Banū al-Muṣṭaliq

Overview

The Banū al-Muṣṭaliq are reckoned by the genealogists to Khuzāʿah, and through it to the disputed ʿAmr whose placement between the Azd and Muḍar the sources never settled. Their eponym is named in the books as Jadhīma ibn Saʿd of ʿAmr's line, and al-Muṣṭaliq is the name he is remembered by. This page describes a historical group and makes no statement about any modern family.

The name

Al-Muṣṭaliq is a nickname rather than a given name, which is the first thing worth knowing about it. The root ṣ-l-q in Ibn Manẓūr's lexicon carries the sense of a loud voice: al-ṣalq is a sharp cry, and ṣalaqa bi-ṣawtihi is to raise the voice. The genealogists report that the man was so called because of his voice in chanting, and the nickname displaced the name. A reader who looks for al-Muṣṭaliq among the sons in a lineage chain and cannot find it is looking for the wrong word — the chains carry the given name, the reports carry the nickname.

Homelands

The sources place them on the Tihāma side, in the coastal country below Mecca around Qudayd and the waters of that district. Yāqūt records al-Muraysīʿ as a water of Khuzāʿah, and the historical reports name it in connection with the Banū al-Muṣṭaliq — it is by that water that the group is most often mentioned.

What the sources differ on

The attachment of al-Muṣṭaliq inside Khuzāʿah is not uniform. Some accounts run him through Saʿd ibn ʿAmr, others place the group differently within the same tribe, and a reader comparing two books will find two arrangements of the same names. This is ordinary in the branch lists of the early tribes and is worth stating plainly rather than smoothing over.

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.