The original Arabs, of whom very little is known, existed much before Abraham and comprised among others the Ad or the Thamud which are mentioned in the Quran. There is also the tribe of Jurhum, attracted to the new settlement of Mecca as alluded to in the Quran 14:35-9 in which Ismail married into. Later the tribe of Jurhum ruled over Mecca but the Khuza'a supplanted them and drove them out, together with the descendants of Ismail. The Jurhum are attested in Greek sources (the Ethnica of Stephanus of Byzantium).
The marriage of Ismail with a Jurhumite is how Arabic as a language progressively entered into the Ishmaelite line, eventually replacing the semitic non-Arabic language of Ismail. It is interesting to note, scholars estimate that the ancestor of the Arabic languages, called proto-Arabic, split off from its central semitic family around 2000BCE. This also is the estimated time at which Abraham and Ishmael lived.
The prophet narrated that Ismail, after he was settled together with his mother in Mecca
"grew up and learnt Arabic from them (the Jurhum)".
Further the Quran describes Ismail, in his prophetic function, as preaching primarily to his own family rather than a nation as a whole 19:54-55. This is because he was a newly alien resident in a foreign land. He had to first establish his own family in that place, before carrying the message to the growing settlement.
The Arabs of the Peninsula are divided in to 2 main groups;
-Qahtani, who dominated the areas of Yemen and the southern part of the peninsula.
-Adnani, which comprised the regions of Central, Western and Northern Arabia and of whom the prophet Muhammad was a descendant.
A widely spread misconception is the notion that Qahtanis were the indigenous people of the Arabian Peninsula prior to the arrival of Ismael. And that Adnanis were the result of the intermarriage of Ismael with the Qahtani tribes. It is true that Arabs are either Qahtanis or Adnanis for the very most part. However, both Qahtanis and Adnanis are from the offspring of Ismael, as stated in some traditions, and the confusion could be due to the fact Qahtan was one of the major tribesmen of the descendants of Ismail, and thus over the years gotten confused with Qahtan bin Hood who was Ibrahim's grandfather.
It is agreed that Adnan is from the descendants of Ismail. Also, there is poetry which proves that Qahtan is from Ismail.
It is agreed that Adnan is from the descendants of Ismail. Also, there is poetry which proves that Qahtan is from Ismail.
The genealogy of the prophet Muhammad:
Abdullah, Abdul Muttalib, Hashim, Mughirah Abd-i Manaf, Qusayy, Kilab, Marra, Ka'b, Loo, Ghalib, Fahr, Malik, Nazar, Kananah, Khuzamah, Mudrakah, Ilyas, Mazar, Nazar, Ma'd and Adnan.
While agreeing with the above names, some narrators differ on the exact number of intermediate persons between the prophet and Adnan but where lies most of the disagreements is from Adnan upto Ismail. Not a single Muslim scholar, theologian or historian, past and present denies the Arabs' lineage from Ishmael. What Muslims differ on is on the necessity of trying to conjecture beyond Ma'ad and Adnan. The prophet himself discouraged such endeavour.
People can be part of a tribal group that ultimately traces their ancestry to a specific person, and not know their full genealogy upto that person. It happens all the time for tribal groups, let alone the Arabs, who were more keen on lineage. Can the Queen of England trace her detailed lineage up 5000 years which is roughly the interval between Muhammad and Ismail? Whenever the prophet mentioned the names of his forefathers he did not proceed beyond Adnan, and ordered that others too should do the same because he held that what was commonly known amongst the Arabs regarding that portion of the pedigree (which they all traced up to Ismail) could hardly be entirely true, obviously, going back so far would be virtually impossible to trace with 100% certainty and would be futile.
It is also to be noted that the Arabs knew very well who belonged to each tribe, and those who tried claiming otherwise by associating themselves with other clans, especially with those higher casts like the Quraysh. Tradition has recorded the names of several people who attempted faking their genealogy and tribal affiliations, like Akhnas ibn Shurayq or Walid ibn Mughirah.
