A Genealogist’s Account of an “Impostor” Claiming Prophetic Descent

Al-Jawwānī in Aleppo, 1188

抄録

In 584/1188, a dispute arose in Aleppo over the lineage of two sharīfs. When the renowned genealogist and sharīf al-Jawwānī, then visiting the city, denied the validity of the lineage claimed by the sharīf ʿIzz al-ʿArab al-Idrīsī, ʿIzz al-ʿArab retaliated by denying al-Jawwānī’s own lineage. This study presents an English translation of the entry on ʿIzz al-ʿArab in Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s local biographical dictionary Bughyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīkh Ḥalab, which preserves al-Jawwānī’s account of his encounter with ʿIzz al-ʿArab and his reasons for rejecting ʿIzz al-ʿArab’s claim to Prophetic descent. Al-Jawwānī’s narrative offers rare and detailed insight into how individuals with a stake in Prophetic lineage acted in a charged setting where a foreign genealogist engaged a local community of sharīfs. Local sharīfs visited al-Jawwānī in numbers to seek validation of their lineages; ʿIzz al-ʿArab, among them, failed in his attempt. He then issued an open letter to al-Jawwānī—either under pres-sure from or with the backing of the local sharīfs—demanding a formal verdict, to which al-Jawwānī responds point by point in the text translated here. Notably, the account depicts two genealogical authorities—one being al-Jawwānī—responding to ʿIzz al-ʿArab’s claim in opposing ways, revealing how each employed genealogical expertise to support conclusions shaped less by objective analysis than by reputational and social considerations. The study further argues that, despite its bias, al-Jawwānī’s account remains a valuable historical source—provided we shift our focus from the factuality of the events themselves to that of the setting in which they are reported to have occurred.