Banu Sulaym
Banu Sulaym بنو سُليم | |
---|---|
Qaysite Arab tribe | |
Ethnicity | Arab |
Nisba | al-Sulami السُّلَمي |
Location | Hejaz, Maghreb |
Descended from | Sulaym ibn Maṇṣūr |
Religion | Paganism, later Islam |
The Banu Sulaym (
Origins and branches
According to
- Imru' al-Qays was the strongest Sulaymi division.[1] It was subdivided into the branches of Khufaf, Awf and Bahz.[1] The Khufaf included the clans of 'Usayya (whose preeminent family was the Sharid), Nasira, 'Amira and Malik.[1] The Awf's clans were Sammal and Malik, with the latter including the families of Ri'l, Matrud and Kunfudh.[1]
- The Harith division's branches were the Mu'awiyah, Zafar, Rifa'a, Ka'b and 'Abs.[1] The Zafar were partially incorporated into the tribe of Banu Aws.[1] The Rifa'a branch included the clan of 'Abs ibn Rifa'a, which bore the princely Jariya family.[1]
- Tha'laba consisted of two divisions: they were the Malik, which later separated from the Sulaym, entered into the protection of the Banu Uqayl and became known as the Bajila after their mother. The other branch of Tha'laba was the prominent Dhakwan.[1] The latter were close allies of the Quraysh of Mecca and frequently intermarried with the tribe.[1]
Location
In the pre-Islamic era, i.e. prior to the 610s, and in the early Islamic era, the Sulaym inhabited the northern Hejaz, with the Harrah volcanic field forming the heart of their territory.[1] The latter was formerly named Ḥarrat Banī Sulaym after the tribe.[1] It was an ideal defensive region as enemy horsemen could not manage its terrain or enter its eastern and western slopes, where the Sulaym had their ḥimās (protected pastures).[1] The Imru' al-Qays division largely inhabited the Harrah's eastern slopes, where the division's Bahz branch owned lucrative gold mines.[1] The Harith were mostly concentrated in the western slopes of the Harrah, though members of its Mu'awiyah branch inhabited the city of Yathrib (Medina) prior to the arrival of the Arab Jewish tribes of Banu Aws and Banu Khazraj.[1] In time, the Mu'awiyah branch converted to Judaism. Some tribesmen of the Tha'laba branch lived in Mecca and Medina as well.[1]
After the Muslim conquests of the 630s, most Sulaymi tribesmen migrated to
History
Pre-Islamic era
From their homeland in the Hejaz, the Sulaym maintained close relations with other Qaysi tribes, particularly the
The Sulaym were involved in number of faraway expeditions into Yemen and southwestern Arabia, including a raid led by the chief al-Abbas ibn Mirdas against the tribes of Zubayd and Quda'a, and another against the Kinda and Quda'a in Saada during which al-Abbas's brother was killed.[1] According to the historian Michael Lecker, the Sulaym's involvement in the Yemen expeditions was likely linked to their joint role with the Hawazin in escorting caravans from al-Hira, in modern Iraq, to Yemen and the Hejaz.[1]
Early Islamic era
Muhammad's time
During
Rashidun and Umayyad periods
Most of the Sulaym defected from Islam during the
As members of the Qays, the Sulaym defected from the Umayyads and recognized
Abbasid and Fatimid periods
The Sulaym in Arabia rebelled against the
Establishment in the Maghreb
Medieval Muslim chroniclers report that in 1050 or 1051, the Sulaym and Hilal nomads were dispatched or encouraged to migrate to and take over Ifriqiya (central North Africa) by the Fatimids to punish that region's Zirid rulers for switching allegiance to the rival Abbasid Caliphate.[4] However, Baadj urges that such reports "ought to [be] treat[ed] with skepticism" as the Fatimid state at the time was undergoing the a great crisis, marked by a long famine and severe political instability.[5] Thus, the Fatimids were not in a position to coerce the two Bedouin tribes to invade the Zirid realm; rather, the poor conditions in Egypt, namely the threat of starvation, motivated the Sulaym and Hilal to migrate westward into the Maghreb (greater western North Africa).[5] The migration occurred in a single large wave or in multiple waves, but in any case, the Sulaym established themselves in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, while the Hilal continued on to Zirid-held Ifriqiya.[5]
By the mid-12th century, the Sulaym drove the Hilal from Ifriqiya and forced them to move west and south.
References
Bibliography
- Baadj, Amar S. (2015). Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya: The Contest for North Africa (12th and 13th centuries). Leiden and Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-29620-6.
- Lecker, M. (1997). "Sulaym". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P.; Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. IX, San–Sze (new ed.). Leiden and New York: Brill. pp. 817–818. ISBN 90-04-10422-4.
- Obeidi, Amal S. M. (2001). Political Culture in Libya. Richmond, Surrey: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-7007-1229-1.