[ III ]

MANUSCRIPT A 3

Introduction

This nisba was copied for me by el Safi Sulayman, ^omda of the BiSHARiA Ma'akla in Kordofan, in 1909, from the copy in his possession.

From a comparison of paragraphs 11 of A 4 and xiii of A 3 it seems that both A 3 and A 4 are extracts from the pedigree of Muhammad

ibn 'fsa Sowar el Dhahab, and that this latter was supposed to have been brought from Mekka by "el Sheikh Kamil el Murshid." Now Kamil is said to have been a Bedayri, and so was Muhammad

ibn 'fsa Sowar el Dhahab; and Ishak Sheddad, whose pedigree we have in A 2, is also a Bedayri, of the same section as Muhammad

ibn 'fsa. D 3 contains (No. 191) the biography of the last named. He lived, as his descendants still do, in Dongola, and he was a con-

temporary and friend (see D 3, 191) of that 'Awuda whose son made a copy of A 2 {q.v. para. xliv). Evidently, therefore, A 2, A 3 and A 4, though varying in minor details {q.v. in the trees), all represent extracts from a nisba which was current in Dongola about the middle of the seventeenth century, and which in one form or another was used by the compiler of AB.

I In the name of God ....

[The following is] an extract from the pedigrees of the tribes of the Arabs from the noble tradition as related by el Termidhi and

Ibn Nagi and el Bokhari and Muslim.

II And [it is related] upon the authority of Abu Hurayra concerning

the Prophet. . .[that he said] "Ye know [from] your pedigrees how

ye are connected."

III The Almighty said "And I have made you races and tribes, that ye may know one another. The noblest of you in God's sight is the most pious of you."

IV The tribes whom it is not permitted to enslave are, according

to El Gdma'i el Sughayr fi hadith el bashir el Kddir ["The small encyclopaedia on the tradition of the mighty evangelist"],

[Kuraysh rMuzAYNA /GhafAr^ - El Ansar - AsLAM Himyar^

IGUHAYNA [AsHGA'A [KhUZAYMA^

^ reading jUi forjlic. ^ reading jL.©.*- for SjUo*..

^ reading a^jJ.^ for i^jj.»- .