Arab tribes

History, branches, and homelands of Arab tribes.

• Banū Qaynuqāʿ

  One of the three Jewish tribes the sources record at Yathrib before the hijra, and the one the Arabic lexicons keep alive through the market at Medina that carr

• Banū Qitab

  A tribe reported in the inland country of the lower Gulf and toward the Ẓāhirah of ʿUmān. The vowelling of the name is unsettled in what is written. A historica

• Banū Qurayẓa

  The third of the Jewish tribes the sources record at Yathrib, settled in the higher country of Medina and recorded in alliance with al-Aws.

• Banū Qushayr

  A branch of Kaʿb ibn Rabīʿa placed in Najd, and a clear case of what a tribal nisba such as al-Qushayrī can and cannot show.

• Banū Rāsib

  A name the genealogists record twice over — once in the Azd and once in Quḍāʿah — and keep apart.

• Banū Rawāḥah

  A tribe reported in the interior of ʿUmān, commonly reckoned of the Azd. The name Rawāḥah is old and is borne by more than one unrelated group, among them a hou

• Banū Riyāḥ

  A name borne by two unrelated groups — Riyāḥ ibn Yarbūʿ of Banū Tamīm, and a Riyāḥ recorded among Banū Hilāl.

• Banū Riyām

  A tribe reported in the mountain country of ʿUmān and its villages. Riyām is an old name in Yemen too, where the classical books use it, and the two are not to

• Banū Ṣakhr

  A tribe reported in the country east of the Jordan, about the Balqāʾ and the desert margins. A historical tribe recorded here by name: the classical works this

• Banū Sālim

  One of the two divisions into which Ḥarb is usually described as falling, the other being Masrūḥ — and one of the commonest tribal names in Arabic, borne by unr

• Banū Salima

  A section of al-Khazraj at Medina whose name is vowelled Salima with a kasra, and whose nisba is written exactly like that of Banū Sulaym.

• Banū Salīma

  An Azdī section of ʿUmān counted to Mālik ibn Fahm — and one vowelling apart from two entirely different names.

• Banū Sawāʾa

  The fourth of the sons of ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa in the standard list, and the one the sources say least about.

• Banū Ṣaʿb

  A large division the sources reckon to Bakīl of Hamdān, bearing one of the harsh names the Arabs deliberately gave their sons.

• Banū Saʿd ibn Zayd Manāt

  A great Tamīmī house of eastern Najd, which the genealogists divide into Muqāʿis and al-Buṭūn — and which the sources keep apart from the other groups called Ba

• Banū Sāʿida

  A section of al-Khazraj at Medina, reckoned to Sāʿida ibn Kaʿb, and remembered in the name of the saqīfa that stood in their quarter.

• Banū Shibām

  A division of Hamdān in the highlands north-west of Sanaa, and the clearest case in Yemen of one name carried by more than one country — Shibām of Hamdān is not

• Banū Sulaym

  A large Hijazi tribe of the ḥarrah country, later recorded migrating west into North Africa.

• Banū Umayya

  A house of Quraysh reckoned to Umayya ibn ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf, which the genealogists divide into al-ʿAnābis and al-Aʿyāṣ. A historical house; no modern f

• Banū Walīʿa

  A house of Kinda in Ḥaḍramawt, remembered in the historians' accounts more than in the genealogies.

• Banū Yarbūʿ

  A section of Ḥanẓala of Banū Tamīm whose name Yāqūt attaches to a landscape — the upland called Ḥazn Banī Yarbūʿ.

• Banū Ẓafar

  A house of al-Aws at Medina, of the group called al-Nabīt, whose eponym's given name the sources report as Kaʿb, Ẓafar being a byname.

• Banū Ẓannah

  A group reported in Ḥaḍramawt and its valleys, the name vowelled in more than one way. A historical name recorded here as reported: the classical works this ref

• Banū Zubayd

  The Madhḥijī tribe as the early sources describe it — its country in Yemen, its horsemen in the poetry, and its move into the towns of Iraq.

• Banū Zuhra

  A house of Quraysh reckoned to Zuhra ibn Kilāb, whom the sources name as the brother of Quṣayy, and counted among Quraysh al-Biṭāḥ. The house the sources name a

• Banū ʿAbd al-Ashhal

  A house of al-Aws at Medina, of the group the sources call al-Nabīt, whose name follows the pre-Islamic ʿabd compound pattern.

