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HISTORY STORIES (/NEWS) Is Queen Elizabeth Related to the Prophet … d () e () c ()

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HISTORY STORIES (/NEWS)

Is Queen Elizabeth Related

to the Prophet
Muhammad?
BY ERIN BLAKEMORE (/NEWS/AUTHOR/EBLAKEMORE) // APRIL 11,
2018

d e c
() () ()

Queen Elizabeth II. (Credit: Lichfield/Getty Images)

Who’s in Elizabeth II (https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-

about-queen-elizabeth-ii)’s family tree? Various European kings and queens may
come to mind, but the Prophet Muhammad may not. Unless you open up a British
tabloid these days, that is—publications like The Daily Mail and The Daily Express
have recently run breathless pieces claiming Elizabeth is one of Muhammad’s
descendants, recycling a recent news story that appeared in Al Ousboue, a
Moroccan newspaper.
So is the queen really related to the prophet? It depends on whether you see a
distant ancestor as related or not.

As The Economist notes (https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-

africa/21739990-reaction-queens-purported-muslim-extraction-has-been-varied-
arab), it’s not clear why the claims are resurfacing now. But they’ve been around
since at least 1986, when the possible link was claimed
(http://www.burkespeerage.com/royalFamily_UnitedKingdom.php) by genealogist
Harold B. Brooks-Baker, publisher of Burke’s Peerage, Britain’s guide to the nobility.

“It is little known by the British people that the blood of Mohammed flows in the
veins of the queen,” Brooks-Baker wrote
(https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/10/10/MOSLEMS-IN-BUCKINGHAM-
PALACE/4199529300800/) to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the time.

(https://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2018/04/Zaida.gif)
Zaida of Seville. (Credit: Florida Center for Instructional Technology)
 Brooks-Baker connected Queen Elizabeth to Muhammad via Zaida of Seville, a
Muslim princess from the 11th century who converted to Christianity and became
(https://books.google.com/books?
id=hL22AgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA593&dq=zaida%20of%20seville&pg=PA593#v=onepage&q=zaida%20of%20
King Alfonso VI of Castile’s concubine. However, it’s not clear if Zaida was actually
related to Muhammad or not.

Abdelhamid Al-Aouni, the historian who penned the article for Al-Ousboue, believes
there is a connection, too. Using Zaida as his lynchpin, he traced Elizabeth’s
genealogy back 43 generations all the way to Muhammad. The purported
connection “builds a bridge between our two religions and kingdoms,” he tells The
Economist.

But was Brooks-Baker right to begin with? The royal authority was known for his
media savvy and often tussled with the royal family, making comments that they
claimed had no basis in reality. “His great advantage for journalists was that he
was always available to make an arresting comment,” wrote
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1485146/Harold-Brooks-
Baker.html) The Telegraph in his 2005 obituary; “his disadvantage was that he was
often wrong.”

Nevertheless, the supposed link between the British royal family and the founder
of Islam has been welcomed by people like Ali Gomaa, an Islamic scholar and 18th
Grand Mufti of Egypt. He noted the connection and wished Elizabeth blessings and
peace, reports (https://translate.google.com/translate?
hl=en&sl=ar&u=http://www.alousboue.com/14213/623297-reine-elizabeth-ii-agee-
86/&prev=search) Al Ousboue.

“That’s a well-meaning interfaith spin,” says Lesley Hazleton, a journalist and

author who has written several books about early Islam, but “it’s clickbait.”
Hazelton views the preponderance of this rumor as “a reaction to the
demonization of Islam in the West, especially in the United States.” It reveals, she
says, a hope that Elizabeth might lend “respectability” to a major world religion.

That said, Hazleton can’t stop laughing at the idea of a legitimate connection
between Queen Elizabeth and the Prophet Muhammad. “If you go back far
enough, you can find some kind of third cousin 99 times removed for anybody in
the world,” she says.

TAGS BRITISH ROYALS (/NEWS/CATEGORY/BRITISH-ROYALS) ISLAM (/NEWS/CATEGORY/ISLAM)

QUEEN ELIZABETH II (/NEWS/CATEGORY/QUEEN-ELIZABETH-II)

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