Rabi'a ibn Nizar

Overview

Rabi'a is one of the four great tribes descended from the sons of Nizar ibn Ma'add ibn Adnan: Iyad, Anmar, Rabi'a and Mudar. Mudar and Rabi'a are the two whose branches multiplied and whose clans widened. ² ³

Branches of Rabi'a

From Rabi'a came Asad ibn Rabi'a, Anaza, Abd al-Qays, the two sons of Wa'il Bakr and Taghlib, and Hanifa and others. ²

Dwellings

Abd al-Qays and branches of Bakr ibn Wa'il migrated to Bahrain, and Banu Hanifa went out to al-Yamama. The rest of Bakr settled from al-Yamama to Bahrain, to Kazima and then the edges of the Iraqi plain, and Taghlib settled in the Euphrates region of the Jazira. ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ The book also says that in the accounts of al-Hira, the rule of Judhayma al-Wadah in the days of Ardashir was over al-Hira and all who were in the Iraqi and Jazira desert from Rabi'a and Mudar. ⁷

Not covered here

The story of the division of Nizar's inheritance among his sons, and the judgement of the Jurhumi serpent that al-Mas'udi relates, are not in The Sealed Nectar. See the summary in this entry's data.

For young visitors

Rabi'a is a large branch of the Adnanite tribes. Most of its branches lived in the east of the Peninsula, as far as Iraq.

Sources

Muruj al-Dhahab — al-Masʼudi , p. 431-434

al-Raheeq al-Makhtum — Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri , p.20

Muhadarat Tarikh al-Umam al-Islamiyya — Muhammad al-Khudari , 1/14-15

al-Raheeq al-Makhtum — Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri , p.21

al-Raheeq al-Makhtum — Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri , p.22

Muhadarat Tarikh al-Umam al-Islamiyya — Muhammad al-Khudari , 1/15-16

al-Raheeq al-Makhtum — Safi al-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri , p.26

The War of al-Basus

The Basus war, the longest and most storied of the Arabs' days: when the mare-camel Sarab strayed into Kulayb's forbidden spring pasture he shot her udder as threatened, and al-Basus's cry of shame — 'wa-dhalah!' — told her nephew Jasas ibn Murra that honour demanded blood; he speared Kulayb ibn Rabi'a, the Taghlibi lord under whom all Ma'add had united, and Kulayb's brother al-Muhalhil spent forty years exacting the feud between Bakr and Taghlib.

At a glance