'History of the imâms and seyyids of 'Omân by Salîl-ibn-Razîk, from A.D. 661-1856; translated from the original Arabic, and edited with notes, appendices, and an introduction, continuing the history down to 1870, by George Percy Badger, F.R.G.S., late chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay.' [‎10] (43/612)

x
introduction
tions subsisting between the Benu-Ghafir and the Jow&shira,
the latter being generally considered as an offshoot of the
former. Now, Mo'awiyah had two sons. Nasi- and Josham,
who became the heads of two tribes, called after them the
Benu-Nasr and the lienu-Josham. 1 I3oth are frequently
mentioned, mostly together, in the early annals of Islam,
and they appear to have resided in the territory near Mekkah
till about a.d . 590, when we read of them in Nejd. 2 This
date corroborates the local tradition of their having come
into 'Oman several centuries after the Azdites, by whom
they were regarded as interlopers. They settled in es-Sirr and
ezh-Zhahirah, two districts still mainly occupied by their
descendants, and in the early part of the eighteenth century
they had become powerful enough to secure the election of a
chief of their tribe, Muhammad-bin-Nasir, to the Imamate.
The foregoing is the best account which I have been able
to compile respecting the genealogy of the principal tribes
of 'Oman and their original immigration into that country.
In process of time other tribes followed them—chiefly from
Nejd—and these gave birth to numerous branches which have
assumed distinctive names, and it is now almost impossible
to ascertain the correct parentage of each. Occasional addi
tional information on the subject will be found in foot-notes
appended to the text of the ensuing History,
One fact, however, admits of scarcely any doubt, namelv,
that the Yemeny Azdites were the predominant tribe in
1 " Jowashim would be an equivalent plural, as I conceive it to be
the correct form. Some, however, soften it into "Jow&nim," whilst
others again, and among them our author, following the usage of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. Arabs, write it "Kawasim."
2 Hist, des Arabes, vol. i. pp. 307, 309; ii. 537; iii. 245, 258.
3 1 lie ignorance of Arabic and Arab genealogy occasionally manifested
by some of our Indian officials is strikingly illustraterl by the following
extract from a paper on the "Joasmees," published in the Bombay Clovern-
ment Selections, No. xxiv. p. 300.—"The Joasmees are a race of Arabs
descended from the inhabitants of Nujd, and named Beni Nasir, as being
on the left hand side of the Caaba, and called also Beni Ghafree."