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The Tanukh (, sometimes referred to as the Tanukhids (التنوخيون, ), was an Arab tribal group whose history in the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent spanned the 2nd century CE to the 17th century. The group began as a confederation of Arab tribes in eastern Arabia in the 2nd century and migrated to Mesopotamia during rule in the 3rd century. The confederation was led around this time by its king Jadhima, whose rule is attested by a Greek–Nabatean inscription and who plays an epic role in the traditional narratives of the pre-Islamic period. At least part of the Tanukh migrated to Byzantine Syria in the 4th century, where they served as the first Arab foederati (tribal confederates) of the empire. The Tanukh's premier place among the foederati was lost after its rebellion in the 380s, but it remained a zealous Orthodox Christian ally of the Byzantines until the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 630s.
Under early Muslim rule, the tribe largely retained its Christian faith and settlements around Qinnasrin and Aleppo. The Tanukh was an ally of the Bilad al-Sham-based Umayyad Caliphate and became part of the Umayyads' main tribal support base, the Quda'a confederation. The Tanukh's fortunes, like that of Syria in general, declined under the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate, which forced its tribesmen to convert to Islam in 780. As a result of attacks during the Fourth Muslim Civil War in the early 9th century, the Tanukh's area of settlement shifted to Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and the coastal mountains between Latakia and Homs, which by the 10th century were called 'Jabal Tanukh'.
Tanukhid tribesmen later settled in the Gharb area outside Beirut in Mount Lebanon and in the 11th century, they became one of the leading tribal groups to embrace the new Druze faith. A Tanukhid family of the Gharb, the Buhturids (commonly called after their parent tribe 'Tanukh'), held the area almost perpetually throughout Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanate rule and produced one of the major religious thinkers of the Druze, the 15th-century al-Sayyid al-Tanukhi. Their influence gave way to an allied Druze clan in Mount Lebanon, the Ma'ns of the Chouf, but they continued to locally dominate the Gharb well into the Ottoman Empire era in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Buhturids were eliminated by a rival Druze family in the 1630s.
Shahid suggests that the Tanukh was the tribe of the Arab tribal queen Mavia, whose tribal identity is not known. Mavia went to war with Emperor Valens during the 370s. By then, the Tanukh were ardent Orthodox Christians and Mavia's war with Valens, who embraced Arien theology, was influenced by their doctrinal differences. The Tanukh revolted against the Byzantines in , during the reign of Emperor Theodosius I, and their rebellion was suppressed by the magister militum Richomer. This marked the end of their role as the principal Arab federates of the Byzantines in Syria, which was held by the Salihids by the 5th century. Little is known of the Tanukh for the remainder of Byzantine rule, but according to Shahid, they remained Christian federates of the empire.
According to the historian Werner Caskel, it was after Marj Rahit that the Tanukh was enlisted into the Quda'a confederation. From the time of Mu'awiya's governorship, the Quda'a, led by the Banu Kalb tribe, had been the military mainstay of the Umayyad state and held a privileged place in government over the other Syrian tribal groups. The Qays, which was established in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, where they had migrated during Mu'awiya's administration, launched a series of damaging raids against the Kalb in revenge for their losses at Marj Rahit over the next few years. This spurred the Kalb to buttress the Quda'a, with special attention given to the Tanukh, as its tribesmen dwelt in the same north Syrian region as the Qays. The Tanukh, a comparably smaller or weaker tribe, was mutually motivated to join the Quda'a, as were the Christian Salihids of northern Syria. Caskel suggests that the general narrative in the early Islamic tradition of the Quda'a being a constituent tribe of the Tanukh from its time in Bahrayn was fabricated by the Arab genealogists of Kufa and the Tanukhids of neighboring al-Hirah within the following decade to justify the Tanukh's union with the Quda'a. It was during this period that the Quda'a allied with the South Arabian Qahtan confederation in Syria to form the anti-Qaysi Yaman faction.
The Tanukh attacked the Qaysi-dominated army of the Umayyad caliph Marwan II () when it passed through Qinnasrin and Khunasira in 744. The Umayyads were tolerant of the Christians of Syria, including Christian Arab tribes, as the Syrians were the foundation of their power. With the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in 750 to the Iraq-based Abbasids, the Tanukh lost its patron and its fortunes declined.
During the Fourth Muslim Civil War (811–837), the Tanukh of Qinnasrin gave allegiance to the self-proclaimed caliph Abu al-Umaytir, an Umayyad who had ousted the Abbasid governor from Damascus in 811. The attempted Umayyad resurgence was suppressed by pro-Abbasid forces in 813. In the aftermath of the Abbasid counteroffensive in Syria, the Tanukhids dwelling in the outskirts of Aleppo led by al-Hawari ibn Hittan, who also controlled Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and Tell Mannas, rebelled against the Abbasid Banu Salih family, which controlled Aleppo city. Besieged, the Banu Salih enlisted the support of the neighboring Qaysi tribes, which had also been in rebellion against the Abbasids. The Qaysi rebels ousted the Tanukh from the Aleppo area. Al-Hawari was later pardoned by Caliph al-Ma'mun ().
A family of the Tanukh in the Gharb, the Buhturids (commonly referred to in the sources simply as the 'Tanukh'), became a local buffer force straddling the domains of the Muslim rulers of Damascus and the Crusaders Lordship in the 12th and 13th centuries. They retained their emirate in the Gharb through Ayyubid dynasty rule (1188–1197), the Crusader restoration in Beirut (1197–1293) and Mamluk Sultanate rule (1293–1516).
Under Mamluk rule, the Buhturids served as their own unit in the army, charged with protecting the harbor of Beirut from seaborne raids and assigned practically hereditary s. While maintaining these military capacities, they grew their commercial enterprises in Beirut in the 15th century, exporting silk, olive oil and soap. In the 15th century, a member of the family, al-Sayyid al-Tanukhi from the Gharb village of Abeih, became a major reformer and theologian of the Druze faith. His teachings were foundational to modern Druze religious laws and everyday practices he remains the most revered figure among the Druze faithful after their 11th-century missionaries.
The Ottoman Empire conquered the region in 1516 and after initial tensions, generally kept the Buhturids on as local multazim in the Gharb throughout the 16th century. By then, they had become politically overshadowed in the Druze Mountain (southern Mount Lebanon) by their allies, the Ma'n dynasty of the Chouf district. In 1633, after the fall of the Ma'nid strongman of the western Levant, Fakhr al-Din, whose mother was a Buhturid, the last Buhturids were massacred by a Druze rival, Ali Alam al-Din.
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