Adnan ( ar, عدنان, 'adnān) is the traditional ancestor of the
Adnanite Arabs of Northern, Western, Eastern and Central
Arabia, as opposed to the
Qahtanite Arabs of
Southern Arabia who descend from
Qahtan. His ancestry can be traced back to
Abraham and from there to
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
and
Noah
Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
.
Origin
According to tradition, Adnan is the father of a group of the
Ishmaelite Arabs who inhabited West and Northern Arabia; he is a descendant of
Ishmael
Ishmael ''Ismaḗl''; Classical/Qur'anic Arabic: إِسْمَٰعِيْل; Modern Standard Arabic: إِسْمَاعِيْل ''ʾIsmāʿīl''; la, Ismael was the first son of Abraham, the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions; and is cons ...
, son of
Abraham. Adnan is believed by genealogists to be the father of many
Ishmaelite tribes along the Western coast of
Arabia, Northern
Arabia and
Iraq.
Many family trees have been presented by Adnan, which did not agree about the number of ancestors between
Ishmael
Ishmael ''Ismaḗl''; Classical/Qur'anic Arabic: إِسْمَٰعِيْل; Modern Standard Arabic: إِسْمَاعِيْل ''ʾIsmāʿīl''; la, Ismael was the first son of Abraham, the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions; and is cons ...
and Adnan but agreed about the names and number of the ancestors between Adnan and the
Islamic prophet
Prophets in Islam ( ar, الأنبياء في الإسلام, translit=al-ʾAnbiyāʾ fī al-ʾIslām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God in Islam, God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. So ...
Muhammad.
The overwhelming majority of traditions and Muslim scholars state that Adnan is a descendant of
Qedar
The Qedarites ( ar, قيدار, Qaydār) were a largely nomadic ancient Arab tribal confederation centred in the Wādī Sirḥān in the Syrian Desert. Attested from the 8th century BC, the Qedarites formed a powerful polity which expanded its ...
the son of Ishmael,
except for
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār (; according to some sources, ibn Khabbār, or Kūmān, or Kūtān, ar, محمد بن إسحاق بن يسار بن خيار, or simply ibn Isḥaq, , meaning "the son of Isaac"; died 767) was an 8 ...
who claimed that Adnan was a descendant of
Nebaioth
Nebaioth ( ''Nəḇāyōṯ'') or Nebajoth is mentioned at least five times in the Hebrew Bible, according to which he was the firstborn son of Ishmael, and the name appears as the name of one of the wilderness tribes mentioned in the Book of Genes ...
;. According to classical Muslim historian
Al-Tabari
( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...
, Ibn Ishaq's differing record may be due to one of the descendants of Qedar also bearing the name of "Nebaioth".
Most Muslim scholars refused any attempt to recite the ancestors between Adnan to Ishmael, and condemned other scholars such as
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār (; according to some sources, ibn Khabbār, or Kūmān, or Kūtān, ar, محمد بن إسحاق بن يسار بن خيار, or simply ibn Isḥaq, , meaning "the son of Isaac"; died 767) was an 8 ...
for doing it.
This complete absence of evidence for any ancestor between Adnan and Ishmael (and his son) has led some scholars to consider any personal name between the two figures as post-Islam
apocrypha.
Family
Adnan married Mahdad bint Laham, who was a descendant of his
ancestor
An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...
's half brother
Yaqshan. He had two sons with her,
Ma'ad ibn Adnan and
Akk ibn Adnan. Akk dwelt in the
Yaman because he took a wife amongst the
Asharites and lived with them, adopting their language. The Asharites were descended from
Saba'
The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean:, ; ar, ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, ''as-Sabaʾiyyūn''; he, סְבָאִים, Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old South Arabian langua ...
ibn Yashjub ibn
Ya'rub ibn
Qahtan.
In Pre-Islamic Arabia
Adnan was mentioned in various
Pre-Islamic poems, by the
Pre-Islamic poets Lubayb Ibn Rabi'a and Abbas Ibn Mirdas.
Adnan was viewed by
Pre-Islamic Arabs as an honorable father among the fathers of Arab tribes, and they used this ancestry to boast against other
Qahtani tribes who were a minority among the
Adnanites.
Layla Bent Lukayz
Laila bint Lukaiz or Layla bint Lukayz ( ar, لَيْلَى بنت لُكَيْز died 483), otherwise known as "Layla the Chaste" (Arabic: ليلى العفيفة), was a legendary Arab poet and one of the leading poets of the fifth century.''Cl ...
, a
Pre-Islamic female poet
This is a list of female poets with a Wikipedia page, listed by the period of time in which they were born.
Before CE
1–500 CE
500–999 CE
11th–14th centuries
In chronological order:
15th century
16th century
17th century ...
, was captured by a
Persian king and forced to marry him, so she composed a poem designated to other Arab tribes, asking for their help and reminding that she and they all belong to Adnan, which makes it a duty for them to rescue her.
