The Quraysh Kinanah tribe is the ancestors and family of the Prophet Muhammad SAW. This tribe comes from the descendants of Prophet Ismail AS who inhabited the Makkah region.
In ancient Arab tradition, lineage or family is positioned as a very important matter. Each of them cares for each other, respects, and loves their ancestors or tribe.
Hamka in his book entitled History of Muslims: Pre-Prophecy to Islam in the archipelago says that there are six levels of nasab (lineage) that are remembered, namely sya`ab, kabilah, imarah, al-bathn, al-fakhz, and fushailah .
Arabs have a tradition of remembering or memorizing their respective lineages. Until it is easy to find out how many descendants a person has just by mentioning the name of their tribe.
The Meaning and Importance of Tribes in Arabia
According to the book Chiefdom of Medina: The Cone of Power in the Early Islamic Age by Abdul Aziz, “tribe” is also known as “tribe” or “tribe”. That is, a tribe is a life together in a group bound by blood lineage.
Tribes consist of family groups that are united by the bond of descent (blood) from one father, namely the most distant father and the most upstream great-grandparents as the initial source.
In a poem of the Jahiliah period it says, “A person’s tribe is his claw (with which he protects himself from the enemy) and his pillar of support (which gives him support).”
It has been a tradition for the Arabs in the past to consider tribes as very important. They respect their respective tribes even to the point of being fanatical about their ancestors.
All members of the tribe consider their tribe sacred to a certain level that transcends differences or disagreements in faith, religion.
Brief History of the Kinanah Quraish Tribe
As Muslims know, Allah SWT has preserved and selected the best ancestors for Prophet Muhammad SAW. One of them is that he was born from the Kinanah Quraish tribe.
A brief history of the Kinanah Quraish tribe as the ancestors of the Prophet Muhammad SAW contained in Sirah Nabawiyah written by Shaykh Shafiyyurrahman Al-Mubarakfuri.
It is said that Prophet Muhammad SAW is actually a descendant of Prophet Ibrahim AS, from his son Ismail AS bin Ibrahim AS.
History mentions that Prophet Ismail AS married the daughter of Mudhadh and was blessed with twelve sons by Allah SWT. They are:
Nabat or NabuyuthQaidarAdba’ilMibsyamMisyma’DumaMisyaHadadTaimaYathurNafisQaiduman All the children of Prophet Ismail AS later developed into twelve tribes that settled in Makkah. Little by little they began to spread to the land of Yemen, Sham, and Egypt.
Along with the passage of time, the state of this spreading tribe can no longer be detected except for the descendants of Nabat and Qaibar.
The descendants of Qaidar bin Ismail remained in Makkah and had many children there until they gave birth to Adnan and his son, Ma’ad. Adnan himself is the 22nd grandfather of Prophet Muhammad SAW.
Ma’ad was only blessed with one child, Nizar, while Nizar had four children, namely Iyad, Anmar, Rabi’ah, and Mudhar. The four descendants of Nizar developed into four large tribes.
From the Mudhar tribe emerged two large tribes named Qais Ailan bin Mudhar and the clans of Ilyas bin Mudhar.
Qais Ailan bin Mudhar had three descendants who were later named Bani Sulaim, Bani Hawazin, and Bani Ghathafan.
Meanwhile, from the descendants of Ilyas bin Mudhar there are Tamim bin Murrah, Hudzail bin Mudrikah, Bani Asad bin Khuzaimah, and Kinanah bin Khuzimah.
Kinanah’s lineage continued until it produced the Quraish tribe which came from the descendants of Fihr bin Malik bin An-Nadhar bin Kinanah.
The Quraish tribe then split again into several tribes, among them:
JumuhSahmAdiMakhzumTaimZuhrahQuraisy bin Kilab The tribes of Quraish bin Kilab then split again into Abdud-Dar bin Qushay, Asad bin Abdul Uzza bin Qushay, and Abdi Manaf bin Qushay.
Abdi Manaf has four descendants, namely Abdi Syams, Naufal, Al-Muththalib, and Hasyim. And from Hasyim Allah SWT sent down the noblest human being on the face of the earth, Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Abdul Muttalib bin Hasyim.
The Messenger of God, peace be upon him, once said, ْشًا وَاصْطَفَى مِنْ قُرَيْشٍ بَنِي هَاشِمِ وَاصْطَفَانِي مِنْ بَنِي هَاشِم (رواه مسلم والترمذي)
Meaning: “Indeed Allah has chosen Isma’il from the sons of Ibrahim, chose Kinanah from the sons of Isma’il, chose the Quraish from the Banu Kinanah, chose the Banu Hashim from the Quraish and chose me from the Banu Hashim.” (HR Muslim and At-Tirmidhi)
On another occasion, Prophet Muhammad SAW also said,
إِنَّ اللَّهَ �