Ḥārit̲h̲a ibn Muzaikiya

Inhabited Mar al-Zahran

K̲h̲uzāʿa b. ʿAmr, name of a South-Arabian tribe, a branch of the large tribe of Azd. The genealogists with few exceptions are unanimous in tracing their pedigree through ʿAmr, surnamed Luḥaiy, b. Rabīʿa b. Ḥārit̲h̲a b. Muzaikiya and they agree further that they, together with the other branches of the Azd, left South Arabia at a remote time and wandered with them to the North. When they reached the territory of Mekka, most of their kinsmen continued their journey, the G̲h̲assān to Syria, Azd S̲h̲anūʿa to ʿOmān, but Luḥaiy remained with his clan near Mekka and thus separated (ink̲h̲azaʿa) from the remainder of the tribe. The city of Mekka and the sacred territory was at that time in the hands of the tribe of Ḏj̲urhum and we may fix the time approximately in the fifth century of the Christian era, though Arab antiquaries, by assigning exceptionally long lives to some of the chiefs, date their arrival near Mekka several centuries further back. According to the same antiquaries the Ḏj̲urhum had allowed the sanctity of the sacred territory to lose much of its splendour and in addition by extortions from pilgrims had caused the pilgrimage to have fallen greatly into disuse. The leader of the Azd, T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿAmr, had asked from the Ḏj̲urhum permission to stay in the sacred territory till his foragers had found suitable pasture-grounds elsewhere. This permission the Ḏj̲urhum would not grant and as T̲h̲aʿlaba said that he would stay, whether they allowed it or not it came to fierce fighting which lasted several days and ended in the utter defeat of the Ḏj̲urhum. Only Muḍāḍ b. ʿAmr al-Ḏj̲urhumī who had held aloof from the fighting was allowed to leave the city peacefully, and founded a new settlement with his family and followers at Ḳanān and Ḥaly, where his descendants still resided in the third century of the Hid̲j̲ra. Having become complete masters of Mekka and the sacred territory, they permitted the descendants of Ismāʿīl, who were few in numbers and had taken no share in the quarrel, to remain peacefully among them. The very next year of the conquest brought epidemic fevers, to the new population and according to some historians it was not till this time that the other clans of Azd migrated further afield. With a view to establishing a legal claim to the custodianship of the sanctuary, no doubt, Rabīʿa b. Ḥārit̲h̲a b. ʿAmr married Fuhaira the daughter of ʿĀmir b. ʿAmr b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Muḍāḍ, who had been the last ruler of Mekka, and thus he became the richest man in the city. From this latter account it becomes almost evident that the two tribes lived for some time together in Mekka and that the rise of the Ḵh̲uzāʿa was less violent than is generally concluded from the first account. There can hardly be any doubt that here the same process occured as it happened continually, that the tribes outside a town by gradual pressure upon the more peaceful and prosperous towndwellers became in time the masters of the situation, only to suffer the same fate a few generations later. Rabīʿa is credited with having re-introduced the rites of the pilgrimage, especially by caring for the welfare of the numerous pilgrims who visited the sanctuary, but he is also credited with having been the first to have placed the idols round the Kaʿba and especially with having brought the idol Hubal from Hīt in Mesopotamia, which with other idols still existed at the time ¶ of Muḥammad. Rabīʿa and his descendants remained custodians for a very long time (Arab historians mention 300 and 500 years — which figures must be highly exaggerated). The last ruler was Hulail b. Ḥubs̲h̲īya b. Salūl b. Kaʿb b. ʿAmr who gave his daughter Ḥubbaiy in marriage to Ḳuṣaiy, the head of the small clan of Ḳurais̲h̲, a branch of the tribe of Kināna. Hulail when he grew old made it a practice to give to his daughter or his son-in-law the keys of the Kaʿba to perform such duties as were the privilege of the custodian of the sanctuary. When Hulail died he left his office to his daughter and his son-in-law, but when the latter wanted to claim this right, he was strongly opposed by the whole of Ḵh̲uzāʿa, who forcibly took the keys of the sanctuary from Ḥubbaiy. Ḳuṣaiy who had many friends among the Kināna who were settled in the vicinity of the sacred territory as also among the Ḳuḍāʿa, came to an arrangement with his friends that at the next pilgrimage-period and upon the termination of the rites of the pilgrimage it should come to open quarrel with the Ḵh̲uzāʿa, and in the end it resulted in fierce fighting in which many were slain. To settle the dispute both parties agreed to submit to the judgment of Yaʿmar b. ʿAwf al-Kilābī. Both parties were invited to meet at the portals of the Kaʿba and when Yaʿmar had ascertained the number of slain of Ḵh̲uzāʿa to be greater than that of the partisans of Ḳuṣaiy he gave judgment in favour of the latter. He was in consequence given the custodianship of the sanctuary and with it the rule of the city of Mekka, while the Ḵh̲uzāʿa were permitted to reside with the Ḳurais̲h̲ in the precincts of the sacred territory. Thus the end of the rule of the Ḵh̲uzāʿa was also the commencement of the rule of the tribe of Ḳurais̲h̲ [q. v.]. Another less heroic account, however, tells us that Ḳuṣaiy bought the custodianship from Abū G̲h̲ubs̲h̲ān, the last ruler of the tribe of Ḵh̲uzāʿa, for a goats skin of wine; this is the account also given by Ibn al-Kalbl in his Kitāb al-Mat̲h̲ālib. With the advent of Islām we encounter the names of a number of persons belonging to the tribe of Ḵh̲uzāʿa, and as the conquest of Egypt and the West was principally accomplished by warriors recruited from Western Arabia it is not surprising that we find descendants of the tribe of Ḵh̲uzāʿa prominent in the newly conquered lands, especially in Spain.

That there was a great deal of confusion in the genealogies of this tribe is evident from their being at times not classed among the South-Arabian tribes at all, so e. g. the Ḳāḍī ʿIyāḍ gives the genealogy: Ḵh̲uzāʿa b. Luḥaiy b. Ḳāmaʿa b. al-Yās b. Muḍar, which Suhailī in his commentary of the Sīra tries to explain by saying that Ḥārit̲h̲a b. T̲h̲aʿlaba married the widow of his father Ḳamaʿa, who was also the mother of Luḥaiy, in which way the genealogy is correct both in deriving their origin from North and South-Arabian tribes. As regards the divisions of Ḵh̲uzāʿa there is a great amount of divergence, some genealogists mention the clans of Kaʿb, Mulaiḥ, Saʿd and Salūl, while other know only ʿAdīy, ʿAwf and Saʿd.

The great number of names of men who claimed descent from this tribe must make us believe that they were more numerous than we should conclude from the comparatively few names mentioned as companions of the Prophet, and it may be that by the time of the rise of Islām they ¶ had gradually been pushed by the more energetic Ḳurais̲h̲ into the surrounding country out of the precincts of the city of Mekka itself.

(F. Krenkow)

Bibliography

Azraḳī, Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, i. 55—64

Ibn Duraid, Kitāb al-Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 276—281

Nuwairī, ii. 317

Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Nihāyat al-Arab, Bag̲h̲dād, p. 205—206

al-Ṭabarī, ed. de Goeje, passim

Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ al-Aʿs̲h̲a

Ibn His̲h̲ām, Sīra, p. 59 sqq. and many works dealing with the early history of Islām.

Citation Krenkow, F.. " K̲h̲uzāʿa." Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913-1936). Brill Online , 2013. Reference. Jim Harlow. 10 January 2013 <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-isla...>