Banu Bakr

Banu Bakr

Banu Bakr ibn Wa'il or Banu Bakr, son of Wa'il (Arabic: بنو بكر بن وائل‎ banū bakr ibn wā'il) were an Arabian tribe belonging to the large Rabi'ah branch of Adnanite tribes, which also included 'Anizzah, Taghlib, and Bani Hanifa. The tribe is reputed to have engaged in a 40-year war before Islam with its cousins from Taghlib, known as the War of Basous. The pre-Islamic poet, Tarafah was a member of Bakr.

Bakr's original lands were in Nejd, in central Arabia, but most of the tribe's bedouin sections migrated northwards immediately before Islam, and settled in the area of Al-Jazirah, on the upper Euphrates. The region of Diyar Bakr, and later the city of Diyarbakir in southern Turkey, take their names from this tribe.

Most of the bedouins of Bakr in al-Yamama joined the rest of the tribe in Mesopotamia after the appearance of Islam. However, some inhabitants of al-Yamama continued to trace their descent from Bakr through Bani Hanifa up to the modern era, particularly in Riyadh.

The tribe is distinct from the tribe of Bani Bakr ibn Abd Manat, who lived in the Hejaz and had important interactions with Muhammad.