Introduction

About this tree

One family, remembered by many peoples. This site follows a single line of descent from Adam, as Jews, Christians and Muslims each remember it, and sets their traditions side by side.

What the tree shows

The tree begins with Adam and follows his descendants generation by generation. Every child that the main source for a generation names is listed beside the ancestor through whom the line continues, so that the tree records whole families, not only a single thread. In all it names more than four hundred and forty people.

Many of them have an encyclopedia entry: more than one hundred and eighty in all. An entry gathers what the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic literature, the New Testament and the Church Fathers, the Qurʾan, Sunni and Shia hadith and commentary, and other faiths say about that person, together with what historians and archaeologists have to add. Where the sources disagree about a name, a date or a relationship, the tree marks the point and explains the disagreement.

Why two lines

From Adam to Abraham the three traditions share one line, the ten generations from Adam to Noah and the ten from Noah to Abraham. After Abraham the tree divides, because the traditions trace their inheritance through different sons.

• Ishmael's line, on the left, runs through the Arab genealogies to ʿAdnān, then through the tribe of Quraysh to the Prophet Muḥammad, to his daughter Fāṭima and his cousin ʿAlī, and on through their descendants, the Twelve Imams of Shia Islam, to the twelfth, Muḥammad al-Mahdī.
• Isaac's line, on the right, runs through Jacob, Judah and the kings of David's house, through the exile in Babylon, to Joseph and Mary, and to Jesus.

The two endpoints were chosen because each closes a line that a living tradition regards as decisive: the Imams for Twelver Shia Muslims, and Jesus for Christians. For Jews the line of David remains open, awaiting the Messiah. Readers will find that the two lines meet again at the end of time in many Sunni and Shia traditions, when Jesus returns and prays behind the Mahdī. Following the Twelver line on Ishmael's side does not mean leaving out other Muslims: the entries give Sunni, Zaydī and Ismāʿīlī views alongside Twelver ones, and the people whom other traditions follow, such as Zayd son of ʿAlī and Ismāʿīl son of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, have entries of their own.

Prophets and others who are not ancestors on either line, such as Lot, Job, Elijah or Jonah, appear beside the generation to which the sources link them, so that readers can find them in their place in the story.

The sources

The genealogy itself follows the oldest continuous sources for each stretch:

• Adam to Abraham: the Hebrew text of Genesis 5 and 11, with Arabic name forms from Ibn Isḥāq's biography of the Prophet in Ibn Hishām's edition.
• Ishmael to ʿAdnān: Ibn Isḥāq's list. The genealogists disagreed about the number and names of the ancestors in this stretch, and most Muslim scholars refused to name anyone in it, so the tree marks it as disputed.
• ʿAdnān to the Prophet: the genealogy on which the Arab genealogists agree.
• The Prophet, Fāṭima and the Imams: the dates and children given by the main Twelver sources, above all al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī and al-Mufīd's al-Irshād, compared with Sunni historians.
• Isaac to Jesus: Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Kings and Chronicles, then Matthew's genealogy after the exile, with Luke's where it differs.

The encyclopedia draws on a much wider range: the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint; the Mishnah, the Talmuds, the Midrash and the Targums; the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; the New Testament and the Church Fathers; the Qurʾan, the Sunni and Shia hadith collections, the commentaries (tafsir), the biographies of the Prophet and the histories of al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr and others; the scriptures and traditions of the Samaritans, Mandaeans, Druze, Yazidis, Baháʼís and Latter-day Saints where they speak of the same people; and modern history and archaeology. Every item in an entry lists the sources it draws on. The glossary explains the technical terms.

How the traditions are treated

The aim is to describe, not to decide. Each item in an entry is tagged with the tradition it comes from: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, other faiths, or history and scholarship. Readers can show one tradition at a time. Sunni and Shia views are given separately and in their own terms, and so are the views of different churches and of different schools of Jewish interpretation.

Where a belief is held by a tradition, the entry says who holds it, rather than presenting it as fact or as error. Historical and archaeological findings are given as the conclusions of historians and archaeologists, often with their own disagreements, and not as a verdict on the faith of any tradition. Where the traditions can usefully be compared, an author's note does so; these notes are clearly marked and kept apart from the items that report what each tradition says.

Each entry was checked against published sources before it was added. Claims that could not be confirmed were softened or removed, and the remaining uncertainties are stated. Even so, mistakes are possible, and readers who want certainty on a point should go to the sources listed under each item.

Names, dates and quotations

• Names. Biblical figures are given their familiar English names, with the Arabic form beside them where the Qurʾan or Muslim tradition names them: Moses (Mūsā), Jonah (Yūnus). Arabic names are transliterated with macrons for long vowels (ā, ī, ū), dots under emphatic consonants (ḥ, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ), ʿ for the letter ʿayn and ʾ for the glottal stop (hamza). Ibn and b. mean “son of”, bint and bt. “daughter of”. The search box ignores these marks, so “Husayn” finds al-Ḥusayn.
• Dates. Dates before Christ are given as BC and later ones as AD or CE. Islamic dates are given as AH, counted from the Hijra of 622, usually with the Christian-era year beside them. From Adam to Abraham the dates follow Archbishop Ussher's chronology, worked out chiefly from the ages in Genesis; they are traditional, not historical, and other traditions count differently. Dates for the kings of Israel and Judah follow common scholarly reckonings, which differ by a few years.
• Quotations. Bible verses are quoted from the King James Version and the Qurʾan from Marmaduke Pickthall's translation of 1930, both of which are free to quote; other translations are paraphrased. Biblical references are by book, chapter and verse; Qurʾan references by sūra and verse (19:30); the Babylonian Talmud by tractate and folio (Sanhedrin 98a). Hadith are cited by collection and, where useful, by number.

Using the site

• The overview at the top draws the whole line at a glance as a hanging lamp. Select any point on it to open that person.
• The tree below shows every generation in a row, with the other children of each ancestor beside the line. Select a name to open the details panel, where you will find dates, family, the encyclopedia entry and the sources.
• Search finds names, and, from three letters on, words inside the entries, with a short extract from each. Use the arrow keys and Enter to open a result; the words you searched for are highlighted in the entry.
• The index of entries, beside the search box, lists every entry from A to Z or in tree order.
• Every person has a link. Use “Copy link” in the panel to share it, and the printer button to print a single entry.
• Press / to jump to the search box and Esc to close the panel.

A note on honorifics

Muslims customarily follow the Prophet's name with a blessing, “may God bless him and grant him peace”, and the names of other prophets and of the Imams with “peace be upon him”; Christians and Jews have their own forms of reverence. To keep the text readable for everyone, and following the usual practice of works written for readers of many faiths, this site does not print these formulas. No disrespect is intended, and readers are invited to say them as their own tradition teaches.