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Ḳuḍāʿa

Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

Ḳuḍāʿa

Author:
M. J. Kister
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qudaa.pdf KUDA'A Kuda'a, a group of Arab tribes of obscure origin. The opinions of the genealogists about their origin are contradictory. Some of them assert that they were descendants of Ma'add, while others say that they were from Himyar. Both parties had recourse to traditions and utterances attributed to the Prophet, in which he is said either to have declared that Ma'add's kunya was Abu Kuda'a, or to have explicitly stated that Kuda'a was a descendant of Himyar. Harmonizing traditions reported that the mother of Kuda'a was the wife of Malik b. 'Amr b. Murra b. Malik b. Himyar who later married Ma'add, bringing with her Kuda'a, her son from her first marriage; Kuda'a was therefore later called Kuda'a b. Ma'add. A contradictory tradition of this kind claimed that Kuda'a was the son of Ma'add; later, his mother married Malik b. 'Amr alHimyarI, who adopted the child, Kuda'a, and thus he was called Kuda'a al-HimyarL 1 Some traditions explicitly say that the Kuda'I tribes related themselves to Ma'add, but turned to the HimyarI nasab after being bribed and pressurized by Mu'awiya.2 The name Kuda'a is an early one and can be traced in fragments of old Arab poetry. The tribes recorded as Kuda'I were: Kalb [q.v.], Djuhayna, Ball, Bahra' [q.v.]' Khawlan [q.v.]' Mahra, Khushayn, Djarm, 'Udhra [q.v.]' Bal~ayn,3 Tanukh [q.v.]' and SalI4; however, theattribution of some of these tribes to Kuda'a (like Tanukh, Khawlan and Mahra) was the subject of dispute among genealogists. Several of the Kuda'a clans joined other tribes, adopting their pedigree and changing their tribal identity. Among the prominent divisions of the Kuda'a one may particularly refer here to the Djuhayna and Ball. 1. The vast territory of the Djuhayna, controlling the coastal caravan route between Syria and Mecca, included the localities of $afra', alMarwa, al Hawra' and Yanbu'; to them belonged $ufayna, the mountains 1 See M.J. Kister and M. Plessner, Notes on Gaskel's Gamharat an-nasab, in Oriens xxv-xxvi (1976), 56-7, and references in notes 43-51; also Nur al-Dln alHayiliamT, Madjma' al-zawii'id, repr. Beirut 1967, i, 194-5; A!l.!!:iin', vii, 77-8; al- HamdanT, al-Ikm, ed. MuJ:!ammad al-Akwa' al-I:Iiwall, Cairo 1383/1963, i, 180-90. 2 See e.g. M.J. Kister and M. Plessner, op. cit., notes 51-7; Nur al-DTn al-Hayiliaml, op. cit., i, 194; AghanT, loc. cit.; IJ:!san N