User:Al Ameer son/Kalb

The Banu Kalb or Kalb ibn Wabara was an Arab tribe. Since the pre-Islamic era, their territory spanned much of northwestern Arabia, the Syrian Desert (Samawah), the Hawran plain, the Golan Heights and the Palmyrene steppe. One of their main centers was the desert city of Dumat al-Jandal. The Kalb became involved in the tribal affairs in the eastern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire since the 4th century and were likely the tribe of the Bedouin queen Mavia of southern Syria. By the 6th century, the Kalb had converted to Monophysite Christianity and were under the military authority of the Ghassanids, vassals of the Byzantines.

During the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a number of his close companions were Kalb tribesmen, such as Zayd ibn Harithah and Dihya al-Kalbi, but the bulk of the tribe remained Christian at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. The Kalb formed political and marital ties with the Umayyad family, and were the main source of military and political power during the reigns of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiyah I, Yazid I, Mu'awiyah II and Marwan I. It was during early Umayyad rule, that the Kalb became a chief belligerent in the long-running Qays–Yaman feud, being the leading tribe of the Yaman. By then, the Kalb were largely concentrated in the steppe around Hims and Palmyra, and were driven out of the Samawah by the Qays.

Origins

The Kalb were traditionally held to be from south Arabia, and thus considered "Yamani" i.e. from the historical region of Yemen. Kalb, whose name means "dog" in Arabic, was the tribe's progenitor. His father was a certain Wabara and his mother was known as Umm al-Asbuʿ because all of her children were named after wild animals. According to traditional Arab genealogy, Kalb was descended from the semi-legendary patriarch of the southern Arabs, Qahtan, via the Kalb's ancestral tribe, Quda'ah; the latter was a large confederation with numerous branches whose tribesmen lived as far north as Syria, possibly as early as the 4th century CE.

Pre-Islamic era

The Kalb were a Bedouin (nomadic) tribe well-known for camel raising. In the centuries prior to the advent of Islam (pre-7th century), the tribe's grazing grounds were in northwestern Arabia, and the vast desert steppe between Syria and Mesopotamia, known as Samāwa or Samāwat Kalb. That region essentially consisted of the larger, southern part of the Syrian Desert. The Kalb's principal centers in the region were the oases of the low-lying region formed by the Wadi Sirhan in the west and al-Jawf and in the east. The Kalb long dominated the al-Jawf prior to the Muslim conquest. The Kalb's tribal territory was bordered on the north by the powerful Tayy tribe, close allies of the Kalb, to the southeast, west and east were the tribes of Ghatafan, Annazah and Banu al-Qayn. The Kalb's domination of Wadi Sirhan and al-Jawf allowed for many of their tribesmen's migration northward into Syria. The Kalb may have arrived in Syria by the 4th century CE, though "precise and certain information on its role" in the region "in the fourth century is not available", according to historian Irfan Shahid. However, Shahid asserts that it was likely that Mavia, a warrior queen of Arab tribesmen in southern Syria, was a member of the Kalb, which in turn suggests that the Kalb were allies of the Tanukhids. The latter, like the Kalb, also traced their descent to Quda'ah. By then, the Kalb's encampments spanned the steppes between the Palmyrena and Tabuk in the northern Hejaz.

The Kalb's territory on the Limes Arabicus frontier straddled the Oriens, a collective term for the Byzantine Empire's eastern provinces. In Syria, they were settled in Palmyra, Salamiyah, the Ghuta and Mezzeh hinterlands of Damascus, the Golan Heights, Hawran plain and the hills of as-Suwayda, and to a lesser extent in the neighborhood of Homs, Aleppo, Hama and Manbij. In northern Arabia, they lived in Dumat al-Jandal, Tayma, al-Hirah and Fadak. The Kalb may have been the unnamed tribe that launched a massive invasion of Byzantine-held Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine and Egypt in 410, according to Shahid. Shahid argues that the Kalbid invasion was possibly related to the fall of the Kalb's Tanukhid allies and the latter's replacement as the Byzantine's main foederati with the Salihids, which also descended from the Quda'ah. In the closing years of the 5th century, tensions between the Kalb and the Salihids culminated in a day-long battle in which the Salihid phylarch, Dawud, was killed by Tha'laba ibn Amir of Kalb and his ally Mu'awiya ibn Hujayr of Namir in the Golan region. It is not clear if the conflict between the Tha'laba ibn Amir and Dawud was a personal feud or part of a tribal conflict between the Kalb and the Salihids.

