The terms Qahtanite and Qahtani ( ar, قَحْطَانِي;

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

: Qaḥṭānī) refer to

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

s who originate from

South Arabia South Arabia () is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'Asi ...

. The term "Qahtan" is mentioned in multiple ancient Arabian inscriptions found in Yemen. Arab traditions believe that they are the original Arabs.

Traditional Arab genealogy

According to Arab tradition, the Qahtanites are from South Arabia, unlike the

Adnanites The Adnanites ( ar, عدنانيون) were a tribal confederation of the Ishmaelites, Ishmaelite Arabs, traces their lineage back to Ishmael in Islam, Ismail son of the Islamic prophet and patriarch Abraham in Islam, Ibrahim and his wife Hagar i ...

who are from the north of Arabia descended from

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 ...

through

Adnan 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 t ...

. "The 'arabized or arabizing Arabs', on the contrary, are believed to be the descendants of Ishmael through Adnan, but in this case the genealogy does not match the Biblical line exactly. The label 'arabized' is due to the belief that Ishmael spoke Hebrew until he got to Mecca, where he married a Yemeni woman and learnt Arabic. Both genealogical lines go back to Sem, son of Noah, but only Adnanites can claim Abraham as their ascendant, and the lineage of Mohammed, the Seal of Prophets (khatim al-anbiya'), can therefore be traced back to Abraham. Contemporary historiography unveiled the lack of inner coherence of this genealogical system and demonstrated that it finds insufficient matching evidence; the distinction between Qahtanites and Adnanites is even believed to be a product of the Umayyad Age, when the war of factions (al-niza al-hizbi) was raging in the young Islamic Empire." Arab tradition maintains that a semi-legendary ancestral figure named ''Qahtan'' and his 24 sons are the progenitors of Yemen who controlled the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

known as Qahtani. The genealogists disagree about the pedigree of Qahțān imself Some trace him back to Ismā'īl b.

Ibrāhīm Ibrahim ( ar, إبراهيم, ; Arabic synonym of "Abraham") is the 14th chapter (surah) of the Qur'an with 52 verses ( āyāt). The surah emphasizes that only God knows what goes on inside a man's heart, implying we must accept each other' ...

, saying that his

ame #REDIRECT AME #REDIRECT AME {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

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Traditional Arab genealogy

Early linguistic connection

Pre-Islamic Qahtani migration out of Arabia

After the rise of Islam

See also

Notes

References

Further reading