ABULFARAJ [Abu-1-Faraj 'Ali ibn ul-Husain ul-Isbahani] (897-967), Arabian scholar, was a member of the tribe of the Quraish (Koreish) and a direct descendant of Marwan, the last of the Omayyad caliphs.
All these claim descent from a member of the Hashim branch of the Koreish (Mahomet's tribe), !who founded a powerful state in the Zaila district.
In his appointments to governorships and other offices, as well as in his distribution of spoil, Othman showed a marked preference for the members of his own tribe the Koreish (Quraish) and the members of his own family the Bani Omayya (Umayya).
The other Arab tribes became increasingly jealous of the Koreish, while among the Koreish themselves the Hashimite family came to hate the Omayyad, which now had much power, although it had been among the last to accept Islam and never was very strict in its religious duties.
In Kufa a number of the Koreish had settled, and their arrogance became insupportable.
The Kharijites who had opposed 'Ali on the ground that he had no right to allow the appeal to arbitration, were defeated at Nahrawan or Nahrwan (658), but those who escaped became fierce propagandists against the Koreish, some claiming that the caliph should be chosen by the Faithful from any tribe of the Arabs, some that there should be no caliph at all, that God alone was their ruler and that the government should be carried on by a council.
Two poets of the Koreish attained celebrity in Arabia itself at this time.
'AS), one of the most famous of the first race of the Saracen leaders, was of the tribe of Koreish (Qureish).
The Sunnites insist that the office belongs to the tribe of Koreish (Quraish) to which Mahomet himself belonged, but this condition would vitiate the claim of the Turkish sultans, who have held the office since its transference by the last caliph to Selim I.
It is said that Othman directed Zaid and his associates, in cases of disagreement, to follow the Koreish dialect; but, though well attested, this account can scarcely be correct.
Under this weak sovereign the government of Islam fell entirely into the hands of the Koreish nobility.
They indeed rested their claims on the undeniable priority of their services to the faith, but they also appealed to their blood relationship with the Prophet as a corroboration of their right to the inheritance; and the ties of blood connected them with the Koreish in general.
He belonged to the foremost family of Mecca, the Omayyads, and that he should favour his relations and the Koreish as a whole, in every possible way, seemed to him a matter of course.
It was led by what may be called the spiritual noblesse of Islam, which, as distinguished from the hereditary nobility of Mecca, might also be designated as the nobility of merit, consisting of the "Defenders" (Ansar), and especially of the Emigrants who had lent themselves to the elevation of the Koreish, but by no means with the intention of allowing themselves thereby to be effaced.
Even in the list of the slain at the battle of Honain the Emigrants are enumerated along with the Meccans and Koreish, and distinguished from the men of Medina.
