Two Branches of Bani Fihr and the Developments in Early Islamic Era: A Comparative Study

At the beginning of Islamic da’wah(inviting to Islam), Bani Fihr b. Malik, with two branches Harith and Muharib was considered as the oldest branch of the Quraysh tribe. The Fihr family as a tribe that lived on the outskirts of Mecca, was ambushing against other tribes. The present article seeks to answer a fundamental enquiry that whether we can analyse the actions of those sahaba that attributed to Bani Harith and Bani Muharib, in a tribal context. If this assumption proved, then it should be noticed that the behaviours and interest of the leaders of each of two tribes in the intellectual, social and political aspects, was intended to which currents and movements. This research is a descriptive- analytic study that used a table of frequency distribution to show that the most important features of Bani Harith are: being pioneers in early adoption of Islam and also their contribution in Muslims first migration to Abyssinia. But Banu Muharib had converted mainly after the conquest of Mecca by the Muslims. What is common in both branches of Bani Fihr is the warrior spirit. Some of the well-known commanders in al-Rashidun and Umayyad era, such as Abu ‘Ubiydah al-Jarrah, Habib b. Maslamah , ‘Uqbah b. Nafi’, Dahäk b. Qiys - the great conquerors of Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt and North Africa –belonged to this branch of Quraysh. They fanatically supported the idea of the sovereignty of Quraysh.