Though the Kalb's role in 5th-century Arab tribal politics in the Byzantine Empire is clear, contemporary sources do not indicate how early the Kalb made contact with the Byzantines. By the early 6th century, the Salihids were supplanted by the Ghassanids as the supreme phylarchs of the Arab tribes in Byzantine territory. Like the Ghassanids, the Kalb embraced Monophysite Christianity. The Kalb were put under the Ghassanids' authority and were charged with guarding the Byzantine eastern frontier against Sassanian Persia and the latter's Arab vassals in al-Hirah, the Lakhmids. As a result of their firm incorporation in the Byzantine foederati system, the Kalb "became accustomed to military discipline and to law and order", according to historian Johann Fück.

The most well-known early chieftain of the Kalb was Zuhayr ibn Janab al-Kalbi, who wielded significant influence among the Bedouin tribes of northern Arabia. On behalf of Abraha, the mid-6th-century Ethiopian viceroy of south Arabia, Zuhayr led an expedition against the north Arabian tribes of Taghlib and Bakr. In the mid-6th century, the Kalb led by Zuhayr fought against the Banu Baghid clan of the Ghatafan tribe over the latter's construction of a haram (sacred place) at a place called "Buss"; the Ghatafan's haram emulated the Ka'aba of Mecca, at the time a widely-honored edifice containing pagan Arabian idols, which offended the powerful tribes of the area, including the Kalb. Zuhayr decisively defeated the Ghatafan and had their haram destroyed.

Islamic era

Early Muslim campaigns

During the early years of Islam's advent in Arabia, a number of individual Kalbid tribesmen in Mecca converted to the religion, including Zayd ibn Harithah, the son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and Dihyah al-Kalbi, Muhammad's emissary to the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius. According to historian Fred Donner, while there are well-known individual connverts to Islam among the Kalb, there are scarce details that mention contacts between Muhammad and the Kalb tribe in general. As foederati of the Byzantines, the Kalb fought against Muslim advances in northern Arabia and Syria. The first confrontation was the 626/27 expedition against |Dumat al-Jandal in which the Muslims led by Iyad ibn Ghanm defeated the Kalb. In general, the Muslim accounts agree that after the battle, the Christian Kalb tribesmen of Dumat al-Jandal led by al-Asbagh ibn Amr, converted to Islam and made an alliance with the Muhammad. However Donner writes that the Muslim accounts regarding the Dumat al-Jandal expeditions and the alliance with its ruler "have been criticized as unreliable". It is apparent, however, there were contacts between Muhammad and some clans of the Kalb. Moreover, at least part of the Kalb of the Syrian steppe came under a Muslim agent during the campaign against Dhat al-Salasil in southern Mesopotamia. Nonetheless, the majority of the Kalb remained outside the emerging Muslim state's authority at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. Kalbid tribesmen who may have embraced Islam do not appear to have participated in the Muslim conquest of Syria. During the conquest, in 634, the Kalb were among the Arab Christian tribes that were defeated by Khalid ibn al-Walid at Ziza in Transjordan during the caliphate of Abu Bakr.

