Descendants of the Prophet?

This  is  what  I  found  about the  Sayyids  in wikipedia.  Are they really  direct  descendants of Mohammad?





From wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyed

Sayyid (سيد) (plural Saadah) is an honorific title often given to males accepted as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hassan and Husayn, who were the sons of his daughter Fatima Zahra and his cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Indication of descent

Sayyids often include the following titles in their names to indicate the figure from whom they trace their descent. If they are descended from more than one notable ancestor or Shi'a imam, they will use the title of the ancestor from whom they are most directly descended.

Ancestor	Arabic Title	Arabic Last Name	Persian Title
Ali ibn Abu Talib	Allawi2	Allawi2 or Alawi3	Alavi2 علوى
Hasan ibn Ali	al-Hashimi or al-Hassani	al-Hashimi or al-Hassani	Hashemi, Hassani, or Tabatabai حسنى
Husayn ibn Ali	al-Hussaini	al-Hussaini1	Hosseini حسينى
Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al Abidin	al-Abidi	al-Abidi	Abedi عابدى
Zayd ibn Ali ash-Shahid	az-Zaidi	al-Zaidi	Zaidi زيدي
Muhammad al-Baqir	al-Baqiri	al-Baqiri	Baqeri باقرى
Jafar as-Sadiq	al-Ja'fari	al-Ja'fari	Jafari جعفرى
Musa al-Kazim	al-Mousawi	al-Mousawi	Mousavi or Kazemi موسوى / كاظمى
Ali ar-Rida	ar-Ridawi	al-Ridawi or al-Radawi	Rezavi or Rizvi or Rizavi رضوى
Muhammad at-Taqi	at-Taqawi	al-Taqawi	Taqavi تقوى
Ali al-Hadi	an-Naqawi	al-Naqawi	Naqavi نقوى

Edited by omshanti - 13-Feb-2007 at 06:27

Sayyid is mostly a shia adoption and IMHO part of a identity synthesis that resulted in the wake of spread of islam. What is the best family, the prophets, so if you are going to create a new identity then why not affiliate with the best. A lot of early muslims would have been divorced from their communities anyway, so seems logical.(Just a guess) .

My guess is 95% are not. Also those that are don't necessarily call themselves Sayyid. I would think that his decendants would be concentrated around southern Iraqi cities of kufah, Najaf, and hijaz, and maybe some areas of Jordan.

No offense to muslim. But do you think the term "direct descendant" of Mohammed is somewhat misleading as Mohammad left no son , hence no paternal descendant ,when he died.

The so-called direct descendant of Mohammad is actuallly the offshoot of Ali although you can argue that Ali was more like a step-son figure of Mohammed ,plus they both came from Banu Hashemi clan.

No offense to muslim. But do you think the term "direct descendant" of Mohammed is somewhat misleading as Mohammad left no son , hence no paternal descendant ,when he died.

Why? Don't girls count as ancestors?

Your talking about direct paternal descent

What has Brahman got to do with anything?

Although some do use it to scam people.

duplicate.


Edited by Killabee - 13-Feb-2007 at 22:47

Interesting opinions here. I guess it is understandable that most of them are not really the descendants of Mohammad, because there are unbelievable amount of seyeds (sayyids) out there (millions?). After all Mohammad or his grand children must not have been like genghiz-khan who left millions of descendants all over the place, have they?

I knew some Seyed people in Iran who were not happy at all about being seyeds because they hated to be stereotyped as mullahs or be expected to act like religious islamic people in public. Some of them were able to change their names or take off the seyed part from their names during the chaos of the revolution. The ones that could not take advantage of the chaotic revolutionary times were not able to change it because the islamic government does not alow it.

Is it possible for a seyed person to convert to another religion in middle eastern countries? I was just wondering because their names already indicate a strong islamic background. It would be really strange to see a christian or jewish or zoroastrian person with a seyed name.

This whole topic is making me interested in the origins of people's family names in general.

Edited by omshanti - 15-Feb-2007 at 00:32

Originally posted by Killabee No offense to muslim. But do you think the term "direct descendant" of Mohammed is somewhat misleading as Mohammad left no son , hence no paternal descendant ,when he died. The so-called direct descendant of Mohammad is actuallly the offshoot of Ali although you can argue that Ali was more like a step-son figure of Mohammed ,plus they both came from Banu Hashemi clan.

Ali's descendants lived there.