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The Fijar Wars () were a series of battles that took place in the late 6th century mainly between two major tribal confederations of Arabia, the Quraysh and the Hawazin. According to the sources, the fighting took place on eight days over the course of four years.
The conflict takes its name from the fact that its battles took place during the sacred months during which warfare was prohibited—a prohibition that usually enabled commerce to take place without interference from tribal feuds.
The Lakhmid king of al-Hirah, al-Nu'man III commissioned a leader of the Banu Amir, Urwa al-Rahhal, to lead the king's caravan to the annual market at Souk Okaz in the Hejaz. Al-Barrad ibn Qays, a member of the Kinana who had been expelled from his tribe, had requested the commission, but Urwa, who frequented the king's court, mocked al-Barrad for being an outlaw and persuaded al-Nu'man to appoint him instead. As he led the caravan to Ukaz, Urwa was ambushed and slain by al-Barrad, who proceeded to seize the caravan's goods. Al-Barrad's attack occurred during the sacred months when fighting was forbidden among the Arabs.
In response, Abu Bara, the preeminent chief of the Banu Amir and its parent tribe, the Hawazin, called his tribesmen to arms. A leader of the Quraysh, Harb ibn Umayya, was allied to al-Barrad, but the Quraysh also had close relations with the Kilab, the branch of the Banu Amir to which Urwa and Abu Bara belonged. The Kilab and the Ka'b, another branch of the Banu Amir, belonged to the Ḥums, a socio-economic and religious pact including the Quraysh and other tribes living in the Ḥaram (the area around Mecca considered inviolable by the Arabs). The Kilab and the Ka'b did not live within the Ḥaram. They owed their membership to their maternal Qurayshite descent.
News of the killing reached Ukaz, where al-Barrad's patron, Harb ibn Umayya, had gathered with other chieftains belonging to the Quraysh. Realising that the Banu Amir would be seeking revenge for the killing of Urwa, the Quraysh and Kinana set off for Mecca. The Banu Taym chieftain Abd Allah ibn Jud'an reportedly supplied armor to one hundred men of the Quraysh. They were pursued by the Hawazin, who attacked them at Nakhla; the day of the battle is accordingly known as ('the day of Nakhla'), and is usually counted as the fourth day of fighting in the ḥarb al-fijār and the first day of the second war (though it is sometimes counted as the fourth day of the first war).
As night fell on the , the Quraysh and Kinana managed to escape to the Ḥaram. At that point, the Kilab halted their pursuit in fear of violating the sanctity of the Ḥaram. Abu Bara's and the Kilab's participation in the war was restricted to the day of Nakhla.
This common assessment of the war was questioned by Ella Landau-Tasseron, who posited that the Banu Amir and the Quraysh had been mutually interested in gaining greater, joint control of the annual Lakhmid caravans to Yemen. Moreover, the Ja'far (the preeminent clan of the Kilab and the Banu Amir and Hawazin in general) and the Quraysh were both seen as enemies by the Bakr ibn Abd Manat, the branch of the Kinana to which al-Barrad belonged. The animosity of the Bakr ibn Abd Manat toward the Ja'far stemmed from the canceling of a protection covenant by a Ja'far chief, Abu Bara's brother al-Tufayl (father of the 7th-century Kilabi chief Amir ibn al-Tufayl); the Bakr ibn Abd Manat had entered al-Tufayl's protection in Najd after the Quraysh had expelled them from Mecca. In the years preceding the Fijar War the Bakr ibn Abd Manat attempted to obtain commissions from the Lakhmids to guard their caravans. Although al-Barrad's killing of Urwa had been against the interests of the Kilab and the Quraysh, the latter were compelled to fight due to the Kilab's intent on blood revenge against al-Barrad's Qurayshite confederates. The Kilab's limited participation in the ensuing war may have reflected their desire not to breach the Ḥums pact.
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