Qays ibn Thaʿlaba

Overview

Qays ibn Thaʿlaba is among the largest sections the genealogists place under Bakr ibn Wāʾil, and is cited in full as Qays ibn Thaʿlaba ibn ʿUkāba ibn Ṣaʿb ibn ʿAlī ibn Bakr ibn Wāʾil. Chains of that length are the ordinary way a group of this rank is named in the sources, and the length is doing real work: it is what keeps this Qays distinct from the very much larger Qays ʿAylān of Muḍar, a separate grouping altogether with which the sources do not connect it. Where a text says only "Qays", the surrounding line has to be read before anything is inferred from it.

Their country is given with Bakr's — the eastern lowlands toward Hajar and al-Yamāma, and the roads running up to Iraq — and the sources record sections beneath them, among them Ḍubayʿa ibn Qays, to whom al-Ḥārith ibn ʿUbād of the Basūs war narratives is attributed. The poet Maymūn ibn Qays, al-Aʿshā, is likewise reckoned to them, and is called al-Aʿshā of Bakr ibn Wāʾil for that reason.

The name itself is from the root q-y-s, the measuring of one thing against another, whence qiyās, analogy. This page describes a historical grouping and makes no claim about any modern family; nothing in it is a statement about any family living today.

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 (ṣarīḥ), alliance (ḥilf) or clientage (walāʾ), and the sources usually say which only when they know.