The ‘news’ that the British Queen, Queen Elizabeth the Second is descended from Prophet Mohammad has been trending recently. It does seem a rather fantastic assertion on the face of it. How would one go about proving something like this, is one of the obvious questions asked.
UK-based publications such as The Daily Express, The Daily Mail recently reported that the current Queen of England, Elizabeth the Second, is a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad; the founder of the Islamic faith.
She is the head of the House of Windsor as well as the commonwealth of 53 countries and is currently the longest-reigning Monarch in the world. According to some reports, some historians have ‘traced the lineage’ of the Queen back to over 43 generations.
The current Queen’s lineage is clearly traceable to the Earl of Cambridge. The Earl in turn traced his ancestry back to ancient Spain and to the daughter of the Prophet, Fatima.
There is mention of Princess Zaida, the fourth wife of king Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad of Seville; who was supposed to be related to the Prophet. Apparently Zaida became Isabella, converted to Christianity and had a son called Sancho. It was Soncho’s descendants who married in the Cambridge family, say claims.
The claim was made in 1986 by Burke's Peerage (a credible source for authenticating royal lineage). At the time, the publisher of Burke's had written to the then Prime Minister Margret Thatcher to request better security for the royal family.
The claim about the British Queen being a descendant of the Prophet caught the attention of a Moroccan publication and became popular amongst the Arabic press as well as some British tabloids. The fact is that this is an interesting story that is seen to build bridges between two cultures, two faiths and also between the ancient and the modern; it is a story that people would want to believe.
According to author and journalist Lesley Hazleton, this is clickbait news; a well meaning effort towards steering interfaith trust. According to her, the fact that this news has become viral recently probably is a reaction to the demonization of Islam in many western countries and to lend greater ‘respectability’ to the faith. “If you go back far enough, you can find some kind of third cousin 99 times removed for anybody in the world,” she said. So to say that the queen has descended from the prophet is something of a stretch; albeit a fascinating, hopeful idea!
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