How I am descended from the Prophet Muhammad

0) The Prophet Muhammad (570-632) had by his wife Khadijah 1) a daughter, Fatimah; she and her husband Ali had 2) a son, al-Hasan (d. 670); he and his wife Zhadah Kandaria had 3) a son, Husain (born c. 669).

Husain had 4) a daughter, Zohra "al-Lakhm"; she and her husband Abu Farisi had 5) a son, Na'im al-Lakhmi; he had 6) a son also named Na'im al-Lakhmi.

The second Na'im al-Lakhmi had 7) a son, Itaf (fl. 742); he had 8) a son, Amr; he had 9) a son, Aslan.

Aslan had 10) a son, called Amr like his grandfather; he had 11) a son, Abbad; he had 12) a son, Qarais.

Qarais had 13) a son, Ismail, who became Iman of Seville; he had 14) a son, Kadi Abul-Kasim Muhammad I (d. 1042) who became Chamberlain of Seville; he had 15) a son, Abu Amr Abbad ben Muhammad al-Mu'tamid, (d. 1068) also Chamberlain of Seville.

This al-Mu'tamid had 16) a son Abul-Kasim Muhammad ben Abbad al Mu'tamid (1045-1095) who became Emir of Seville and was famously devoted to his wife, I'tamid; they had 17) a daughter Zaida (1075-1107), baptised as a Christian, and renamed Isabel, who was married to 1098 to Alfonso VI, King of Leòn & Castile; she had 18) a daughter Sancha de Castile (born c.1100) wha was married in 1120 to to Rodrigo 'El Franco' Gonzalez de Lara.

They had 19) a son, Rodrigo Rodriguez de Lara (b. 1123); he married Garcia de Azagra and had 20) a daughter, Sancha Rodriguez de Lara; she married Gonsalo Ruis II Giron and had 21) a daughter, Aldonza Gonzalez Giron (fl. 1240)

Aldonza Gonzalez Giron married Ramiro Senor de Cifontes and had 22) a daughter, Aldonza Ramirez, Senora de Alcanices; she married Fernan Gonsales and had 23) a daughter, Meria de Henestrona; and she married Juan Garciez de Padilla, Señor de Villagera and had 24) a daughter, Maria de Padilla (1335-1365) who married Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon.

Maria and Pedro had 25) a daughter, Isabella of Castile (1355-1392); she married Edmund of Langley, Duke of York and son of Edward III and they had 26) a son, Richard Plantagenet (1375-1415) Earl of Cambridge and also Duke of York; he married Anne Mortimer and was executed in 1415 but had 27) a daughter, Isabel Plantagenet (1409-1484).

Isabel Plantagenet married Henry Bourchier, who was created Earl of Essex, and had 28) a son, William Bourchier; he married Anne Wydeville and had 29) a daughter, Cecile Bourchier (d. 1493); she married John Devereaux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, and had 30) a son, Walter Devereaux (1477-1558), Viscount Hereford.

Walter, Viscount Hereford, had 31) a son, Sir Richard Devereux (d. 1547); he married Dorothy Hastings and had 32) a son, Walter Devereux (1539-1576), who was created Earl of Essex (the Bourchier line was extinct); he married Lettice Knollys and had 33) a son, the ill-fated Robert Devereux (1566-1601), Earl of Essex.

Robert Earl of Essex, who was executed in 1601, had married Frances Walsingham and had 34) a daughter, Lady Dorothy Devereux (1600-1636) who married Sir Henry Shirley; they had 35) a daughter, Lettice Shirley (1619-1655); she married William de Burgh/Burke, 7th Earl of Clanricard and had 36) a son, John de Burgh/Burke, (1640-1722) who was in turn 9th Earl of Clanrickard (his elder brother predeceased him).

He married Bridget Talbot and had 37) a son, Thomas de Burgh; he had 38) a daughter, Letitia de Burgh; she married John Whyte of Leixlip and Loughbrickland, and had 39) a son, Nicholas Charles Whyte (1784-1844)

Nicholas Charles Whyte of Loughbrickland had 40) a son, John Joseph Whyte (d.1916); he had 41) a son, William Henry Whyte (d. 1949); and he had 42) a son, John Henry Whyte (1928-1990).

John Henry Whyte was my father, which puts me at the 43rd generation after the Prophet Muhammad.

It's a brilliant story including two victims of the headsman's axe, at least three changes of religion (Zaida, the Reformation, and at some point a reconversion to Catholicism), changes of scene from the Middle East, to Spain, to England, and finally to Ireland, and dipping in and out of royal families including the early parts of the Wars of the Roses. It even links me with the late Princess Diana; she and I have common ancestors from Lettice Shirley and the seventh Earl of Clanricard. After that her line of descent goes Lettice Shirley -> Richard Burke (1639-1702), eighth Earl of Clanricard -> Dorothy Burke (b.1673) -> Edmund Roche (1714-1750) -> Edmund Roche (1741-1823) -> Edward Roche (1771-1855) -> Edmund 1st Baron Roche (1815-1874) -> James 3rd Baron Roche (1851-1920) -> Edmund 4th Baron Roche (1885-1955) -> Frances Burke Roche (1936-2004) -> Diana Spencer (1961-1997), which puts my children the same generation as her mother. (The connection may well be closer as there were a number of Whyte/Roche marriages in the 18th century.)

