Qays

The full name of the tribal confederation is Qays ʿAylān or Qays ibn ʿAylān, though it is most frequently referred to simply as Qays; occasionally in Arabic poetry, it is referred to solely as ʿAylān. Members of the Qays are referred to as al-Qaysĭyūn (sing. Qaysī), transliterated in English-language sources as "Qaysites" or "Kaisites". As descendants of Mudar, the Qays are considered Adnanites or "North Arabians"; By the dawn of Islam in the mid-7th century, the descendants of Qays were so numerous and so significant a group that the term Qaysī came to refer all North Arabians. ==Branches==

The Qays consisted of several branches, which were divided into further sub-tribes. The first-tier divisions, i.e. the sons of Qays, were Khasafa, Sa'd and Amr. Khasafa From Khasafa descended the large tribes of Hawazin and Banu Sulaym, both of whose founders were sons of Mansur ibn Ikrima ibn Khasafa, and the Banu Muharib, whose founder was the son of Ziyad ibn Khasafa. Among them were the Banu Amir, whose progenitor was Amir ibn Sa'sa' ibn Mu'awiya ibn Bakr ibn Hawazin, and the Thaqif, However, references to the Hawazin often excluded the Banu Amir and Thaqif, and were limited to the so-called ʿujz Hawāzin (the rear of Hawazin). Sa'd Sa'd's sons A'sur and Ghatafan each bore several sub-tribes. The largest sub-tribes of A'sur were the Banu Ghani, whose founder was a son of A'sur, and the Banu al-Tufawa, which consisted of the descendants of three other sons of A'sur, Tha'laba, Amir and Mu'awiya, who were half-brothers of Ghani; they were collectively called after their mother, al-Tufawa. The Bahila was the other large sub-tribe of A'sur, and its founders were the sons of a certain Bahila, who, at different times was the wife of two of A'sur's sons, Malik and Ma'n; there were many clans of the Bahila, the largest being the Banu Qutayba and Banu Wa'il. The largest sub-tribes of the Ghatafan were the Banu Dhubyan and Banu Abs, both of whose founders were sons of Baghid ibn Rayth ibn Ghatafan, and the Banu Ashja', whose founder was a son of Rayth ibn Ghatafan. From Banu Dhubyan came the Fazara, whose founder was a son of Dhubyan, and the Banu Murra, whose founder was a son of 'Awf ibn Sa'd ibn Dhubyan. Amr The two main sub-tribes of the Amr branch were the banu Adwan and banu Fahm, both founded by sons of Amr. ==Geographic distribution==

According to Arab legend, the original homeland of the Qaysi tribes was in the low-lying areas of the Tihamah along the Hejaz (western Arabia). By Muhammad's time (ca. 570 CE), the numerous branches of the Qays had spread to the areas southeast and northeast of Mecca, the region of Medina, other areas in the Hejaz, the highlands of the Najd and the Yamama (both in central Arabia), Bahrayn (eastern Arabia), and parts of Lower Mesopotamia where the Lakhmids ruled. However, they also had a presence around Homs, Damascus, the Ghouta and Hawran plains, the Golan Heights, Palestine, Transjordan (al-Balqa), and in the cities of Kufa and Basra. By the 14th century, only remnants of the Qaysi tribes still lived in their central Arabian ancestral lands. Huge numbers of Qaysi tribesmen had made their dwelling places throughout North Africa in a series of migratory waves. Among them were the Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya (central North Africa) and Fes, the Adwan in Ifriqiya, the Fazara and Banu Rawah in Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan, the Banu Ashja' in Algeria and Morocco, the Banu Hilal (a sub-tribe of the Banu Amir) in Ifriqiya, Constantine and Annaba and the Banu Jusham in Morocco. ==History==

Pre-Islamic period According to A. Fischer, the recorded history of Qays, like most Arabian tribes, begins with their engagements in the pre-Islamic Ayyām al-ʿArab (battle days of the Arabs), which Fischer refers to as the "epic of the Arabs". Accordingly, the Qays did not function as a unit in the pre-Islamic era. The Ghatafan and Sulaym, in particular, were in conflict with the Muslims in Medina in between 622 and 629. Qaysi tribesmen largely fought on the side of Ali against his rivals within Quraysh at the Battle of the Camel in 656 and against Mu'awiya in the Battle of Siffin in 657, respectively. Umayr also entangled the Qays against the Taghlib, and the two sides fought several battles near the Khabur, Balikh and Tigris rivers. Umayr was killed by the Taghlib in 689 and Zufar submitted to Umayyad authority under Caliph Abd al-Malik in 691 in return for a high place in the Umayyad court. The Qays were strong partisans of the powerful Umayyad governors al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf of Thaqif and Qutayba ibn Muslim of Bahila. The Qays dominated the Umayyad government during the reigns of Yazid II and Walid II. As a result, the Yaman revolted against and killed Walid II, who was then replaced by Yazid III, who entirely depended on the Yaman. The Qays found a new patron in the Umayyad prince Marwan II, who wrested the Caliphate from Yazid III and relocated the Umayyad capital from Damascus to Harran in Qaysi territory. The Qays were Marwan's principal military source in the Battle of the Zab in 750, in which Marwan was killed; shortly after, the Umayyad realm entirely fell to the Abbasid Caliphate. The Qays were not able to recover from the huge losses they suffered during the late Umayyad period, and their political role, though present, was not of significant consequence during the ensuing Abbasid era. ==References==