He belongs to the tribe of Quraysh, the noblest of all tribes, and Quraysh are descended from Ishmael, peace be upon him. According to the well-known view, the Arabs are divided into two branches:

1. The ʿarab ʿāriba (original Arabs), who are the Qaḥṭānites; and
2. The ʿarab mustaʿriba (Arabised Arabs), who are the Adnānites, descendants of Ishmael son of Abraham, the Friend of the Most Merciful, peace be upon them both.

They were called “Arabised” because they acquired the Arabic language from the original Arabs. When the tribe of Jurhum came and settled in Mecca with Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, and her young son after discovering the water of Zamzam, they reached an agreement with Hagar to reside beside her and draw water from the spring. Ishmael—still a nursling at that time—grew up, learned Arabic from Jurhum (who belonged to the original Arabs), married into that tribe, and fathered children who mastered Arabic and were raised among the Arabs. These offspring became the ʿarab mustaʿriba, the Adnānites. As for the ʿarab ʿāriba, they are the Qaḥṭānites whose origin lies in Yemen.

Some scholars further state that the ʿarab ʿāriba are themselves of two kinds: the extinct Arabs and the surviving Arabs. The extinct Arabs are those who perished—the peoples of Noah, ʿĀd, Thamūd, and Shuʿayb. The surviving Arabs are then subdivided into ʿarab ʿāriba and ʿarab mustaʿriba, which are