In other poems such as the ones composed by the
Pre-Islamic poet "Qumma'a Ibn Ilias", it appears that Arabs considered it as an "Honor" to be a descendant of Adnan, and for some reason they appear to have been proud of it - presumably because if something is considered an "Honor", it is something to be proud of, as a function of the language model.
In North Arabian inscriptions
The name of Adnan is often found in various
Thamudic inscriptions, but with few details. In some
Nabataean inscriptions, Adnan seems to hold some kind of importance or venerability, to the extent that some Nabataeans (descendants of Nabioth, the eldest son of Ishmael) were named after him as ''Abd Adnon'' (meaning, "the slave
r servant
R, or r, is the eighteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabe ...
of Adnan"). This is no particular indication that he was worshiped, rather than venerated as an honorable figure, much as other Arabs sometimes named their sons "servants" of their forefathers.
Death
Adnan died after
Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...
returned to
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
. After Adnan's death, his son
Ma'ad moved to the region of Central-Western
Hijaz after the destruction of the
Qedarite kingdom near
Mesopotamia, and the remaining
Qedarite Arabs there were displaced from their lands and forced to live in
Al-Anbar province and on the banks of the
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
river under the rule of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Descent from Adnan to Muhammad
According to Islamic tradition, the
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic
prophet Muhammad was descended from Adnan. It has also been reported, through many speeches, that Adnan foretold the coming of Muhammad and ordered his successors to follow him.
The following is the list of chiefs who are said to have ruled the
Jazeera and to have been the intraline ancestors of Muhammad:
* Adnan
*
Ma'ad (
معد)
*
Nizar (
نزار)
*
Mudhar (
مضر)
* Ilyas (
إلياس)
*
Mudrikah (
مدركة)
*
Khuzaimah (
خزيمة)
*
Kinanah (
كنانة)
*
al-Nadr (
النضر)
* Malik (
مالك)
*
Fihr (
فهر)
* Ghalib (
غالب)
*
Lu'ay (
لؤي)
*
Ka'b (
كعب)
*
Murrah (
مرة)
*
Kilab (
كلاب)
*
Qusai (
قصي)
*
Abd Manaf
Abd Manaf al-Mughirah ibn Qusai ( ar, عبد مناف ٱلمغيرة ٱبن قصي, ''ʿAbd Manāf al-Mughīrah ibn Quṣayy'') was a Quraysh (tribe), Qurayshi and great-great-grandfather of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. His father was Qusai ibn ...
(
عبد مناف)
*
Hashim (
هاشم)
*
Abd al-Muttalib (
عبد المطلب)
*
Abd Allah
Abd Allah ( ar, عبدالله, translit=ʻAbd Allāh), also spelled Abdallah, Abdellah, Abdollah, Abdullah and many others, is an Arabic name meaning "Servant of God". It is built from the Arabic words '' abd'' () and ''Allāh'' (). Although the ...
(
عبد الله)
*
Muhammad (
محمد)
See also
*
Qahtan
*
Adnan (name)
Adnan ( ar, عدنان, ) is an Arabic masculine name common in the Muslim world. Its eponymous bearer was Adnan, an ancient ancestor of various Arabian tribes. The etymological meaning of the name is ''settler'', from a semitic root '; "to stay, ...
*
Ahl al-Bayt
Ahl al-Bayt ( ar, أَهْل ٱلْبَيْت, ) refers to the family of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, but the term has also been extended in Sunni Islam to apply to all descendants of the Banu Hashim (Muhammad's clan) and even to all Muslims. ...
*
Family tree of Muhammad
*
Family tree of Shaiba ibn Hashim
This family tree is about the relatives of the Islamic prophet Muhammad known as a family member of the family of Hashim and the Qurayshs tribe which is ‘Adnani. "The ‘arabicised or arabicising Arabs’, on the contrary, are believed to be ...
*
Ancestry of Qusai ibn Kilab
*
Banu Hashim
)
, type = Qurayshi Arab clan
, image =
, alt =
, caption =
, nisba = al-Hashimi
, location = Mecca, Hejaz Middle East, North Africa, Horn of Africa
, descended = Hashim ibn Abd Manaf
, parent_tribe = Qu ...
, a clan of the Quraysh tribe
*
Quraysh
The Quraysh ( ar, قُرَيْشٌ) were a grouping of Arab clans that historically inhabited and controlled the city of Mecca and its Kaaba. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born into the Hashim clan of the tribe. Despite this, many of the Qur ...
, a tribe, part of Banu Kinanah
*
Banu Kinanah, a group of tribes, part of Mudhar
*
Mudarites, a tribal confederation of Adnanites
Further reading
The dwelling places and wanderings of the Arabian tribes, by Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, in GermanWere the Qays and Yemen of the Umayyad Period Political Parties?
References
{{Adam to Muhammad
Semitic-speaking peoples
Adnanites
Ancient Arabs
Ancestors of Muhammad
Sahabah ancestors
Ishmaelites