Mohammed was NOT a descendant of ishmael!

Submitted by Me ME (United States), Jun 20, 2011 at 13:54

You are the one who does not know your own religion dear...Muslims believe that Mohammed is a descendant of Ishmael. As proof of their position, Muslims refer to genealogies written around 770-775 A.D. by Ibn Ishak.

What he has written is simply not true. Ishmaelite tribes, especially the tribe of Nebaioth from which, according to Ibn Ishak, Mohammed is said to have come, were nomadic tribes who lived in the Sinai and Fertile Crescent deserts. These tribes disappeared after the 7th century B.C.

Mohammed's family was a Sabaean Yemeni family, while the Ishmaelites, who lived in the deserts of the Fertile Crescent, became extinct many centuries before Mohammed's family left Yemen.

Historians say that the family of Mohammed was a family which lived in Saba-Yemen. In the 5th century A.D., Qusayy Bin Kilab, the 8th ancestor of Mohammed, gathered an alliance of many Yemeni families forming Quraish, the tribe from which Mohammed later came. These families only came to occupy Mecca in the 5th century A.D. The city of Mecca was built by the tribe of Khuzaa'h in the 4th century A.D.

Mohammed's family is not connected to any Ishmaelite tribe because Mohammed's family didn't leave Yemen until the 5th century A.D., and that's about 1,100 years after the Ishmaelites disappeared. Mohammed's tribe could not have lived in the same locations as the Ishmaelite tribes at any time throughout history.

The genealogy fabricated by Ibn-Ishak contradicts the sayings of Mohammed, who expressed his ignorance about his ancestors prior to his 17th ancestor.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".