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Banu Kalb

The Banu Kalb (Arabic: بنو كلب, romanizedBanū Kalb) was an Arab tribe which mainly dwelt in the desert and steppe of northwestern Arabia and central Syria. It was involved in the tribal politics of the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontiers, possibly as early as the 4th century. By the 6th century, the Kalb had largely adopted Christianity and came under the authority of the Ghassanids, leaders of the Byzantines' Arab allies. During the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a few of his close companions were Kalbites, most prominently Zayd ibn Haritha and Dihya, but the bulk of the tribe remained Christian at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. They began converting in large numbers when the Muslims made significant progress in the conquest of Byzantine Syria, in which the Kalb stayed neutral. As a massive nomadic tribe with considerable military experience, the Kalb was sought as a key ally by the Muslim state. The leading clans of the Kalb forged marital ties with the Umayyad family, and the tribe became the military foundation of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) from the reign of Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) to the early reign of Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705).

This article is about the medieval Arab tribe. For the Alawite tribe of modern Syria, sometimes also known as Banu Kalb, see Kalbiyya. For other uses, see KALB.

Banu Kalb

Kalbī

The northern Hejaz, Al-Jawf, Wadi Sirhan, the southern Syrian Desert, Palmyra, the Damascus area, Homs, the Golan Heights and the northern Jordan Valley

Kalb ibn Wabara

  • Abdallah ibn Kinana
    • Janab
      • Haritha ibn Janab
      • Ulaym
      • Ullays
      • Hisn ibn Damdam
        • Asbagh
    • Amir al-Akbar
  • Kinana ibn Awf
    • Awf ibn Kinana
      • Abd Wadd
      • Amir al-Aghdar
  • Wahballat
  • Taymallat

Miaphysite Christianity (up to late 7th century)
Islam (after 630s)

During the Second Muslim Civil War, the Kalb routed its main rival, the Qays, in the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684, inaugurating a long-running blood feud, in which the Qays eventually gained the advantage. In the resulting tribal factionalism which came to dominate Umayyad politics, the Kalb became a leading component of the Yaman faction against the Qays. The Kalb lost its political influence under the pro-Qaysite caliph Marwan II (r. 744–750), a situation which continued under the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). From its footholds in the Ghouta and Palmyra oases, the tribe revolted against the Abbasids on several occasions in the 8th–10th centuries, at first in support of Umayyad claimants to the caliphate and later as key troops of the Qarmatians, whose suppression contributed to the Kalb's political isolation. The Kalb remained among the three largest tribes of Syria at the start of Fatimid rule in the late 10th century, but due to its increasing sedentarism, it was disadvantaged to the more numerous and nomadic Tayy and Kilab tribes. The Kalb's relative weakness encouraged its close alliance with the Fatimids over the next century. This was occasionally interrupted, most notably when the Kalb joined the Tayy and Kilab in a rebellion to split Syria among themselves in 1024–1025, during which the Kalb failed to capture Damascus. The Kalb continued transitioning to a settled existence into the 12th century, after which the tribe no longer appears in the historical record.


Before Islam, the Kalb dominated the regions of al-Jawf and Wadi Sirhan, as well as the Samawa, the great desert expanse between Syria and Iraq. After the Muslim conquest, the tribe expanded its presence into Syria proper, taking the dominant position in the Golan Heights, the northern Jordan Valley, the Damascus area, and in and around Homs and Palmyra. As Fatimid rule progressed in the 11th century, the tribe's main concentration between Damascus and Palmyra shifted to the settled areas between Damascus, the Hauran, and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.

