Lineage
The prophetic lineage
The 25 prophets named in the Qur’an, the genealogical links the sources actually attest, and an honest account of where the chain has gaps.
These records are traditional material, not evidence-backed genealogy in the modern sense, and Shajrah labels them that way throughout. They are included as reference — the shared frame most Muslim family histories orient themselves against — not as claims meeting the evidentiary standard the rest of the registry applies.
Twenty-five prophets are named explicitly in the Qur’an. Islamic tradition holds that far more were sent — a frequently cited report puts the number in the thousands — but the named twenty-five are the ones the text identifies, and they are what this page records.
What the page does not do is join them into a single unbroken chain. That is the most common thing published prophetic genealogies get wrong, and it is worth explaining why.
What the sources actually attest
The Qur’an is not a genealogical document. It names prophets, and in a number of places it states a direct relationship between two of them — but it does not set out a continuous descent from Adam to Muhammad ﷺ, and neither does any source that could be called contemporary.
The links below are the ones explicitly attested in the Qur’an or in the early biographical and historical literature — Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah and al-Tabari’s Tarikh. They are the complete set this registry records:
| Parent | Child |
|---|---|
| Ibrahim | Ismail |
| Ibrahim | Ishaq |
| Ishaq | Yaqub |
| Yaqub | Yusuf |
| Dawud | Sulayman |
| Zakariyya | Yahya |
| Maryam | Isa |
| Sarah | Ishaq |
| Hajar | Ismail |
| Abdullah | Muhammad ﷺ |
| Aminah | Muhammad ﷺ |
11 parent–child links across 25 prophets and 5 supporting figures. Musa and Harun are attested as brothers; Ismail and Ishaq likewise; Lut is recorded as Ibrahim’s kinsman, and Yahya and Isa as relatives through their mothers.
The one continuous line
The Ibrahimic descent is the best-attested chain in the corpus, and it is the one that matters most for Muslim genealogy, because it is where the lineages of ordinary families eventually claim to attach:
- 1Ibrahimإبراهيم الخليل(Abraham)
- 2Ishaqإسحاق (عليه السلام)(Isaac)
- 3Yaqubيعقوب (إسرائيل)(Jacob / Israel)
- 4Yusufيوسف (عليه السلام)(Joseph)
Ibrahim’s other son Ismail settled at Mecca, and it is through his line that Arab genealogies — including that of the Prophet ﷺ — are traditionally traced. The generations between Ismail and Adnan, and between Adnan and Muhammad ﷺ, are recorded in the genealogical literature rather than in scripture, and the early authorities themselves differed over them.
The twenty-five named prophets
In the order the registry records them. Dates are traditional and approximate — they are ordering hints, not historical claims, and several figures have no recorded date at all.
c. 2000 BCE · Ur, Mesopotamia
c. 2000 BCE · Mesopotamia
c. 1900 BCE · Mecca, Hijaz
c. 1900 BCE · Canaan
c. 1800 BCE · Canaan
c. 1750 BCE · Canaan / Egypt
c. 1300 BCE · Egypt
c. 1300 BCE · Egypt
c. 1010 BCE · Bethlehem
c. 970 BCE · Jerusalem
c. 900 BCE · Israel
c. 850 BCE · Israel
c. 800 BCE · Nineveh
c. 100 BCE · Jerusalem
c. 5 BCE · Jerusalem
c. 4 BCE · Bethlehem
c. 570 CE · Mecca, Hijaz
Date not recorded
Date not recorded
Date not recorded · Mesopotamia
Date not recorded · Arabian Peninsula
Date not recorded · Hijr, Arabia
Date not recorded · Edom
Date not recorded · Madyan
Date not recorded
Supporting figures
Not prophets, but recorded because they carry the genealogical links between those who are.
c. 1980 BCE · Ur, Mesopotamia
c. 1950 BCE · Egypt
c. 18 BCE · Nazareth
c. 545 CE · Mecca, Hijaz
c. 549 CE · Mecca, Hijaz
How Shajrah records this
These records live in a public system tree owned by the platform rather than by any user. They carry a low confidence score and a “historical figure” marker, which is what allows them to appear in public search without being mistaken for evidence-backed records.
- They are excluded from the normal confidence floor, because an evidentiary standard designed for documents cannot sensibly be applied to scriptural material.
- They are labelled in the interface so the distinction is visible to a reader who has not read this page.
- Only attested relationships are stored. The database has the same gaps this page describes.
If you are working on your own lineage and wondering how a claimed connection to this material would be assessed, the short answer is: on its own evidence, generation by generation. See what counts as evidence in nasab and tracing Sayyid and Sharif lineage.
Sources and further reading
- The Qur’an — the twenty-five named prophets and the relationships stated between them.
- Ibn Ishaq (ed. Ibn Hisham), Sirat Rasul Allah; trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford University Press, 1955).
- Abu Jaʿfar al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk; The History of al-Tabari, vols. I–II (SUNY Press).
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd/3rd ed., entries on the individual prophets and on “Nasab”.
- Shajrah system specification — §3.5 Living person rules; ProphetTreeSeeder for the seeded records.