Al-Bukhārī said: “Aslam ibn Afṣā ibn Ḥārithah ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿĀmir belonged to Khuzaʿah.” He explains that Khuzaʿah was one of the groups that scattered from the tribes of Sabaʾ when Allah sent against them the flood of al-ʿArim, as will be discussed later; the Aws and the Khazraj were among those very people.
To that same group the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Shoot, O sons of Ishmael!” (1) This plainly indicates that they are of his lineage. Others have argued that the phrase merely means “O Arabs,” but that is a strained reading, for it clashes with the obvious sense and lacks proof.
The majority of scholars nonetheless maintain that the Qaḥṭānite Arabs—the people of Yemen and those akin to them—are not descendants of Ishmael. In their view all Arabs fall into two great branches: Qaḥṭānite and ʿAdnānite. The Qaḥṭānites divide into two main subdivisions, Sabaʾ and Ḥaḍramawt; the ʿAdnānites likewise divide into two, Rabīʿah and Muḍar, the sons of Nizār ibn Maʿadd ibn ʿAdnān. A fifth lineage, Qaḍāʿah (2), is disputed: some consider it ʿAdnānite.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “That is the view held by the majority; it is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, and Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim, and it is the choice of al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār, his uncle Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī, and Ibn Hishām.” A ḥadīth declaring “Qaḍāʿah are the sons of Maʿadd” has indeed been transmitted, but it is not sound, as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and others have noted (3).
It is also said that throughout the pre-Islamic era and the early period of Islam they claimed descent from ʿAdnān. Then, in the time of Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn (4) Muʿāwiyah—whose maternal uncles they were—they began to claim descent from Qaḥṭān. On this point al-Aʿshā of Banū (5) Thaʿlabah composed the following lines:
(from the baṣīṭ metre)
Send word to Qaḍāʿah, write it plain for them:
Had God’s own heirs not lived, they’d still be slaves.
Qaḍāʿah say, “From noble Yemen we descend,”—
Yet God alone knows who speaks truth, who raves.
They claim a father who ne’er knew their mother;
They know it well, but fear is what enslaves.
Abū ʿAmr al-Suhaylī (6) likewise cited other Arab verses that sharply censure Qaḍāʿah for altering their pedigree to Yemen—and Allah knows best (7).