• Banū ʿAbd al-Dār

  A house of Quraysh reckoned to ʿAbd al-Dār ibn Quṣayy, whom the sources name as Quṣayy's eldest son, recorded holding the ḥijāba, the liwāʾ and the assembly hou

• Banū ʿAbd Allāh

  A division reported under Muṭayr in Najd and al-Qaṣīm — and one of the commonest tribal names in Arabic, borne by unrelated groups everywhere, so that the name

• Banū ʿAdī ibn ʿAmr

  A division of Khuzāʿah named beside Kaʿb — and the ʿAdī of Khuzāʿah is not the ʿAdī of Quraysh, of Tamīm, or of Ṭayyiʾ.

• Banū ʿĀmir ibn al-Ḥārith

  A section of ʿAbd al-Qays on the eastern coast, entered in the line of ʿAmr ibn Wadīʿa. ʿĀmir is among the commonest names in Arabic, and the father's name is w

• Banū ʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa

  The largest grouping the genealogists place under Hawāzin, and the house to which Kilāb, Kaʿb, Numayr, Sawāʾa and Banū Hilāl are reckoned.

• Banū ʿAmr

  A section reported under Masrūḥ of Ḥarb in the Ḥijāz — and among the very commonest tribal names in Arabic, borne by unrelated groups in every region and centur

• Banū ʿAmr ibn Wadīʿa

  The stem within ʿAbd al-Qays under which the genealogists enter several of the tribe's sections on the al-Qaṭīf coast — a node in the ordering rather than a tri

• Banū ʿAṣar

  A section recorded among the branches of ʿAbd al-Qays on the eastern coast. The name is vowelled ʿAṣar and is also an ordinary word; the chains given for it dif

• Banū ʿUqayl

  A branch of Kaʿb ibn Rabīʿa reported moving out of Najd toward eastern Arabia and lower Iraq — and vowelled ʿUqayl, not ʿAqīl.

• Barīh

  A division reported under Muṭayr in Najd. A historical section recorded here by name only: the classical works this reference cites do not document it, and none

• Bāriq

  An Azdī group of the Tihāma slope whose name the sources give as a place — a mountain or a water the group settled by — rather than as an ancestor.

• Barqā

  A division reported under ʿUtaybah, in Najd and along the marches where Najd meets the Ḥijāz. A historical section recorded here by name: the classical works th

• Bishr (of ʿAnazah)

  One of the two headings under which the sections of ʿAnazah are commonly arranged, the other being Ḍanā Muslim. A reported grouping of sections rather than a tr

• Ḍabba

  A tribe reckoned to Muḍar in Najd, bound closely to the Ribāb confederation — the sources differ over whether it is counted inside it or beside it.

• Dabbāb

  A branch of Banū Sulaym recorded by Ibn Khaldūn in the eastern country of the Maghrib coast after the westward movement, and named beside Labīd. The word is als

• Dahm

  A Hamdānī group of the open country north-east of Sanaa, in al-Jawf and the marches toward the sands, named in al-Hamdānī's survey of that country.

• Ḍanā Muslim

  The second of the two headings under which the sections of ʿAnazah are commonly arranged, the other being Bishr. Ḍanā is a bedouin form standing where banū and

• Daws

  An Azdī tribe of the Sarāt entered under Zahrān, and a name modern writing often confuses with the quite separate al-Dawāsir.

• Dhū al-Kalāʿ

  A Ḥimyarī house whose name is also a district of Yemen, recorded through a lord who brought a great Yemeni following into the early Islamic armies.

• Dhū Ruʿayn

  One of the great Ḥimyarī houses of Yemen, named for the fortress of Ruʿayn; the dhū in its name is the South Arabian title of a lord of a place, not a kunya.

• Dhubyān

  The larger half of Ghaṭafān, to which the genealogists reckon Fazāra and Murra, and one of the two sides in the war of Dāḥis and al-Ghabrāʾ.

• Dhuhl

  A name that occurs twice inside the Bakr ibn Wāʾil genealogy — the elder Dhuhl and the younger — which the genealogists are at pains to keep apart.

• Fahm

  A Qaysī tribe of the country around al-Ṭāʾif and the Sarāt, paired in the lists with ʿAdwān and remembered chiefly through the brigand-poets.

• Fazāra

  A Ghaṭafānī tribe of northern Najd and the Ḥijāz marches, reckoned to Dhubyān, and one of the principal parties in the pre-Islamic war of Dāḥis and al-Ghabrāʾ.