Lakhmid kingdom in the context of "Banu Thaqif"

The Bani Utbah (Arabic: بَنِيّ عُتبَة, romanized: banī ‘utbah, plural Utub; Arabic: الْعُتُوب al-‘utūb, singular Utbi; Arabic: الْعُتبِيّ al-‘utbī) is an Arab tribal confederation in the Arabian Peninsula. The confederation is thought to have been formed when a group of clans from Najd migrated to Eastern Arabia in the late 17th century and early 18th century. Most of the Utub clans and families, such as the Al-Sabah and Al-Khalifa, trace their lineage back to the Anizah tribe, with the exception of some, such as the Al Bin Ali, whose lineage goes back to the Banu Sulaym tribe. The Al Bin Ali along with the current ruling families of Bahrain and Kuwait were the rulers of the federation. The name of the confederation is found in the form Attoobee or Uttoobee in English sources up to the late 19th century.

The tribes of Arabia (Arabic: القبائل العربية) have inhabited the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years and traditionally trace their ancestry to one of two forefathers: Adnan, whose descendants originate from West Arabia, North Arabia, East Arabia, and Central Arabia; or Qahtan, whose descendants originate from South Arabia. Further, it is held in the Abrahamic religions—particularly Islam—that the Arab people are descended from Abraham through his son Ishmael.

From the 7th century onward, concurrent with the spread of Islam, many of these tribes' members began migrating and settling in the various regions that were subdued during the early Muslim conquests, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Khuzestan, the Maghreb, and Sudan. This phenomenon triggered a process of Arabization that significantly influenced demographic shifts across most of West Asia and North Africa, culminating in the growth of the Arab population far beyond the Arabian Peninsula.

The Banu Hilal (Arabic: بنو هلال, romanized: Banū Hilāl) was a confederation of Arab tribes from the Najd region of the central Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to the Maghreb region of North Africa in the 11th century. They ruled the Najd and campaigned in the borderlands between Iraq and Syria. When the Fatimid Caliphate became the rulers of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they confined the Bedouin in the south before sending them to Central North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Algeria) and then to Morocco.

Historians estimate the total number of Arab nomads who migrated to the Maghreb in the 11th century to be to 500,000 to 700,000 to 1,000,000. Historian Mármol Carvajal estimated that more than a million Hilalians migrated to the Maghreb between 1051 and 1110, and estimated that the Hilalian population in the Maghreb at his time in 1573 was at 4,000,000 individuals, excluding other Arab tribes and other Arabs already present.

The Quraysh (Arabic: قُرَيْشٍ) are an Arab tribe who controlled Mecca before the rise of Islam. Their members were divided into ten main clans, most notably including the Banu Hashim, into which Islam's founder prophet Muhammad was born. By the seventh century, they had become wealthy merchants, dominating trade between the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and the Mediterranean. The tribe ran caravans to Gaza and Damascus in summer and to Yemen in winter, while also mining and pursuing other enterprises on these routes.

When Muhammad began preaching Islam in Mecca, the Quraysh initially showed little concern. However, their opposition to his activities quickly grew as he increasingly challenged Arab polytheism, which was prevalent throughout pre-Islamic Arabia. As relations deteriorated, Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina (the journey known as the Hijrah) after negotiating with the Banu Aws and the Banu Khazraj to mediate their conflict. However, the two sides proved unable to reach a peaceful resolution, and the Quraysh continued to obstruct Muhammad's community's attempts to perform the Islamic pilgrimage at Mecca, prompting him to confront them through armed conflict, primarily by conducting raids on their caravans. These raids eventually escalated into several major battles, including those at Badr, Uhud, and "the Trench" (Medina's outskirts). Following these engagements and changes in Medina's political landscape, including the expulsion of three Jewish tribes, Muhammad reportedly shifted the focus of his military campaigns from Quraysh caravans to the northern Arab tribes, such as the Banu Lahyan and the Banu Mustaliq.

The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated north to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian kingdom under the aegis of the Byzantine Empire. However, some of the Ghassanids may have already adhered to Christianity before they emigrated from South Arabia to escape religious persecution.

As a Byzantine vassal, the Ghassanids participated in the Byzantine–Sasanian Wars, fighting against the Sasanian-allied Lakhmids, who were also an Arabian tribe, but adhered to the non-Chalcedonian Church of the East. The lands of the Ghassanids also acted as a buffer zone protecting lands that had been annexed by the Romans against raids by Bedouins.

The Banu Kalb (Arabic: بنو كلب, romanized: Banū Kalb) was an Arab tribe which mainly dwelt in the desert and steppe of northwestern Arabia and central Syria.

It was involved in the tribal politics of the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontiers, possibly as early as the 4th century. By the 6th century, the Kalb had largely adopted Christianity and came under the authority of the Ghassanids, leaders of the Byzantines' Arab allies. During the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a few of his close companions were Kalbites, most prominently Zayd ibn Haritha and Dihya, but the bulk of the tribe remained Christian at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. They began converting in large numbers when the Muslims made significant progress in the conquest of Byzantine Syria, in which the Kalb stayed neutral. As a massive nomadic tribe with considerable military experience, the Kalb was sought as a key ally by the Muslim state. The leading clans of the Kalb forged marital ties with the Umayyad family, and the tribe became the military foundation of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) from the reign of Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) to the early reign of Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705).