Britain’s Queen may be direct descendant of Prophet Mohammed

A March article in Moroccan newspaper Al-Ousboue restates claims, which first surfaced in 1986 and were made by Harold B Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage Partnership, that Queen Elizabeth II is a 43rd direct descendant of the Prophet via Muhammad's daughter Fatimah.

"This makes the blood of the Prophet in the veins of kings who ruled Morocco, Andulasia and Europe," Abdel-Hamid Al-Awni, who wrote the article, said.

If true, the claims make Queen Elizabeth II a cousin of both king Mohammed VI of Morocco and king Abdullah II of Jordan.

According to the article, the historians have traced the lineage of Queen Elizabeth — at 91, the longest-living monarch in the world and the head of the House of Windsor that oversees the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — back over 43 generations.

Elizabeth is also the Queen of Canada, Australia and New Zealand and is the head of the Commonwealth group of 53 countries made up of former colonies of the British Empire, including of course India. Interestingly, the report comes as the Commonwealth Games are going on.

While the lineage ties to the Prophet Mohammad were claimed in 1986, the links have got new impetus since the story was picked up by a Moroccan newspaper and from there by the Arabic and British press.

Burke’s Peerage has been considered the gold standard on authenticating genealogical lineage in the UK since it was founded back in 1826.

In 1986, Burke’s Peerage reported the links back to Prophet Mohammad, and the ties were picked up in a report from the now defunct United Press International (UPI) news agency.

“Mixed in with Queen Elizabeth’s blue blood is the blood of the prophet Mohammad, according to Burke’s Peerage, the genealogical guide to royalty,” UPI reported then. “The relation came out when Harold B Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke’s, wrote to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to ask for better security for the royal family.”

“The royal family’s direct descent from the Prophet Mohammad cannot be relied upon to protect the royal family forever from Muslim terrorists,” Brooks-Baker had said.

The UPI report continued, “Probably realising the connection would be a surprise to many, he added, ‘It is little known by the British people that the blood of [Prophet] Mohammad [PBUH] flows in the veins of the queen. However, all Muslim religious leaders are proud of this fact.’”

Brooks-Baker said the British royal family is descended from Prophet Mohammad through the Arab kings of Seville, who once ruled Spain. By marriage, their blood passed to the European kings of Portugal and Castile, and through them to England’s 15th century King Edward IV, the UPI report concludes.

And the historical facts seem to back up the lineage from the Middle East all the way to Buckingham Palace.

Today, genealogists point out that if we all could track our lineage back over 43 generations, we would each statistically have some 60,000 ancestors, and we are all therefore more inter-related genealogically than most of us realise or acknowledge.

The 43 generational lineage dates to the Umayyad Caliphate, and essentially switches from the Arab world through Spain and on to England, with King Edward IV being a pivotal character in tying the family lines together.

The Umayyad Caliphate was an Arab caliphate established after the death of Prophet Mohammad. It was a formidable force and at its peak, ruled more than 15 million square kilometres from the Caucasus Mountains of Eurasia to the Iberian Peninsula, where the Muslim empire took hold in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar.

The capital of Islamic Iberia was Cordoba in present-day Spain, which existed between 756 and 929.

The downfall of the Umayyad Caliphate came after the Abbasid Revolution (661-750), the second of the four major Caliphates in early Islamic history.

The Abbasid was a dynasty formed by Abu Al Qasim Mohammad Bin Abbad, who was claimed by historians to have been a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad through the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima.

It was through Al Qasim bloodline that historians believed that Queen Elizabeth shared her genealogy antiquity with the Prophet.

Al Qasim became the ruler of Seville, a territory in Muslim Spain and ruled until his death in 1042.

After two successions, his grandson Mohammad Al Mutamid took control of Cordoba in 1071. He was to be the third and last of the Abbasids.

In 1091, the Abbasid kingdom fell into the hands of the Almoravid dynasty, a Berber imperial dynasty of Morocco.

Al Qasim had a daughter named Zaida. She was a refugee Muslim, who fled to King Alfonso VI’s court — the Spanish King of Leon, Castile and Galicia, during the attack on the Abbasid kingdom by the Almoravids.

Zaida later converted to Roman Catholicism and married King Alfonso VI.

She adopted the name Isabella after her baptism. Together, they had three children, one being a son named Sancho.

Two centuries later in 1352, Maria de Padilla, a descendant of Zaida and King Alfonso, had children with King Peter of Castile.

The king fathered four children with her, two of whom married sons of King Edward III of England.

Queen Elizabeth’s lineage can be readily traced back over 17 generations to Edward IV, who lived between 28 April 1442 and 9 April 1483.

A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said, "We do not make a comment on these kinds of claims."