al-Bayan wal-Irab Amma bi-Ard Misr min al-Arab
- Author died
- 845 AH
- Editions
- Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (German orientalist)
al-Bayan wal-Iʿrab ʿAmma bi-Ard Misr min al-Aʿrab (The Clarification and Exposition Regarding the Bedouin Tribes in the Land of Egypt) is a concise genealogical treatise written in 841 AH (1437 CE) by the Egyptian historian Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (d. 845 AH / 1441 CE), detailing the Arab tribes settled in Egypt and their historical settlements .
Subject and Content
Al-Maqrizi composed the treatise as a brief survey of the Arab tribes residing in Egypt, recording their clans, sub-tribes, branches, and properties . In the opening of the text, he states that the majority of the original Arabs who participated in the early Islamic conquest of Egypt had perished over time and most of their lineages were forgotten, though various remnants remained in the country down to his era .
The text documents sixteen tribes present in Egypt: Thaʿlaba, Jarm, Sunays, Judham, Banu Hilal, Bali, Juhayna, Quraysh, Kinana, al-Ansar, ʿAwf, Fazara, Lawata, Lakhm, Haram, and Banu Sulaym . It traces their migrations from the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt and details their local distribution across various Egyptian provinces from north to south .
Structure and Organization
The work was not organized alphabetically, nor was it arranged systematically by genealogical divisions (Adnanite and Qahtanite) or geographic dwelling places; instead, it has the character of rapidly compiled notes written without a rigid structural arrangement .
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscript copies of the treatise are preserved in several libraries, including the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya), Cambridge University Library, the Nuruosmaniye Library, Leiden University Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, and the Austrian National Library in Vienna .
The work has been published in multiple editions:
- An early European edition edited by Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld in Germany (1847) .
- A Cairo edition published by Ibrahim Ramzi in 1334 AH (1916 CE) .
- A critical edition prepared by Abd al-Hamid Abidin, accompanied by a study on the history of Arab settlement in the Nile Valley, published in Cairo in 1961 .
Answer updated