Tribes of Arabia

The tribes of Arabia are the clans that originated in the Arabian Peninsula.

Much of the lineage provided before Ma'ad relies on biblical genealogy and therefore questions persist concerning the accuracy of this segment of Arab genealogy. The general consensus among 14th century Arabic genealogists is that Arabs are of three kinds:

Perishing Arabs (Arabic: العرب البائدة‎) are ancient tribes of whose history little is known. They include ‘Aad, Thamud, Tasm, Jadis, Imlaq and others. Jadis and Tasm perished because of genocide. 'Aad and Thamud perished because of their decadence, as recorded in the Qur'an. Archaeologists have recently uncovered inscriptions that contain references to 'Iram, which was a major city of the 'Aad. Imlaq is the singular form of 'Amaleeq and is probably synonymous to the biblical Amalek.

According to tradition, Pure Arabs (العرب العاربة) were from Yemen and were descendants of Ya‘rub bin Yashjub bin Qahtan. They were also called Qahtanite Arabs.

According to tradition, Arabized Arabs (العرب المستعربة) originated from the progeny of Ishmael the first born son of the patriarch Abraham and the Jurhum tribe, also called ‘Adnani Arabs. Muhammad was an Adnanite Arab.