Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq relates in his book “Al-Sīrah” that the first man to leave Yemen before the Flood of al-ʿArim was ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir al-Lakhmī. Lakhm, he says, was the son of ʿAdiyy ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Azd ibn Zayd ibn Humaysiʿ ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿArīb ibn Yashjub ibn Zayd ibn Kahlan ibn Sabaʾ. Others—so reports Ibn Hishām—maintain that Lakhm was the son of ʿAdiyy ibn ʿAmr ibn Sabaʾ.

Ibn Isḥāq continues: The cause of ʿAmr’s departure, as Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī told me, was that he saw a rat tunnelling into the Maʾrib Dam, the dam that held the water back so his people could direct it wherever they wished. Realising that the dam could not survive such damage, he resolved to migrate. He devised a ruse among his people: he instructed his youngest son that, should ʿAmr speak to him harshly and slap him, the boy must rise and slap him in return. The child did exactly as commanded.

ʿAmr then proclaimed, “I will not remain in a land where the youngest of my children strikes my face!” He offered all his property for sale. Certain nobles of Yemen said, “Let us seize upon ʿAmr’s anger,” so they purchased his estates, and he set out with his children and grandchildren.

The tribe of al-Azd declared, “We will not stay behind ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir.” They likewise sold their possessions and left with him. They travelled until they reached the territory of ʿUk, passing through while searching for a place to settle. The people of ʿUk fought them, and the battle seesawed between the two sides. Concerning this, ʿAbbās ibn Mirdās recited:

“And ʿUk, the sons of Adnān, who sported with Ghassān,
Were driven off—pursued from every place they fled.”

They therefore moved on and dispersed throughout the land. The household of Jafnaḥ ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir settled in Syria; the Aws and Khazraj settled in Yathrib; Khuzaʿah halted at Marr; Azd al-Sarāt occupied the Sarāt highlands; and Azd ʿUmān settled in ʿUmān. Afterward Allah, exalted is He, loosed the flood upon the dam and demolished it, and regarding this He revealed the cited verses.