ʿUbaydah (of the Maʾrib country)

Overview

ʿUbaydah — written عبيدة, and vowelled here ʿUbaydah, the diminutive of ʿAbd — is reported in the country about Maʾrib in eastern Yemen and along the desert edge east of it, and is commonly given as a section of Murād, which the genealogists enter under Madhḥij. Maʾrib itself is one of the best documented places in the peninsula, named in the classical geography for its dam and its ancient kingdom. This page describes a historical group as reported, and makes no claim about any modern family.

This is not ʿAbīdah of Qaḥṭān

A name of the same consonants, عبيدة, is reported as a section under Qaḥṭān in ʿAsīr and the south of Najd, and it has its own page in this reference. The two are told apart by their vowelling and by their country: ʿUbaydah in the Maʾrib country of eastern Yemen, reported with Murād of Madhḥij, on the one hand; and ʿAbīdah of Qaḥṭān, far to the north-west of it, on the other. The written forms are identical, which is exactly why the confusion happens and exactly why it needs stating. No source this reference may cite joins the two, and this page does not join them. Saying that a written name is borne by more than one unrelated group is the single most useful thing such a page can do.

The name

The root ʿ-b-d is the root of servitude and of worship. Ibn Manẓūr gives al-ʿabd for the slave and for the servant of God, and the diminutive ʿUbayd is among the commonest of Arabic personal names, with ʿUbaydah and ʿAbīdah both built from the same letters. A name this common is a poor instrument of identification: agreement in it is expected between unrelated people and proves nothing about them.

On sources

The classical works this reference cites document Maʾrib thoroughly — al-Hamdānī describes the country and Yāqūt enters the place — and they document Madhḥij and Murād among the tribes of Yemen. They do not document this section under this name. What is reported of it comes from later and oral tradition and from modern writing outside the permitted sources. Al-Hamdānī and Yāqūt are cited here for the country, not for the group; Ibn Manẓūr for the word, not for the group. The page records a name, keeps it distinct from a name written the same way, and records no descent.

On lineage

Branch lists and affiliations here are given as reported, and the genealogists differ among themselves. 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.