Banu Fazara

The Banu Fazara or Fazzara or Fezara or Fezzara () were an Arab tribe whose original homeland was Najd.

Origins of the tribe

According to Arab genealogical tradition, the progenitor of the Banu Fazara was Fazāra ibn Dhubyān ibn Baghīd ibn Rayth ibn Ghaṭafān. Thus the tribe belonged to the Dhubyan branch of the Ghatafan, making the Fazara a north Arabian tribe. Its ancestral pasture grounds were in the Wadi al-Rumma region of the Najd in central Arabia.

In the modern day, the Fazara section of the Sudanese Arabs are camel-nomadic Arab tribes who live in the pastures of North Kordofan. They include the Shanabla, Majaneen, Bani-Jarrar, and Bani-Dhubian.

Umm Qirfa

Umm Qirfa Fatima was a leader of the Banu Fazara Arab tribe from Wadi Al-Qura.

Ancient genealogies described Umm Qirfa as a member of the Banu Fazara. She married into the Banu Badr. According to Ibn Ishaq and al-Tabari, Umm Qirfa was wealthy. She was described as being an old woman with high social status and wife of Malik ibn Hudhayfa ibn Badr al-Fazari. After her thirty horsemen were defeated by Zayd ibn Haritha, Muhammad ordered Qirfa or her children to be slaughtered "by putting a rope into her two legs and to two camels and driving them until they rent her in two..." Two of her limbs were torn in to two by four camels, her severed head was later paraded all over the streets of Medina.

Her brothers were executed and her daughter Um Zaml described as being "prettiest girl in Arabia" was captured by Salama b. Al-Akwa, who then presented her beauty to Muhammad. On this, Muhammad remarked "What girl did you take, oh Salama?" Salama responded "A girl, O messenger of God with whom i hope to ransom a woman of ours from Banu Farazara", after being asked the same question repeatedly, Salama quickly sensed that Muhammad wanted the girl for himself so he offered the girl to Muhammad, however Muhammad instead gifted the girl to Hazn b. Abu Wahb, his maternal uncle, for "private use". This union bore them, Abdu'l-Rahmān b. Hazn.

But the story is transmitted through weak chains of transmission.www.ebnmaryam.com

As for the first narration, which was mentioned by al-Tabari, the sequence of its chain of transmission is as follows:

:''Muhammad bin Hamid Al-Razi → Ibn Ishaq → Abdullah bin Abi Bakr ''

There are two problems with the chain.
Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Razi considered unreliable transmitter by Al-Nasa'i
, Abu Ishaq al-Jawzjani, and others.
Also, Ibn Ishaq narrates it on the authority of Abdullah Ibn Abu Bakr, even though the time difference between them was 69 years.

As for the story about the daughter of Umm Qarfa, it was mentioned by Al-Waqidi, who is a liar according to Muslim hadith scholars.
Al-Waqidi has been condemned as an untrustworthy narrator and has been frequently and severely criticized by scholars, thus his narrations have been abandoned by the majority of hadith scholars. Yahya ibn Ma'een said: "Al-Waqidi narrated 20,000 false hadith about the prophet". Al-Shafi'i, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Al-Albanisaid: "Al-Waqidi is a liar" while Al-Bukhari said he didn't include a single letter by Al-Waqidi in his hadith works.

On the other hand the story goes against the Prophet Muhammad's orders to merciful killing and forbid mutilation.

References

Bibliography

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{{Historical Arab tribes

Fazara
History of Nejd
Tribes of Arabia