Search

A settled and semi-settled tribe in ancient Arabia. The centre of their territory, Sūd Bāhila (Saud? — “corrected” in Hamdānī by an uninformed copyist into Sawād), extended on both sides of the direct route (described by Philby in The Heart of Arabia , vol. ii) from Riyad to Mecca. It is sufficiently well defined by the localities al-Ḳuwayʿ, D̲j̲azālā = Juzaila, al-Ḥufayr = Hufaira and the mountains al-Ḳatid = al-D̲j̲idd and (Ibnā) Shamāmi = Idhnain Shamal. The clan Ḏj̲iʾāwa (D̲j̲āwa) lived further westward at the …

, ancient Arab hero and poet, sprung from the Mālik, the younger line of the Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Kilāb, belonging to ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa. In the nineties and past the threshold of the 7th century he took part in many marauding expeditions, sometimes leading his own men. After the death of his father, who appears to have fallen in the south fighting against the Ḵh̲at̲h̲ʿam, he took over the conduct of the war until the loss of an eye at the battle of Fayf al-Rīḥ (against the Ḵh̲at̲h̲ʿam, ca. 614) rendered h…

, ancestor of the Northern Arabs according to the genealogical system which received its final form in the work of Ibn al-Kalbī, about 800 A.D. The name occurs twice in Nabatean inscriptions from N.W. Arabia (ʿAbd ʿAdnōn, ʿAdnon; Jaussen et Savignac, Mission Archéologique en Arabie , Paris 1909-14, nos. 38, 328) also in Thamudic (Lankester Harding/Littmann, Some Thamudic Inscriptions , Leiden 1952) and was taken to South Arabia along the incense-route ( Corpus Inscriptionum Semit ., iv, no. 808). As already noted by al-Ḏj̲umaḥī, Ṭabaḳāt (Hell), 5 (cf. also Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Inbāh ʿa…

b. Udd b. Ṭābīk̲h̲a b. al-Yās ( K̲h̲indif ) b. Muḍar b. Nizār b. Maʿadd was the eponymous hero of the well known Arab tribe of that name. With their “nephews” ʿUkl b. ʿAwf, Taym, ʿAdī, and T̲h̲awr b. ʿAbd Manāt b. Udd, Ḍabba formed a confederacy called al-Ribāb. The Ribāb were in alliance with Saʿd b. Zayd Manāt, the greatest clan of Tamīm. This alliance has never been broken by the other confederates. These, indeed, were formations of rather moderate size, whereas the Ḍabba by means of their power sometimes were able to follow their own policy. Of the three clans of Ḍabba, Ṣuraym had in the…

, old Arabian tribe, probably identical with the ’Αγχιται (’Αχχιται) of Ptolemy, vi, 7, § 23. H. Reckendorf considered the name ʿAkk as a place-name; but it occurs as a personal name in T̲h̲amūdic inscriptions. At the beginning of the 7th century the territory of the ʿAkk in the Tihāma of Yaman stretched from Wādī Mawr, over Surdud, to Wādī Sahām (i.e. between modern Luḥayya and Ḥudayda), where it met that of the As̲h̲ʿar. At that time they ¶ participated in the Meccan cult. Earlier a colony of the ʿAkk was to be found in ʿAḳīḳ (Tamra) = Wādī al-Dawāsir. No information is…

, the two main ranges of the central Arabian mountain group of Ḏj̲abalā Ṭayyiʾ, modern al-Ḏj̲abal. An old tale of the type of “metamorphosis as punishment for sin” is attached to them; the tale is connected with reality insofar as Ad̲j̲aʾ and Salmā occur in Old Arabic and in early North Arabic dialects as personal names.—According to Ibn al-Kalbī’s “Book of Idols”, and one of the two versions in the Ḏj̲amhara by the same author, the God Fals/Fils/Fulus was worshipped in the guise of one of the cliffs of Ad̲j̲aʾ. This cult is probably of great…

