Bakr ibn Wāʾil

A large-scale Arabian lineage group; sub-clans of the Bakr ibn Wāʾil lived between central Iraq's desert frontier and al-Yamāma in eastern Arabia at the dawn of Islam.

Bakr ibn Wāʾil connotes an array of pre-Islamic tribal groups claiming descent from an eponymous ancestor, Bakr. The genealogy of clan interrelation is complex, and the Bakr did not act as a unified entity in pre-Islam, however, the name 'Bakr' features in pre-Islamic poetry as a term for expressing some form of shared relationship between otherwise distinct clans. The Bakr's main groupings were the Thaʿlaba, Lujaym and Yashkur.

The Thaʿlaba are named in pre-Islamic inscriptions and the Syriac Chronicle of pseudo-Joshua the Stylite (written c. 506 CE) to refer to a militarised group in early sixth-century northeast Arabia involved in Sasanian/Byzantine frontier warfare. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, however, does not appear to summon the name 'Thaʿlaba' to connote a cohesive unity, rather poetry emphasises the main sub-clans, the Shaybān, Dhuhl and Qays, which suggests that the main clans of the Thaʿlaba perceived considerable autonomy, perhaps increasingly so from the mid-sixth century. The Lujaym sub-group of the Bakr constituted two clans, the Ḥanīfa and ʿIjl, the former, a powerful entity in al-Yamāma. The Yashkur are less prominent in historical records.

The pre-Islamic religions of the Bakr sub-groups are difficult to discern. There is lack of contemporary attestations, no early compilation of Bakr poetry is extant, and the main early account of Arabian idolatry by Ibn al-Kalbī, Kitāb al-Aṣnām, has no mention of Bakr clans. The most famed pre-Islamic Bakr-lineage poet, al-Aʿshā of the Shaybān, also does not mention idols by name in his poetry, though he makes one reference to sacrifices at betyl altars (anṣāb) (al-Aʿshā 307) (see Cult of stones), and mentions the shrine at Najrān (Kaʿbat Najrān), though not as a site specific to the Bakr (al-Aʿshā 222). A poetic reference to the Ḥanīfa worshiping an idol made of dates and butter (ḥays) which they allegedly ate in times of hardship (Ibn Qutayba 621) is quite possibly an exaggerated lampoon with little historical basis. References to specific idols associated with the Bakr occur only in later Muslim-era sources and are made in passing, usually as glosses of fragmentary poems, hence there is considerable obscurity. The idols include Awāl, reportedly worshiped by both Bakr and the Taghlib (al-Zabīdī 14:34), al-Muḥarriq (Yāqūt 5:61), and ʿAwḍ (apparently also worshiped by the ʿAnaza; see a poem in al-Zabīdī 6:522). Reference to the Bakr's circumambulation of the shrine of Dhū al-Kaʿabāt (or the "Kaʿba of Iyād") at Sindād (a river near al-Ḥīra) seems to derive solely from a variant reading of a problematic verse ascribed to the pre-Islamic poet al-Aswad ibn Yaʿfur (Dīwān 27); the location's function as a shrine is also doubted, see Ibn al-Kalbī 45; reports that the Bakr worshiped at Kaʿbat Shaddād (Kahhāla 1:98) are a misreading of this same verse. Also difficult to interpret are references to the Bakr's circumambulation about the shrine of Suʿayr, since the opinion is contradicted by Ibn al-Kalbī who ascribes Suʿayr only to the ʿAnaza tribe (Ibn al-Kalbī 41, see also al-Zabīdī 6:522). Some pre-Islamic Bakr clans were reportedly Christians (Kaḥḥāla 1:98).

In Muslim-era histories of pre-Islamic Arabia, the Bakr feature as chief protagonists in the al-Basūs War; the Shaybān and ʿIjl were the leaders of a victory over a joint-Sasanian-Arabian force at the Battle of Dhū Qār. During the Muslim conquest of Iraq, some Bakr groups allied with the Muslims, while others initially supported the Sasanians.

Peter Webb

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Al-Aʿshā, Maymūn ibn Qays, Dīwān. Ed. M. Ḥusayn. Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya, 1974.
• Al-Aswad ibn Yaʿfur, Dīwān. Ed. N.H. al-Qaysī. Baghdad: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa-l-Aʿlām, 1970.
• Ibn al-Kalbī, al-Aṣnām. Ed. A. Zakī Bāsha. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1924.
• Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif. Ed. T. ʿUkāsha. Cairo: al-Maʿārif, 1969.
• Trombley, Frank and John Watt (trans.), Chronicle of pseudo-Joshua the Stylite. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000.
• Al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs. Ed. A. Shīrī. 20 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1992.

Studies

• Donner, F. 1980. The Bakr b. Wāʾil tribes and politics in northeastern Arabia on the eve of Islam. Studia Islamica 51: 5–38.
• Kaḥḥāla, R. 1968. Muʿjam qabāʾil al-ʿarab. 5 vols. Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm lil-Malāyīn.
• Webb, P. s.v. Bakr b. Wāʾil. Encyclopaedia of Islam 3.

_{Alternate spellings: Bakr, Bakr ibn Wâʾil, Bakr ibn Wâ'il, Bakr ibn Waʾil}