Bahila

Bāhila was an Arab tribe based in Najd (central Arabia). Part of the tribe was settled and part of it was semi-nomadic. The Bahila was first mentioned during the early years of Islam, in the mid-7th century. During that time, many Bahila tribesmen migrated to Syria and Basra. Many of those who went to Syria later moved to Khurasan as part of the Umayyad garrison there. As a sub-tribe of Qays, they fought alongside the Qaysi coalition against the Yamani tribes during the Umayyad era. The scholar al-Asma'i and the general Qutayba ibn Muslim both belonged to the tribe. The Bahila were last mentioned in the 10th century.

According to W. Caskel, the genealogy of the Bahila "is somewhat complicated". The namesake of the tribe, Bahila, was a wife of Malik ibn A'sur ibn Sa'd ibn Qays, and after the latter's death, was married to Malik's brother Ma'n. Bahila mothered one son from Malik and two sons from Ma'n, and was also the foster mother of ten other sons of Ma'n (the foster sons came from two other mothers). Caskel describes this genealogy as a series of "artifices", which were familiar to the Arab genealogists, though the "accumulation" of such artifices with the origins of the Bahila was "remarkable". Among the sons of Bahila who later fathered large clans were Qutayba, Wa'il, Ji'awa and Awd. The Qutayba and Wa'il were the largest sub-tribes of the Bahila and both were engaged in a rivalry for supremacy over the Bahila.

The Bahila's original homeland was called Sūd Bāhila or Sawād Bāhila. It was situated in the Najd (central Arabia). The tribe's settlements, including al-Quway', Idhnayn Shammal, Hufayra and Juzayla, were located on either side of the route between Mecca and the area corresponding with modern-day Riyadh. The Ji'awa clan of Bahila lived further west at the foot of the al-Jidd mountains. They were the northern neighbors of the Banu Ghani, another tribe that descended from A'sur ibn Sa'd ibn Qays. The Bahila were partly settled and partly semi-nomadic. They lived under the protection of the Banu Kilab and Banu Ka'b, sub-tribes of the Banu 'Amir. There is scant reference to the Bahila in the pre-Islamic period. Among these references were the slaying of a warrior from the tribe named al-Muntashir, and a battle involving the tribe. Both episodes occurred shortly before the emergence of Islam in Arabia in the 610s.

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