Arab tribes

History, branches, and homelands of Arab tribes.

• al-Saʿādī

  A collective grouping-name used in Cyrenaica for the groups reckoned to a common forebear, not the name of a single tribe. It is a plural, and should not be rea

• Al-Sharqiyyūn

  A tribe reported on the eastern seaboard of the lower Gulf, on the coast facing the Gulf of ʿUmān and in the valleys behind it. The name means the easterners an

• Al-Shiḥūḥ

  A tribe of the Musandam mountains at the mouth of the Gulf, with a distinctive dialect.

• Al-Suhūl

  A Najdī tribe of the country south of Riyadh.

• Al-Ṣumaydiʿ

  A name reported of more than one group in al-ʿIrāq and the Jazīra, and placed differently by different accounts. The word is an old one for a bold chief; the cl

• Al-Wahbah

  A section reported under Banū Tamīm in Najd and al-Qaṣīm. A historical section recorded here by name: the classical works this reference cites do not document i

• Al-Wahībah

  A tribe reported in eastern ʿUmān, in the sand country that later writing names after it. Names built on the root w-h-b are many and belong to unrelated groups.

• Al-Ẓafīr

  A tribe reported in the north of Najd and the south of Iraq. A historical tribe recorded here by name and country: the classical works this reference cites do n

• Al-Ẓawāhir

  A tribe reported in the oasis country of the inland lower Gulf and toward the Ẓāhirah of ʿUmān. The tribal name and the district name are close and are easily r

• Al-ʿAmārāt

  A section reported within ʿAnazah under Bishr, with its country reported from northern Najd into the steppe of Iraq. The name should not be read as the classica

• Al-ʿAmāyir

  A section reported under Banū Khālid in eastern Arabia and al-Aḥsāʾ. A historical section recorded here by name: the classical works this reference cites do not

• Al-ʿAwāliq

  A group reported in the southern uplands and the desert fringe running east toward Ḥaḍramawt. A historical name recorded here as reported: the classical works t

• Al-ʿAwāzim

  A tribe of Kuwait and the northern Gulf coast.

• Al-ʿIzza

  A name reported of groups in the Tigris country of al-ʿIrāq and in the Jazīra toward the Levant, and attached in the reports now to Zubayd and now to Ṭayyiʾ. Th

• Al-ʿUbayd

  A name reported of groups in al-ʿIrāq and elsewhere, and reported in more than one arrangement — under Zubayd in some accounts, separately in others. A historic

• Alhān

  A Yemeni name the genealogists place on both sides of the Qaḥṭānī line: some make Alhān the brother of Hamdān, others count it among the Ḥimyarī houses.

• Anizah

  A large and widely-dispersed Arab tribe historically associated with northern and central Arabia.

• Asad ibn Khuzayma

  A Muḍarī tribe of Najd, a brother-line to Kināna — and a name that several unrelated groups share.

• Ashjaʿ

  A Ghaṭafānī tribe of the Ḥijāz marches, named beside Dhubyān and ʿAbs, and bearing a name that is also an ordinary Arabic word.

• Awlād Dulaym

  A grouping of the western Sahara whose name is of the common Awlād form — the children of a man called Dulaym. A historical name recorded here as a name only: t

• Azd al-Sarāt

  The Azd of the Sarāt range, to whom the sources reckon Ghāmid, Zahrān and Daws.

• Azd Shanūʾa

  One of the divisions the genealogists make within al-Azd, placed in the Sarāt highlands and the slopes down to Tihāma.

• Azd ʿUmān

  The Azd recorded in ʿUmān, whose accounts turn on Mālik ibn Fahm and whose sections the sources name from Hināʾa and Salīma to al-ʿAtīk.

• Bāhila

  A Qaysī tribe of Najd recorded as named after a woman, and the standing object of the poets' mockery — a fact about the literature rather than about any people.

• Bahrāʾ

  A Quḍāʿī tribe of the Syrian frontier, reckoned to ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥāf beside Balī and Mahra, and recorded as largely Christian before Islam.

• Bakīl

  One of the two great Hamdānī confederations of the Yemeni highlands, paired with Hashid.

• Bakr

  A large Rabīʿa tribe of eastern Arabia, remembered with Taghlib for the long Basūs war.

• Bakr ibn ʿAbd Manāt

  The Kinānī Bakr of the Hijaz — not Bakr ibn Wāʾil of Rabīʿa, with which the bare name is constantly confused.

• Bali

  An ancient Arab tribe of the northwestern Hijaz, attested in the classical genealogies.

• Ballaḥmar

  A tribe of the south-western highlands and their Tihāmah slopes, whose name contracts Banū al-Aḥmar — the same regional contraction that gives Ballasmar and Bal

• Ballasmar

  A tribe of the south-western highlands and their Tihāmah slopes, whose name contracts Banū al-Asmar. The contraction is a feature of the region's speech, and th

• Balqarn

  A tribe of the ʿAsīr highlands, neighbouring Shahrān.

• Banī al-Ḥārith ibn Fihr

  A Qurashī clan branching at the very top of the tree, from al-Ḥārith ibn Fihr, brother of Ghālib — and the reason the nisba al-Fihrī cannot separate one Qurashī

• Banī Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā

  A Qurashī clan of Mecca reckoned by the genealogists to Asad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn Quṣayy — not the separate Muḍarī tribe Asad ibn Khuzayma.

• Banī Ḍamra

  A Kinānī tribe of the coastal Hijaz between Medina and the sea, read in the sources together with Ghifār.

• Banī Ghifār

  A Kinānī tribe of the road between Mecca and Medina, met more often through its nisba than by name.

• Banī Hājir

  A tribe of eastern Arabia and Qatar, recorded in the country between al-Aḥsāʾ and the Gulf coast.

• Bani Hasan

  A name reported of a grouping in the middle Euphrates country of al-ʿIrāq, and of many other groups besides. It is among the commonest names in Arabic and ident

• Banī Jumaḥ

  A Qurashī clan reckoned to Jumaḥ ibn ʿAmr ibn Huṣayṣ ibn Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy, whose name the Meccan accounts almost always couple with Banī Sahm.

• Banī Kaʿb

  A name carried by groups in both the Gulf and lower Iraq, treated separately by the sources.

• Bani Khalid

  An Arab tribe of eastern Arabia, historically dominant in the al-Ahsa oasis region.

• Banī Lām

  A Ṭayyiʾ tribe recorded moving from northern Arabia into Iraq and Khuzestan.

• Banī Layth

  A Kinānī tribe of the valleys about Mecca — and a name common enough that unrelated groups carry it.

• Banī Malakān

  A name carried by more than one line — a Malakān named in Kināna and another named among the lines of Quḍāʿah.

• Banī Mālik

  A tribal name borne by several distinct groups across Arabia — one of the clearest cases of a shared name that is not a shared lineage.

• Banī Mudlij

  A Kinānī tribe of the Tihāma coast, remembered in the sources for the qāfa — the men consulted to judge descent by resemblance.

• Banī Rashīd

  A tribe of the northern Hijaz recorded in the country between Medina and the Red Sea.

• Banī Sahm

  A Qurashī clan reckoned to Sahm ibn ʿAmr ibn Huṣayṣ, brother of Jumaḥ — and a name that recurs outside Quraysh, so the nisba al-Sahmī does not fix a bearer here

• Banī Saʿd

  A widespread name borne by more than one group — most often reckoned to Hawāzin or to Tamīm.

• Banī Shihr

  A tribe of the ʿAsīr highlands, neighbouring Balqarn on the Sarāt.