Of course, it's too good to be true. I am fairly confident of the second half of the genealogy above, but substantial elements in the first six hundred years appear to be fictional. Todd Farmerie has posted convincingly on several of the gaps in the record:

re the line from 4) Zohra to 14) Abbad: according to Farmerie, Zohra "is fictional, as is her nickname, invented (ca. 1500) solely to connect the Lakhmi line to that of Ali and Muhammad. These Lakhm were a minor tribe from the Sinai distinct from the house of Ali, so a descendant of his would not have been described as "the Lakhm", nor were any daughters of Ali's tribe allowed to marry out of the tribe at this time. Likewise, Abu Farisi is an invention, not known to the earliest scholars and genealogists of the family that would come to rule in Spain." Skipping down a couple of generations, " [7)] Itaf is said to have been a soldier in 742, which exacerbates the chronological problem." [Indeed - if he was a soldier in 742, but his great-great-grandfather was born in 669, that leaves only 73 years for four generations which is cutting it rather fine.] "He only appears in the histories of the royal family claiming descent from him, and may likewise be fictional. None of the intervening generations down to [14)] Muhammad are independently attested, outside of the pedigree of the Abu 'Abbadis, and the pedigree has no branches through these generations." And finally, 11) Abbad "is the eponymous ancestor of the Abu 'Abbadi family, and perhaps a prior first-ancestor, before the pedigree was extended." In a second article, Todd Farmerie points out that 17) Zaida presents two big problems: first, "Contemporary Arabic sources describe Zaida as daughter-in-law of the ruler of Seville, not his daughter, and any attempt to identify her paternity has not moved beyond the level of wild guesswork. (Any assignment of her mother is completely without foundation, as mothers were almost never identified, even for the rulers.)" - so her relationship with those ahead of her in the table is disputable; and secondly, "Zaida was baptized as Isabel, but it is far from universally accepted that she is identical with the Queen Isabel who was mother of Sancha Alfonso, wife of Rodrigo Gonzalez" - so the relations below are dodgy as well. And from farther down the same article, 19) Rodrigo Rodriguez de Lara "is a genealogical fiction, invented by Salazar y Castro to link Sancha Rodriguez, whom he wrongly thought to be a Lara, with Rodrigo Gonzalez. (Earlier reconstructions made Sancha daughter of Rodrigo Gonzalez, but chronology demanded an additional generation.) In fact, Rodrigo Gonzalez and [18)] Sancha Alfonso had two children, a son who entered the church, and a daughter married to the Count of Urgel, as his second wife. By her, the Count of Urgel had a son who died without issue, and a daughter married, as second wife, to the Count of Haro. By her, the Count of Haro had one known son, who in turn had one known son, at which point the line fades into the minor nobility. There are no known descendants of Sancha beyond this point."

But in fact I conclude that the probability that I am a direct descendant of the Prophet by some unchronicled lineage must be pretty close to certain. The mythical genealogy above has 42 generations between me and him. Two to the power of 43 is a shade under nine trillion, in other words there are 8.8 trillion lines of descent to be drawn between me and my ancestors of 43 generations ago. Given that the human population of the entire planet in the year 600 was only in the hundreds of millions, even if I were descended somehow from every human alive at that time who left descendants alive today, there would be thousands of parallel lineages from each one, crossing and re-crossing each other. I suspect that I am not in fact descended from anyone who was then living in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, east or south-east Asia, or South America, which simply increases the number of parallel lineages from the rest of the world.

To be quite specific: the lives and families of many of the Prophet's descendants are chronicled in great detail. But he had a lot more descendants beyond them. Is it unlikely, possible or probable that in the 400 years after his death some of his descendants moved to Spain at the other end of the Islamic world? I'd have thought it was impossible to deny. Is it unlikely, possible or probable then that during the next two hundred years some of these families married into the Christian gentry and nobility? I'd have thought it must be pretty certain that this happened on numerous occasions. And once you have admitted the likelihood that there were even a few descendants of Muhammad in the Christian nobility of one part of Western Europe by the year 1200, it must be pretty likely that their descendants, if any, included the entire nobility of Europe by 1700. And as it happens, at least one of my direct ancestors alive in that year was an earl, John de Burgh aka Burke, Earl of Clanricard.

The link through Spanish nobility is merely the most obvious possible line of descent, suggested by the mythical genealogy above. There are lots of other possibilities: noble lineages via Sicily or Eastern Europe, merchants, soldiers, slave-traders, all of whom would have moved the lineage across and between continents. I would venture that if the Prophet has any descendants at all alive today, they must include practically the entire population of the Arab world, most of the rest of Africa, and substantial chunks of Europe, south and south-east Asia, north and south America, and Australia. Which means, dear reader, that you too are quite likely to be one of his descendants.

Front page | Bits and pieces index | About this site | My Weblog

Nicholas Whyte, 5 May 2002