Banu Bakr
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Banu Bakr ibn Wa'il or Banu Bakr, son of Wa'il (Arabic: بنو بكر بن وائل banū bakr ibn wā'il) were an Arabian tribe belonging to the large Rabi'ah branch of Adnanite tribes, which also included 'Anizzah, Taghlib, and Bani Hanifa. The tribe is reputed to have engaged in a 40-year war before Islam with its cousins from Taghlib, known as the War of Basous. The pre-Islamic poet, Tarafah was a member of Bakr.
Bakr's original lands were in Nejd, in central Arabia, but most of the tribe's bedouin sections migrated northwards immediately before Islam, and settled in the area of Al-Jazirah, on the upper Euphrates. The city of Diyarbakir in southern Turkey takes its name from this tribe.
The following are some of the sub-tribes of Bakr ibn Wa'il in the pre-Islamic and early-Islamic eras:
- Banu Shayban - mostly nomadic (bedouin), led the Battle of Dhi Qar against the Sassanid Persians in southern Iraq prior to Islam. The jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal claimed descent from this tribe.
- Banu Hanifa - mostly sedentary, were the principal tribe of al-Yamama (the region around modern-day Riyadh).
- Qays ibn Tha'labah - bedouin and sedentary, were the inhabitants of the town of Manfuha (now part of Riyadh). The pre-Islamic poets al-A'sha and Tarafah were among its members.
- Banu 'Ijl - mostly bedouin, located in al-Yamama and the southern borders of Mesopotamia.
- Banu Yashkur - bedouin and sedentary, inhabitants of al-Yamama. Al-Harith ibn Hillizah, one of the purported authors of the Seven Hanged Poems of pre-Islamic Arabia, was a member of Yashkur.
Most of the bedouins of Bakr in al-Yamama joined the rest of the tribe in Mesopotamia after the appearance of Islam, where they merged with the tribe of 'Anizzah. However, some inhabitants of al-Yamama continued to trace their descent from Bakr through Bani Hanifa up to the modern era, particularly in Riyadh.
The tribe is distinct from the tribe of Bani Bakr ibn Abd Manat, who lived in the Hejaz and had important interactions with Muhammad.
