Banū Sawāʾa

Overview

Sawāʾa is the fourth name in the list the genealogists give for the sons of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, after Rabīʿa, Hilāl and Numayr. Ibn Ḥazm keeps the name in place in the lineage, and their country is given with the rest of Banū ʿĀmir in Najd, but very little further is recorded. This page describes a historical tribe and makes no claim about any modern family.

Why the name is here at all

A branch known chiefly from a list is still worth a page, for a reason that has nothing to do with its own history. The list is what makes the other branches intelligible: Kilāb, Kaʿb, Numayr and Hilāl are placed by reference to their brothers, and dropping the fourth name because little is said about it would quietly redraw a structure the sources actually give. Recording that the genealogists list a name, and that they record little else under it, is a more honest page than filling the space with inference.

The name

The lexicographers refer Sawāʾa to the root s-w-y, from which come sawāʾ, likeness and evenness, and the sense of a thing being made straight or equal. They gloss the root fully and the personal name only in passing, which is the usual state of affairs for names of this kind and is reported here rather than improved on.

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.