Banū Numayr

Overview

Numayr is recorded among the sons of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, alongside Rabīʿa, Hilāl and Sawāʾa. Their country is placed in Najd with the rest of the house, and sections of the name are later reported in the upland country the geographers call al-Jazīra — which those same geographers hold to be a country distinct from ʿIrāq proper, so a report placing a group in al-Jazīra has not placed it in ʿIrāq. The nisba al-Numayrī is formed from the name in the ordinary way, and like any nisba it records what a writer called someone rather than a proven line. This page describes a historical tribe and makes no claim about any modern family.

Numayr and namīr

Ibn Manẓūr records two distinct words in these letters. Namīr is said of water that is wholesome and sweet to drink. Numayr is the diminutive of namir, the leopard, and it is this second word that the tribal name is built on. The rasm is identical and only the vowels separate them, which is why the pleasant gloss is so often attached to the tribe by writers who have read the name without vowels. This reference reports the derivation the lexicographers give for the name, not the one that reads better.

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.