and written down.

On lineage

The branches and affiliations set out above are given as reported by the classical genealogists, who differ among themselves: the ordering of the sections, and which section is reckoned under which, are not settled in the sources. Nothing on this page establishes any living family's descent — a shared name may reflect descent, alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ), and the sources say which only when they know. This page describes a historical tribe as the early writers recorded it, and makes no claim about any modern family.