Lineage and family

A chosen lineage

Wathila ibn al-Asqa’ heard the Messenger of God ﷺ say: “God chose Kinana from among the sons of Ishmael, chose Quraysh from among Kinana, chose the Banu Hashim from among Quraysh, and chose me from among the Banu Hashim” (Muslim 2276, cited by Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 27).

Up to Adnan

His lineage ﷺ is known, father after father, up to Adnan. In parentheses, the given name of those known by another name:

Muhammad ﷺ, son of Abd Allah, son of Abd al-Muttalib (Shayba), son of Hashim (Amr), son of Abd Manaf (al-Mughira), son of Qusayy (Zayd), son of Kilab, son of Murra, son of Ka’b, son of Lu’ayy, son of Ghalib, son of Fihr, son of Malik, son of al-Nadr, son of Kinana, son of Khuzayma, son of Mudrika (Amir), son of Ilyas, son of Mudar, son of Nizar, son of Ma’add, son of Adnan (Ibn Hisham, I, 1-2; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 26; al-Salihi, I, 295).

“This is the sound lineage, on which there is consensus,” writes Ibn Sayyid al-Nas (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 26), and al-Salihi repeats the same words (al-Salihi, I, 295). Nor is the origin of Adnan in dispute: “there is no disagreement that Adnan is of the descendants of Ishmael” (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 26; al-Salihi, I, 295). What Genesis promised this line is set out on the page The prayer of Abraham.

Beyond Adnan

Between Adnan and Ishmael, the sources agree on the principle, not on the names. Ibn Ishaq gives a line that goes back to Nabit, son of Ishmael (Ibn Hisham, I, 2); another runs through Qaydhar, son of Ishmael (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 27). These two names are those of Ishmael’s first two sons in Genesis: “the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar” (Genesis 25:13). The Arab genealogists and the Bible name the same sons. Counts range from four to forty-one generations (al-Salihi, I, 296), and Ibn Abbas spoke of thirty forefathers who are not known (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 75).

Al-Salihi sees in this “severe confusion” (al-Salihi, I, 295); Ibn Hajar thought it preferable to rely on what Ibn Ishaq said (al-Salihi, I, 296). The causes are known: these names are Syriac, according to Ibn Durayd, and they were handed down from memory, according to al-Jawwani (al-Salihi, I, 297). The site therefore gives no list beyond Adnan: descent from Ishmael is certain; the detail of the generations is not.

A saying is often quoted according to which the Prophet ﷺ, when he gave his lineage, would not go beyond Ma’add, son of Adnan, son of Udad, would say “the genealogists have lied”, and then recite:

This saying cannot be traced back to him ﷺ with certainty. Ibn Sa’d reports it from Hisham al-Kalbi, who had it from his father, from Abu Salih, from Ibn Abbas; but “Hisham and his father are abandoned” by the critics, comes the reply in al-Salihi. The soundest view, for al-Suhayli, whom al-Salihi and Ibn Kathir quote, is that it comes from the Companion Ibn Mas’ud (al-Salihi, I, 296; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 75).

Hashim and Abd al-Muttalib

Hashim’s name was Amr; he was called Hashim “because he crumbled (hashm) bread into broth, with meat, for his people in the years of famine”; it was he, Ibn Kathir reports, who established the winter and summer journeys. In Medina he married Salma bint Amr, of the clan of the Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar. Their son Shayba was brought to Mecca by his uncle al-Muttalib; people took the boy for his slave, hence the name Abd al-Muttalib, “the slave of al-Muttalib” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 184-185). From this comes the maternal kinship of the Prophet ﷺ with the Banu al-Najjar of Medina (Ibn Hisham, I, 168).

Abd al-Muttalib had ten sons and six daughters (Ibn Hisham, I, 108); the daughters were Arwa, Barra, Umayma, Safiyya, Atika and Umm Hakim (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 184).

Zamzam

After his uncle al-Muttalib, Abd al-Muttalib received the office of giving the pilgrims water (siqaya) and food (rifada), and “he attained among his people a rank that none of his forefathers had attained” (Ibn Hisham, I, 142; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 185).

Ibn Ishaq relates that he was called in a dream as he slept in the Hijr: “Dig Tayba”, then “Dig Barra”, then “Dig al-Madnuna”, and at last “Dig Zamzam”, the well that never runs dry. At that time he had only one son, al-Harith. Quraysh claimed a share in “the well of our father Ishmael”; they set out to refer the matter to a seeress of the Banu Sa’d Hudhaym, and a spring gushed out in the desert beneath the mount of Abd al-Muttalib. In the well he found two gazelles of gold and swords; this gold was the first to adorn the Ka’ba, “so they claim”, adds Ibn Ishaq (Ibn Hisham, I, 142-147; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 167-168).

