Taghlib

Banu Taghlib or Taghlib ibn Wa'il (Arabic: بنو تغلب‎) were a large and powerful Arabian tribe of Mesopotamia and eastern Arabia . The tribe traces its lineage to the large branch of North Arabian tribes (Adnanites) known as Rabi'ah, which also included Banu Bakr, 'Anizzah, Banu Hanifa and Anz bin Wa'il (in southern Saudi Arabia).

The tribe's ancestral homelands were the region of Nejd, in central Arabia, before migrating northwards to the Jazirah plain in northern Mesopotamia in the 6th century. At that time, the tribe was known to be mostly Christian, and was renowned for its size and strength relative to other tribes. It was even said by the classical Arab genealogists that "had it not been for Islam, Taghlib would have devoured the Arabs." The tribe is also said to have engaged in a 40-year war immediately prior to Islam with the closely related tribe of Banu Bakr, which became known as the War of Basous. Taghlib's migration to Mesopotamia is attributed to this war. During this era, according to classical Arab sources, the tribe produced a poet by the name of 'Amr ibn Kulthum, to whom is attributed one of the highly regarded Seven Hanged Poems of pre-Islamic Arabia. With its bombastic and vainglorious verses on the glories of his tribe, Ibn Kulthum's ode became the prime example of Arabian hyperbole. The tribe, however, soon came into conflict with the Lakhmid rulers of southern Iraq and moved further north to the Jazirah region around the northern reaches of the Euphrates.