Is The Caliph A Queen?

09.03.2022

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Church of England, but she might also be able to claim a role in Islam after a recent study asserted she is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

A Moroccan newspaper has declared that the Queen is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, claiming to have traced her lineage back more than 40 generations.

The theory first surfaced in 1986 when Burke’s Peerage, the aristocratic genealogy guide, claimed that Elizabeth II could trace her lineage back to the Muslim kings of Spain and, through them, to the founder of Islam, who died in the 7th century in what is now Saudi Arabia.

According to their findings, Elizabeth II’s bloodline runs through the Earl of Cambridge in the 14th century, across medieval Muslim Spain, to Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter.

Although disputed by some historians, genealogical records of early-medieval Spain also support the claim and it has also been verified by Ali Gomaa, the former grand mufti of Egypt.

They claimed the Queen descends from a Muslim princess called Zaida, who fled her home town of Seville in the 11th century before converting to Christianity.

Zaida was the fourth wife of King Al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad of Seville. She bore him a son Sancho; whose descendant later married the Earl of Cambridge in the 11th century.

But British magazine the Spectator points out Zaida’s origins are ‘debatable’. Some historians believe she was the daughter of a wine-drinking caliph descended from the Prophet. Others say she married into his family.