Ibn Ishaq has the account of the dream from Yazid ibn Abi Habib, from Marthad ibn Abd Allah al-Yazani, from Abd Allah ibn Zurayr al-Ghafiqi, from Ali (Ibn Hisham, I, 143). None of the four books passes judgement on this chain, and Ibn Kathir merely repeats Ibn Ishaq; al-Salihi, however, mentions another route for the story of the digging of Zamzam: that of al-Bayhaqi, from al-Zuhri (al-Salihi, I, 187).

The vow and the ransom of Abd Allah

Ibn Ishaq also reports, “so they claim”, that Abd al-Muttalib made a vow: if ten sons were born to him and came to protect him, he would sacrifice one of them to God. The lot fell on Abd Allah. Quraysh opposed it; a seeress of Khaybar had lots drawn between Abd Allah and a ransom, ten camels at a time, until it reached a hundred (Ibn Hisham, I, 151-155; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 184). Ibn Hisham sets aside the verses that had been mixed into the story (Ibn Hisham, I, 155). According to al-Zuhri, Abd al-Muttalib was the first to set the blood money for a life at a hundred camels, and the Prophet ﷺ kept it (al-Salihi, I, 246).

A phrase linked to this story is often attributed to the Prophet ﷺ: “I am the son of the two sacrificed ones.” In that form, neither al-Zayla’i nor Ibn Hajar found it (al-Salihi, I, 302). What is reported, from Mu’awiya, is that a Bedouin addressed him in these words: “O son of the two sacrificed ones” (al-Salihi, I, 246).

Abd Allah and Amina

Ibn Ishaq describes Abd Allah as the youngest of the sons of Abd al-Muttalib and, “so they claim”, the best loved. He had the same mother as Abu Talib and al-Zubayr: Fatima bint Amr, of the Banu Makhzum (Ibn Hisham, I, 153; I, 179; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 184). Al-Zuhri calls him “the most handsome man of Quraysh” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 184).

He married Amina bint Wahb ibn Abd Manaf, of the clan of the Banu Zuhra (Ibn Hisham, I, 156; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 29-30). The sources agree on who she was and differ on the details: she was given to him by her father Wahb, according to Ibn Ishaq, or by her uncle Wuhayb, in whose care she lived; Abd Allah was thirty, or twenty-five (Ibn Hisham, I, 156; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 29-30). On the same day, Abd al-Muttalib married a daughter of Wuhayb, who became the mother of Hamza (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 30).

The Prophet ﷺ said: “I was born of a marriage, not of an illicit union.” The saying is reported, in similar words, by Ja’far ibn Muhammad, who had it from his father, without naming the Companion, and also from Ibn Abbas and Aisha (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 30). Ibn Kathir says it is reported “through a good route” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 204).

The death of Abd Allah

Abd Allah died in Medina, among the Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar, the clan of Salma (Ibn Hisham, I, 158; Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 32). When? Ibn Ishaq has him die during Amina’s pregnancy (Ibn Hisham, I, 158). Al-Waqidi holds this view to be “the best established”: Abd Allah, who had come back ill from a caravan to Gaza, died at twenty-five and was buried in the house of al-Nabigha (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 205); Ibn Sa’d is of the same view (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 206).

Others have him die after the birth: with the child in the cradle, at two months, at seven months or at twenty-eight months; according to al-Zuhri, he had gone to fetch dates (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, I, 32; Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 205-206). Ibn Ishaq himself, elsewhere, leaves both possibilities open: “God knows which it was” (Ibn Kathir, al-Sira, I, 208). The best-established view remains that the Prophet ﷺ was born fatherless.

How this page connects to the others

• The promise made concerning Ishmael and his descendants: The prayer of Abraham.
• The birth, in the Year of the Elephant: page 2, The Year of the Elephant and the birth.
• Amina’s stay with the Banu al-Najjar, her death on the way back, and Abu Talib, brother of Abd Allah and guardian of the orphan: page 3, Childhood.
• Back to the introduction to this part.

Sources for this page

• Qur’an: Tanzil text (Uthmani); translation of the meaning by the site.
• “God chose Kinana”: Muslim 2276.
• Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. al-Saqqa, al-Abyari and Shalabi, al-Babi al-Halabi, 1955, vol. I, pp. 1-2, 108, 142-147, 151-158, 168, 179.
• Ibn Sayyid al-Nas, Uyun al-athar, Dar al-Qalam, 1993, vol. I, pp. 26-32.
• Ibn Kathir, al-Sira al-nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa Abd al-Wahid, Dar al-Ma’rifa, 1976, vol. I, pp. 75, 167-168, 184-185, 204-208.
• al-Salihi al-Shami, Subul al-huda wa-l-rashad, ed. Abd al-Mawjud and Mu’awwad, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1993, vol. I, pp. 246, 295-297, 302.
• Research file “His birth and life before the message”, v1.0, 2 November 2026, sections 1 and 2.