Pre-Islamic era[edit]

Relations with the Byzantines[edit]

Kalbite tribesmen may have arrived in Syria by the 4th century, though precise information about the tribe at that time is unavailable.[20] The historian Irfan Shahîd speculates Mawiyya, a warrior queen of Arab tribesmen in southern Syria, likely belonged to the Kalb.[21] This would indicate that the Kalb was an ally of Mawiyya's principal force, the Tanukhids.[20] The latter, like the Kalb, also traced their descent to the Quda'a tribal confederation.[22]


The Kalb's territory on the Byzantine Empire's Limes Arabicus frontier straddled the Oriens, a collective term for the empire's eastern provinces. 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 Shahîd. He posits that the invasion was related to the fall of the Kalb's Tanukhid allies and the latter's replacement as the Byzantine's main foederati by the Salihids,[23] who also descended from Quda'a.[24] In the closing years of the 5th century,[25] tensions between the Kalb and the Salihids culminated in a battle in which the Salihid phylarch, Dawud, was killed by Tha'laba ibn Amir of the Kalb and his ally Mu'awiya ibn Hujayr of the Namir, the Kalb's brother tribe, in the Golan.[26] It is not clear if the conflict between Tha'laba ibn Amir and Dawud was a personal feud or part of a tribal conflict between the Kalb and the Salihids.[27]


Although 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.[28] 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.[1][29] The Kalb was put under the Ghassanids' authority and, like other allied tribes, was charged with guarding the Byzantines' eastern frontier against Sassanian Persia and the latter's Arab vassals in al-Hira, 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 the historian Johann Fück.[1]

Activities in Arabia[edit]

There is scant record of the Kalb's activities in the so-called ayyam literature, the collections of pre-Islamic poems which serve as a source of history for the tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia, especially the battles and raids they were involved in. An exception is the Day of Ura'ir, where a Kalbite chief, Masad ibn Hisn ibn Masad, was slain by the Banu Abs. The Kalbite historical tradition formulated in 9th-century Kufa mentions five pre-Islamic confrontations involving the Kalb. The three major ones were the Day of Nuhada, fought between Abdallah ibn Kinana and Kinana ibn Awf around 570, the Day of Kahatin, and the Day of Siya'if between the Kalb and the Sasanian-allied Taghlib around the time of the Battle of Dhi Qar between the Sasanians and a coalition of Arab tribes. The two minor clashes were the Day of Ulaha against the Taghlib and the Day of Rahba against the Asad tribe.[16]


The best-known pre-Islamic chief of the Kalb was Zuhayr ibn Janab, who wielded significant influence among the Bedouins of northern Arabia.[1] On behalf of Abraha, the mid-6th-century Aksumite ruler of South Arabia, Zuhayr led an expedition against the north Arabian tribes of Taghlib and Bakr.[1] In the mid-6th century, the Kalb under Zuhayr fought 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.[30]

Islamic era[edit]

Interactions with Muhammad[edit]

Although the Ghassanids were the preeminent Arab tribal group of Byzantine Syria and presided over the Arab confederate tribes of Byzantium in the Syrian steppe throughout the 6th century, their influence began to wane in the 580s. They lost their powerful position and much of their prestige when the Sasanian Persians conquered Byzantine Syria in 613–614. The Byzantines recaptured the region in 628, but the Ghassanids remained weakened, divided into multiple subgroups, each headed by a different chief. The Kalb, though allied with the Ghassanids, had begun pushing into their territory within the Byzantine Empire's boundaries during the years of the Ghassanids' waning influence. From the days of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, in the 620s, the Muslims had attempted to ally with the Ghassanids, but without success. According to the historian Khalil Athamina, "the Muslims were therefore compelled to seek another ally in the area", the Kalb, "whose importance was rising".[31]


