5 - Holy Bloodlines, Prophetic Utterances, and Taxonomies of Belonging

Summary

Chapter Five demonstrates how descendants of the Prophet functioned as legitimating devices in Persian local histories. This book defines as descendants the wide array of cross-sectarian individuals and families who claimed and were believed by their communities to enjoy kinship with the Prophet, a phenomenon that was both biological and socially constructed. ʿAlids (al-ʿAlawī), Hasanids, Husaynids, Talibids, sayyids, and sharifs are all ambiguous terms and phenomena, and they are assessed in this chapter in terms of their relevance to medieval Iraq, Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. These descendants – including but not limited to sayyids and sharifs who ostensibly descend from the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons Hasan and Husayn – constitute the living virtues, or fadāʾil, of the land and become integral to the discourse of legitimation that these local histories construct through their form and content. This section also analyzes how hadith attributed to the Prophet or his descendants function as legitimating devices. A discussion of Moroccan shurafāʾ adds a comparative dimension to the discussion of how the family of the Prophet is portrayed and integrated in Persian histories.