Al Said - Origins

Origins

The tribe traces its roots to a band of Al Azd, (through patrilineal ancestor al-'Atik b. al-Asad b. Imran) that settled in Dibba (Dabá), north of Sohar (which was once the capital of Oman), and hence came to be known as the Azd of Daba. Like other Qahtani, the Azd originally hailed from Yemen and migrated north after the destruction of the Marib Dam. Archeological evidence points to the Sasanid era, around the third or fourth century AD, a period of admittedly weak Persian rule. Their ascendancy to positions of power was in tandem with special relationships established with Persian rulers, who recognized the Azdites as "The kings of the Arabs", as seen in a number of inscriptions from the sixth century CE. The head of the Azd confederation was given the title of Buland (Perso-Arabic: بُلند), a Sasanid appellation derived from the Middle Persian word for eminence and stature, later Arabized in the form of Al-Julandā (Arabic: الجُلندا) to identify the early rulers of Oman.

With the arrival of Islam, the Sasanians in Oman conflicted with the converted Azdi kings, the balance in this conflict swung in favour of the Arabs when they were joined by Muslim forces sent by the Prophet Muhammad from al-Madîna and in the resulting military campaigns the Sasanian citadels were overwhelmed and their forces expelled by 630 AD. With the rise of Islam, the Azd established themselves into a leading force in the ensuing Muslim conquests and later in the realms of the Umayyad Caliphate through the celebrated general Al Muhallab ibn Abi Suffrah (Abu Said), the progenitor of the Al Busaid tribe. Significantly, it is with the Azd that most early sections of pre-Islamic universal chronicles of Arabs begin.