(rarely ʿAbd Ḳays), i.e. "Servant of (the god) Ḳays", old Arabian tribe in East Arabia. The nisba is ʿAbdī and ʿAbḳasī. ʿAbd al-Ḳays belongs to a group of tribes once settled in the modern province of al-ʿĀriḍ, whence it advanced to the North-West as far as present-day Sudayr and to the South-East as far as al-Ḵh̲ard̲j̲. This group was later, in the genealogy of the Northern Arabs, given the name of Rabīʿa [ q.v.]. Already in the 5th century parts of this group detached themselves and started to nomadize partly within, partly beyond the arch of the Ṭuwayḳ. To the lat…

, ancient Arab tribe. The Ασατηνοι mentioned by Ptolemy VI, 7, § 22 (Sprenger, 206), and stated by him to have lived in central Arabia, to the west of the Θανουιται = Tanūk̲h̲ [ q.v.]. Like them, and perhaps with them, the Asad had emigrated to the Euphrates line before the middle of the 3rd century. They appear in the inscription on the grave of the second Lak̲h̲mid of Ḥīra (in al-Numāra, 328 A.D.), together with the Tanūk̲h̲, as al-Asadayn, "the two Asads". Here the dual a potiori may well have been chosen in order to erase, together with the name, the memory of the Tanūk̲h̲ rul…

, a large group of tribes in Western Central Arabia. It is mentioned first in a South Arabian inscription of Abraha in 547 or 544-45 (G. Ryckmans, No. 506, in Le Muséon , 1953; J. Ryckmans, ibid., 339-42; Caskel, Entdeckungen in Arabien , 1954, 27-31). Judging by that inscription and by the later area of the ʿĀmir, their original area began to the west of the Turaba oasis and extended towards the east, past Ranya, to the upland south of the Riyāḍ-Mecca road. Here it ended at about the 44th degree of longitude, but …

ancient Arabic group of tribes in Central, East, and (Later) Northern Arabia. The Bakr belonged to the same people—later known as Rabīʿa—as the ʿAbd al-Ḳays [ q.v.]. Their place in the tribal genealogy is three grades lower than that of these. The T̲h̲aʿlaba (b. ʿUkāba) are to be regarded ¶ as the core of the Bakr. Joshua Stylites (§ 57) mentions them under the year 503 as being the leading tribe of the northem Arabian Kinda Empire, and shortly afterwards they appear in a South Arabian inscription (Ryckmans 510, Le Muséon 1953). In the genealogy of Bakr, the T̲h…

, maymūn b. ḳays . Prominent ancient Arab poet of the tribe of Ḳays b. T̲h̲aʿlaba of the Bakr b. Wāʾil [ q.v.]. Born before 570 in Durnā, a place in the Manfūḥa oasis (south of Riyāḍ), died in the same place after 625. As his cognomen indicates, he suffered from an eye disease, and went completely blind whilst still in the prime of life. He set out in search of wealth in his youth. For years he travelled, probably as a merchant, and visited Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, Syria, southern Arabia, and Abyssinia in this wa…

, an old tribe in North-Western Arabia. The reports concerning their past (al-Ṭabarī, i, 685; Ag̲h̲ānī 2, xi, 155) are unworthy of belief. In the later geuealogic system the ʿĀmila are reckoned as belonging to the South-Arabian Kahlān [cf. d̲j̲ud̲h̲ām ]. At the time of the Muslim invasion we find them settled S. E. of the Dead Sea; they are mentioned among the Syro-Arabian tribes which joined Heraclius (al-Balād̲h̲urī, 59; al-Ṭabarī, i, 2347); but do not appear again in the history of the conquest. Shortly afterw…

, the Arabs. (See also al-ʿarab , d̲j̲azīrat , as well as ʿarabiyya and the articles on the several Arab countries). (i) the ancient history of the arabs (For the ethnic origins of the Arabs cf. al-ʿarab ( ḏj̲azīrat al- ), section on Ethnography, cf. also para ii, below). The early history of the Arabs is still obscure; their origin and the events governing their early years are equally unknown to us. Probably we would know a good deal more about them, if Uranius’ five books of ’Αραβικά, which constituted a special monograph on the Arabs, had …