so that no retribution would reach him, (1) for I shall bring forth from his loins a noble Prophet by whom I will seal the line of Messengers.

Jeremiah therefore carried out the command and took Maʿdd (2) to the land of Syria, where he grew up among the Israelites who survived after the destruction of Jerusalem. While there he married a woman named Maʿānah bint Jawshan, (3) of the clan of Dub ibn Jurhum, before returning to his homeland once the disturbances had subsided and the Arabian Peninsula had become purely Arab. (4)

Rakhyā, Jeremiah’s scribe, had already recorded Maʿdd’s genealogy in a book that was kept in Jeremiah’s treasury so that Maʿdd’s lineage would be preserved. (5) Allah knows best.

For this reason Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—disliked tracing any lineage beyond ʿAdnān.

Al-Suhaylī (6) said: “We have discussed the extension of these genealogies only in accordance with the view of those scholars who accepted it and did not censure it, such as Ibn Isḥāq, al-Bukhārī, al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār, al-Ṭabarī and others.”

As for Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—he was asked about a man who traces his ancestry back to Adam. He disliked the practice and said, “How could he possibly know that?” (7) He was then asked, “What about tracing it back to Ishmael?” He rejected that as well, saying, “And who can inform him of it?” He likewise disapproved of extending the lineages of the Prophets—for example, by saying, “Abraham son of so-and-so son of so-and-so.” This was reported by al-Muʿayṭī in his book. (8)

He added: “Mālik’s statement resembles what is related from ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, who said, ‘We have not found anyone who knows what lies between ʿAdnān and Ishmael.’ (9)

Ibn ʿAbbās said: ‘Between ʿAdnān and Ishmael there are thirty forefathers who are unknown.’ It is also related from him that whenever he reached ʿAdnān while reciting a genealogy he would say, ‘The genealogists have lied—twice or thrice.’ (10)

And the soundest opinion