Umayyad era

The Muslim conquest of Syria was concluded by 638; by then the Kalb inhabited steppes north of Damascus around Homs and Palmyra and were the leaders and most powerful component of the Quda'ah tribal confederation. The Kalb had relations with the Umayyad clan of Quraysh since the reign of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), who married a Kalbid woman, Na'ilah bint al-Farafisah, with whom he had a daughter, Maryam (Umm al-Banin). During the conflict between Mu'awiyah, the Muslim governor of Syria from the Umayyad clan and Caliph Ali (r. 656–661), the Kalb provided critical support for Mu'awiyah. The latter married two Kalbid women, including Maysun, the daughter of Bahdal ibn Unayf, the Kalb's preeminent chieftain, who remained Christian until his death sometime before 657. Bahdal's sons and grandsons served as commanders on the Umayyad side during the 657 Battle of Siffin against Ali's partisans. Ali was ultimately defeated and Mu'awiyah came to rely on the Kalb, one of the principal sources of military power in Syria, for maintaining his foothold in Syria. With this, the Kalb specifically, and the Yamani tribal coalition in general, became the most influential group during the Sufyanid period (661–684) of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Mu'awiyah's son and successor, Yazid I (r. 680–683), who was born to Maysun, also married a Kalbid woman. The accession of Yazid's son Mu'awiyah II (r. 683–684) was largely due to the machinations of of the Kalbid chieftain, Hassan ibn Malik ibn Bahdal. However, Mu'awiyah II soon after died, leaving the caliphate in political disarray. Ibn Bahdal favored anointing one of Yazid's young sons to succeed Mu'awiyah, while the governor of Kufa, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, favored an Umayyad from a different branch of the ruling family, Marwan ibn al-Hakam. Meanwhile, the rebel Abdullah ibn Zubayr from Hejaz challenged Umayyad leadership of the caliphate and was gaining support in Syria. Dedicated to preserving the political and economy privileges the Kalb acquired under the Sufyanids, Ibn Bahdal firmly backed continued Umayyad rule. Ibn Bahdal threw his support behind Marwan, while al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Fihri, a chieftain of the Yaman coalition's Qaysi rivals, backed Ibn Zubayr. Ibn Bahdal mobilized the Kalb and their Yamani partners and fought the Qays in the decisive Battle of Marj Rahit in August 684, during which the Qays were routed and al-Dahhak was killed. In the battle's aftermath, the Qays–Yaman feud intensified, while Marwan became completely dependent on the Yaman to maintain his rule; just prior to Marj Rahit, Marwan agreed to the Kalb's conditions, including that 2,000 of their chiefs would receive an annual salary of 2,000 silver dirhams in return for military service which would be transferred to their heirs in case of death, and that the tribe would be given precedence in Marwan's court and be consulted for all major government decisions.

Qaysi revenge against the Kalb and Umayyads took place during the 686 Battle of al-Khazir, during which the Qaysi general, Umayr ibn al-Hubab of Sulaym abandoned the Umayyad army to defeat against the Zubayrids. Umayr took refuge with the Qaysi chief Zufar ibn al-Harith of Kilab in al-Qarqisiyah, and afterward series of raids and counter-raids took place between the Kalb and the Qays. The Kalb led by Humayd ibn Hurayth ibn Bahdal were frequently attacked by the Qays at their dwelling places in the Samawah desert. Despite making retaliatory raids, the Kalb of Samawah were forced to flee for the Jordan Valley. Humayd attacked the Qays in Upper Mesopotamia, but was ultimately defeated during the battle of Banat Qayn, the last of the major Qaysi–Yamani day-long clashes (ayyam).

Bibliography

• Donner, Fred McGraw (1981). The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Homoud, Mohammad Ali Nasir (1994). Diplomacy in Islam: Diplomacy During the Period of Prophet Muhammed. Printwell.
• Ibn 'Abd Rabbih (2011). Boullata, Emeritus Issa J. (ed.). The Unique Necklace, Volume III. Reading: Garnet Publishing Limited & Southern Court. pp. 294–295.
• Humphreys, R. Stephen (1990). The History of al-Tabari Vol. 15: The Crisis of the Early Caliphate: The Reign of 'Uthman A.D. 644-656/A.H. 24-35. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0154-5.</ref>
• Landau-Tasseron, Ella (1998). Yar-Shater, Ehsan (ed.). The History of al-Tabari, Volume 39: Biographies of the Prophet's Companions and their Successors. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-2819-2.
• Bosworth, C. E. (1999). Yar-Shater, Ehsan (ed.). History of al-Tabari Vol. 5, The: The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-4355-8.
• Shahid, Irfan (1986). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-116-5.
• Shahid, Irfan (1989). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-152-1.
• Shahid, Irfan (1995). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 1, Part 1: Political and Military History. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 0-88402-214-5.