In many parts of the Muslim world people claim to be descendants of the Prophet. Generally these are Sayyids:
Sayyid (سÙد) (plural Saadah) is an honorific title that is given to males accepted as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hassan and Husayn, who were the sons of his daughter Fatima Zahra and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib.
Are the people who claim to be Sayyids really Sayyids? If they share common descent from Ali, their Y chromosomal lineage should be the same. Or, more likely assuming a small proportion of infidelity per generation you will have one modal Y lineage, and a host of other alien lineages at much lower frequencies.
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To be completely certain wouldn't we need to extract some DNA from the Prophet's bones too ?
I met one or two - and the fancy storebought genaology proving the descent is quite good enough for them. Given what a huge matter of family pride this is, I can't imagine anyone submitting to a test and dropping his Sayyid status if the DNA didn't match up. (Judging by the way Iraqi prosecutors handle physical evidence as opposed to the good old-fashioned two witnesses, they're not where we are on trusting any fancy-shmancy sequencing techniques anyway...)
To be completely certain wouldn't we need to extract some DNA from the Prophet's bones too ?
ali, the husband of fatima, is the paternal cousin of muhammad, so they should share the Y. it is true that total certitude would necessitate the prophet's remains, but if there is one modal lineage and a lot of small ones than that is pretty good evidence that there really is a descent down from ali.
Knowing human beings and their love of social prestige, I suspect that there will be more sources of inauthentic Y chromosomes than simply "good-faith" situations where everyone (except possibly the mother) believed the lineage was intact.
It's also worth mentioning that if the infidelities (or other types of misrepresentations) happened early enough in history these "minor lineages" could in fact be rather prevalent. It would be fun to model. Stochastic events could have a tremendous effect on the present state of affairs.
I suspect that there will be more sources of inauthentic Y chromosomes than simply "good-faith" situations where everyone (except possibly the mother) believed the lineage was intact.
sure. part of the issue might be that a prominent man around 750 might have lied, but he had a lot of descendants anyhow. at this point his might be the modal 'sayyid' lineage. or, we could find that the sayyids of arabia are totally different than the sayyids or morocco and the sayyids of india.
This is an example of a question whose rational resolution is impossible and unimportant.
1. Who cares? Being a descendant of The Prophet has no real significance.
2. However, hundreds of millions of people think that it does.
3. Furthermore, among these hundreds of millions, hundreds of thousands (by my guess) have a vested interest in being descendants of The Prophet.
So this argument will go on forever.
A comparable case is Biblical archaeology. So many people have so much invested in the Bible, for such poor reasons, that the truth is not an important factor in the argument. Some of these people control access to important data.
Even skeptics have occasionally committed themselves to debunking Biblical interpretations which turned out to be ungrounded, though at least whole civilizations have not organized themselves around Bible skepticism.
What I meant was "Even some skeptics have attached themselves to ungrounded debunkings of the Bible, though...."
If the Sayyid lineage could be accurately determined, it would be fascinating to find Sayyids who were not actually Muslims - potentially such men could be found in Spain, Sicily, and elsewhere, and populations descended from them.
Say for instance finding that Joe DiMaggio was a Sayyid...
My understanding is that a case can be made for the Queen of England being a descendant of the Prophet through some marriage that occurred several hundred years ago.
If true, this means that a lot of British are also Sayyid but just don't know it.
If true, this means that a lot of British are also Sayyid but just don't know it.
i'm talking paternal line descendants. uninterrupted. almost everyone in eurasia or descendents within the last 1,000 years prolly has a line of descent from muhammad.
Adoptions in the past would screw up the genetic analysis. I assume adopted males are still considered Sayyids.
Adoptions in the past would screw up the genetic analysis. I assume adopted males are still considered Sayyids.
my impression is that adoption of non-relatives is rare in patrilineal societies.
(1) Not all Sayyid are descendant of Ali. Sayyid literally means chief in Arabic. A family came from a chieftain may have this title too.
(2) There are family that does not have sayyid title, but have authentic family tree to Ali. As well, a Sayyid should also provide a authentic family tree to claim descendant of Ali.
(3) What is significant to construct their genealogy tree is because Ali's descendants was known to properly keep their family three for centuries, way back to Prophet Muhammad. Their writing can be a source for comparison with the gene analysis. Of course, if the data is not match, conflict may occur.