A similar report is transmitted from Ibn Masʿūd. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb declared, “Lineage should be traced only as far back as ʿAdnān.”

Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr says in his book al-Inbāh fī Maʿrifat Qabāʾil al-Ruwāt: “Ibn Lahīʿah narrated from Abū al-Aswad that he heard ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr say, ‘We have found no one who knows what lies beyond ʿAdnān or beyond Qaḥṭān except by conjecture.’ Abū al-Aswad also said, ‘I heard Abū Bakr ibn Sulaymān ibn Abī Khaythamah—who was among Quraysh’s most learned in its poetry and genealogies—affirm, “We have not found any poet or scholar who knows what lies beyond Maʿadd son of ʿAdnān.”’

Abū ʿUmar (1) added: “Certain early Muslims—among them ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, ʿAmr ibn Maymūn al-Awdī, and Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī—whenever they recited the verse, ‘…and those after them—none knows them except Allah’ (Ibrāhīm 14:9), would say, ‘The genealogists have lied.’ (2)

“In our view, however,” Abū ʿUmar continued, “the point of the verse is other than what they took from it. It addresses anyone who claims to enumerate all the descendants of Adam; only Allah, who created them, possesses such knowledge. As for the genealogies of the Arabs, the scholars of their history and lineages have collected and preserved the greater part of them, together with the main stems of their tribes, differing only over certain peripheral branches. (3)(4)

“The position adopted by the leading authorities in this field concerning the lineage of ʿAdnān is that ʿAdnān was the son of Add, son of Muqawwim, son of Nāḥūr, son of Yaʿrub, son of Yashjub, son of Nābit, son of Ishmael, son of Abraham the Friend—peace be upon them.” This is also how Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yasār recorded it in his Sīrah. (5)(6)

Ibn Hishām said, “It is also held that ʿAdnān was the son of Ad—that is, ʿAdnān ibn Ad ibn Add.” Abū ʿUmar then traced the remainder of the lineage back to Adam, as we noted earlier in the story of the Friend.

As for the lines that lead to ʿAdnān among the various Arab tribes, they are so well preserved and famous that no two people dispute them; and the Prophet’s own pedigree to him is clearer than the break of dawn. A sound Marfūʿ ḥadīth explicitly confirms this, and we shall cite it in its proper place after discussing the Arab tribes, their genealogies, and how they are woven into that noble, lofty ancestry—if Allah wills. In Him we place our trust and upon Him we rely; there is no power and no strength except with Allah, the Almighty, the All-Wise.

How excellently Imām Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Nāshiʾ versified the Prophetic lineage in his celebrated poem attributed to him, in which he says:

[From the Ṭawīl metre]