A few individual Kalbite tribesmen in Mecca converted to Islam, including Zayd ibn Haritha and Dihya al-Kalbi, Muhammad's purported emissary to the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius.[1] According to the historian Fred Donner, while there were notable converts among the Kalb, there are scarce details about contacts between Muhammad and the Kalb in general.[32] As Byzantine foederati, the Kalb fought against Muslim advances in northern Arabia and Syria. The first confrontation was the 627/628 expedition against Dumat al-Jandal, in which the prominent companion of Muhammad, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, succeeded in converting the Christian chief of the Kalb there, al-Asbagh ibn Amr, to Islam. The pact between at least part of the Kalb, under al-Asbagh, and Muhammad was the first major step in the future alliance between the tribe and the Muslim state.[33] The pact was sealed by the marriage of Abd al-Rahman to al-Asbagh's daughter, Tumadir, which represented the first marital link between the Kalb and the Quraysh, the tribe of Muhammad and Abd al-Rahman.[34][b]


Most of the Kalb probably remained Christian, despite the pact with al-Asbagh.[5] Part of the tribe came under a Muslim agent, al-Asbagh's son Imru al-Qays, during the campaign against pro-Byzantine Arab tribes at Dhat al-Salasil in northwestern Arabia.[36] After Zayd ibn Haritha was slain during a campaign against the Byzantines and their Arab allies at the Battle of Mu'ta in 629, Muhammad appointed Zayd's son, Usama, to head a retaliatory expedition to Syria, which did not launch until soon after Muhammad's death in 632. Usama may have been chosen for the campaign because of his Kalbite descent.[37] The majority of the Kalb remained outside the emerging Muslim state's authority at the time of Muhammad's death.[36] While al-Asbagh remained loyal to the Medina-based Muslim state during the subsequent Ridda wars,[33] when most Arab tribes broke off their allegiance, another faction of the Kalb in Dumat al-Jandal, under the chief Wadi'a, rebelled,[38] but was suppressed.[39]

Neutrality in the Muslim conquest of Syria[edit]

The Ridda wars were largely concluded by 633 and the caliph (successor of Muhammad as leader of the Muslims) Abu Bakr launched the Muslim conquest of Byzantine Syria in late 633 or early 634. Despite their historical ties with Byzantium, Kalbite tribesmen remained largely neutral during the conquest.[33] At least some Kalbites fought in the ranks of the Arab Christian tribes against Muslim forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid at Ziza in Transjordan in 634.[40][41] While Fück notes that individual Kalbite Muslims did not participate in the conquest,[1] Athamina holds that "there are clear hints that one or more groups" of Kalbite tribesmen fought in the Muslim ranks from the initial phases of the invasion.[33] A Kalbite, Alqama ibn Wa'il, was entrusted with distributing the spoils of the decisive Muslim victory against the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies at the Battle of Yarmouk, a particularly high-stakes assignment due to the Muslim army's composition of diverse and competing groups of Arab tribes.[33] The greater part of the Kalb did not participate in that battle, whether to avoid entanglement with either side or because of the distance of its territory from the battle site, in the northern Jordan Valley region. The conversion of much of the tribe to Islam probably occurred after this battle,[5] which shattered the Byzantine army in Syria and drove on the Muslim conquest of the region.[42]


The conquest was largely concluded by 638; by then, the Kalb dominated the steppes around Homs and Palmyra and was the leading and most powerful component of the Quda'a tribal confederation.[43] In Athamina's opinion, the Muslim state's need to establish a defense network out of the militarily experienced, formerly Byzantine-allied Arab tribes of Syria drove it to strengthen ties with the Kalb, as well as with the old-established Judham and Lakhm tribes in the southern Syrian steppe. This need was pressing for the Muslims as they lacked a standing army and their tribal forces from Arabia had to be deployed to different fronts. In the mid-to-late 630s, Caliph Umar dismissed the Muslims' supreme commander in Syria, Khalid ibn al-Walid, and reassigned his forces, derived largely from the Mudar and Rabi'a tribal groups of Arabia, to the Sasanian front in Iraq. Athamina attributes this decision to the Kalb's probable opposition to the significant numbers of outside tribal soldiers and their families in Khalid's army, which the Kalb and its tribal neighbors deemed a threat to their socio-economic interests and power in Syria.[44]

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