Some critics have attempted painting Muhammad as the initiator to have claimed descendency from Abraham in order to justify his claim of prophethood. Then the burden is upon them to establish that he was unique in his claim. Muhammad made no proclamations of this fact, because it was already recognized in Arabian society that he was a descendant of Ishmael, and that further this issue of lineage was not even unique, especially in Mecca. So how could Muhammad's prophethood rest on claims that weren't unique to him? Further, not a single Meccan sura proves this. Muhammad claiming his prophethood was based upon the inimitability of the Quran during the period in Mecca. How does that correlate with the claim regarding the mission of Muhammad resting purely on this claim? Further, the Jews primarily lived in Medina, and Muhammad did not face them until over ten years of preaching to his own people in Mecca. So if Muhammad was preaching to his people, who were idolaters and not People of the Book, why would he rely on his descent to Ishmael as proof of his prophethood? They were from the same line as him, besides the fact that this argument wouldnt have been a weighty one considering the Israelites' history of rejecting and killing their own prophets.
Also, if we accept for the sake of argument regarding this mutual affiliation between the claim to Prophethood and the lineage of Ismail, than this would automatically mean that the Arabs themselves believed that Abraham was a Prophet of God, and Ishmael was a key figure of their history, worthy of veneration, and that a Prophet would arise from among the Ishmaelites. In fact among the pre-islamic evidences attesting to the Arabs' high regard for the Abrahamic legacy is the case of Qusay ibn Kilab who argued for his better legitimacy to the Kaaba's guardianship based on his purer lineage to Ismail. Again, that forceful statement, long before the prophet, could not have been made in a vacuum, if the Abrahamic legacy was not an already well established, uncontested knowledge among the Arabs. The religious beliefs of these patriarchs would obviously be respected in their eyes. The Ishmaelite tradition would have no value to them in regards to prophethood, unless they themselves understood that a Prophet would come from among them. So one would have to admit of the knowledge of Abraham and Ishmael in Arab tradition to even propose that argument. And if these figures were venerated in such a manner, then it would be rather easy for an Arab to weed out a false claimant to the lineage of Ishmael, because they would have been keen on preserving the purity of lineage.
The fact is Muhammad wasn't claiming anything in terms of lineage, nobody ever disputed that affiliation, whether the Madinan people of Yemeni origin, the pagans or hypocrites, the Jews or Christians, despite both the Quran and traditions reporting the calumnies and accusations of the enemies of the prophet and the Muslims. If there were the slightest of doubts about his descent, then this would have been made into a massive issue considering the core message of his prophethood centred around the revival of the way of Ibrahim.
The Arabs were already acknowledged even by the likes of Josephus in his Antiquites, that they were descended from Ishmael, way before the time of Muhammad, almost 500 years. He even mentions that the Arabs circumcise their children at 13 years old, as was still done in the times of the prophet, in remembrance of their forefather Ishmael. It is also important noting, Josephus not only locates these descendants of Ismail as inhabiting the region from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, but also bellies the notion that the hanifs imitated the Israelites in their rites, more specifically their circumcision rites, by saying that these Ishmaelites purposefully practiced it at 13 in memory of Ishmael, contrary to the Jews who do it a 8 days in memory of Isaac. In the biography by ibn Ishaq, it says the pre-Islamic Arabs practiced it. A camel would be slaughtered for the occasion. Now of course not all of them had preserved the way of Ibrahim, and those that did, had only but a dim remembrance of it. Until Islam came and restored the religion of Ibrahim. When Ibrahim circumcised Ishmael at 13, the age itself was not meant to be retained as the time at which the rite had to be performed, contrary to the precise timing concerning Isaac Gen21:4.
The Quran does not mention the practice although it claims in many places to reinstate the pure way of Ibrahim. This includes the God-ordained rite covenant of circumcision that included Ishmael, as is depicted in the HB. More than a simple tribal mark, it is the physical symbol of God's special relationship with Abraham, and by extension of the duties and obligations of those among his household carrying the mark. This world has been put under mankind's dominion in its raw state, and it is up to humans to perfect it by making use of it in a God-conscious manner. This world is an arena for us to build a relationship with God. Had everything been made perfect and as religiously intended from the get go, this would have been impossible. When we put a religious sign on the most physical and potentially lowly organ, we signify it can and should be used in a holy way. By performing it on a child who is unaware of the portents of the ritual, the idea of hardwired, subconscious connection between God and mankind is being conveyed, as is so often stated in the Quran.
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