Adnanites

According to Arab genealogical tradition, the Adnanites (Arabic: عدنانيون‎) are "Arabized Arabs", descended from Ishmael through Adnan, distinguished from the "pure" Qahtanite Arabs of southern Arabia.[2]

Banu Adnan (Arabic: بنو عدنان‎)
Ishmaelite, Qedarite
A family tree depicting branches of the Adnanites.
Nisba	Adnani, Adnaniyyah
Location	Western Arabia, Tihamah region[1]
Descended from	Adnan
Religion	Indigenous polytheistic beliefs, Christianity (Nestorian Christianity), Judaism, Zoroastrianism, later on Islam

Arab genealogical tradition

See also: Tribes of Arabia

A family tree depicting the descendants of the Banu Adnan.

Arab genealogical tradition holds that the Adnanites are "Arabized Arabs", descended from Adnan.[3] The Adnanites became Arabized when they migrated to the Arabian Peninsula,[4][5] whereas the Qahtanites of Southern Arabia (Yemen) are the pure Arabs.[6][7]

Modern historiography

According to some modern historians, the traditional distinction between Adnanites and Qahtanites lacks evidence and may have developed out of the later faction-fighting during the Umayyad period.[2]

Further reading

• The dwelling places and wanderings of the Arabian tribes, by Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, in German
• Were the Qays and Yemen of the Umayyad Period Political Parties?

See also

• Prophet Muhammad, a member of this group

References

1. al-Bakri, Abdullah. Mu'jam mā ista'jam. 1. p. 87.
2. Parolin, Gianluca P. (2009). Citizenship in the Arab World: Kin, Religion and Nation-State. p. 30. ISBN 978-9089640451.
3. Parolin, Gianluca P. (2009). Citizenship in the Arab World: Kin, Religion and Nation-State. p. 30. ISBN 978-9089640451. The ‘arabicised or arabicising Arabs’, on the contrary, are believed to be the descendants of Ishmael through Adnan, but in this case the genealogy does not match the Biblical line exactly. The label ‘arabicised’ is due to the belief that Ishmael spoke Hebrew until he got to Mecca, where he married a Yemeni woman and learnt Arabic. Both genealogical lines go back to Sem, son of Noah, but only Adnanites can claim Abraham as their ascendant, and the lineage of Mohammed, the Seal of Prophets (khatim al-anbiya'), can therefore be traced back to Abraham. Contemporary historiography unveiled the lack of inner coherence of this genealogical system and demonstrated that it finds insufficient matching evidence; the distinction between Qahtanites and Adnanites is even believed to be a product of the Umayyad Age, when the war of factions (al-niza al-hizbi) was raging in the young Islamic Empire.
4. Reuven Firestone (1990). Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis. p. 72. ISBN 9780791403310.
5. Göran Larsson (2003). Ibn García's Shuʻūbiyya Letter: Ethnic and Theological Tensions in Medieval al-Andalus. p. 170. ISBN 9004127402.
6. Charles Sanford Terry (1911). A Short History of Europe, from the fall of the Roman empire to the fall of the Eastern empire. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1112467356. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
7. Luwīs ʻAwaḍ (1987). The Literature of ideas in Egypt, Part 1. Indiana University. p. 146. ISBN 978-1555400651. Retrieved 4 February 2013.