Introduction Human beings have been divided into many races, tribes and colors, so it is natural to have a curiosity to find out, who I am and where I come from. In other words you try to discover your roots. Growing up in Bihar, India I was always reminded by my parents about our heritage and our root. Since we have migrated to USA the heritage and root has taken a very special meaning for our children. People of my generation know their root to some extent; it is the coming generation who will feel the urge to know about their ancestors. So I feel strongly to leave some written information in English for the future generations. It is not my intention to write this book to show a sense of superiority over others by establishing my genealogy to Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). Every soul is equal before God. It is your deed and action which make you honorable or dishonorable. White people in this country know their roots and heritage to some extent. It is African American who feel a sense of frustration not knowing their roots. The famous black writer Alex Haley spent ten years and traveled half a million miles across the three continent to find his roots. One can understand the sense of excitement he must have felt to find his roots in a village Juffure in Gambia from where his ancestor Kunta Kinte was kidnapped into slavery and brought to the United States of America. Keeping the genealogical record is as old as the civilization itself. Where there was no writing the ancient elders used to depend on their memories to pass on the genealogical information to the new generation. Of all the races Arabs were famous in preserving and maintaining the family tree. They even used to keep the genealogical records of their horses and camels. Like any other people our ancestors moved form place to place in search of better life, to escape persecution or to 1 preach the Deen of Islam to people throughout the world. It is due to the effort of these great men that Islam flourished in the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in the world. I shall try my best to give the reader a glimpse where our forefathers lived, what they did, when and where they died. In other words just a short account of their lives. Naturally I do not have the information of all of our ancestors in the family tree, so I have gathered the information of only the famous members of my ancestors. Luckily that information is available on internet, reference books and history books. Another important thing I like to write about is the place where our forefather lived starting from Mecca all the way to Patna, Bihar, India. Though I believe our family tree or Shijrah is authentic, nonetheless I have tried my best to verify its authenticity. People of my father’s generation and generations before that were strong believers of retaining the purity of the family, in other words they would not even think of marrying out side a Syed family. I guess this kind of thinking was enforced by the rigid cast system of Hindus of India. This was the reason that every Syed family used to preserve the Shijrah with great care and pass it on to the next generation as Arabs did. Luckily in our Shijrah we have some famous people whose history is available on internet and reference books. To my surprise I could verify our Shijrah up to tenth generation from prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Then in eighteenth generation I found a famous Sufi Syed Jalaluddin Surkh Bukhari who migrated from Bukhara to Multan Pakistan in 1242 AD. There is plenty of information about him and his three descendents in the internet and reference books, thus I could verify from 18th to 20th generations. Syed Shah Minhajuddin, alias Manjhan Shah the 26th generation descendant came from Multan area to Bihar 2 sometime in 1527 AD and settled in village Miranbigha, District Gaya. It is known that the Mughal Emperor Babur granted him a Jageer (real state) in that area. The Mughal period in the history of India was a time of peace and prosperity, so our forefather lived in the same village from 1527 to 1890 till my grand father Syed Azhar Hussian moved to Shahobigha the village of my grandmother. It is important to mention here that recently I made a trip to Karachi Pakistan where I found our Shijrah embedded in the Shijrah of thousands Syed families of Bihar. The Shijrah is written on a big sheet of paper two feet wide and thirty to forty feet long with all the references and explanations. According to Mr. Mahboob(1) his father Syed Mahbubul Haq who migrated to Pakistan from Bihar India, spent thirty years to complete it, which is unquestionably a marvelous piece of work. My cousin Syed Zafar Sultan sent me a book named Sharfa-ke-Nagree written by Syed Qiamuddin Nizami in which I found our Shijrah and other valuable information about our ancestors. Now our Shijrah has been verified by two different sources. Thus it seems that there is very little doubt in its authenticity. One thing that I noticed while writing this book was that right after the death of third Khalifa Hazrat Usman and starting with Hazrat Ali, all the Imams were harassed and suffered at the hands of so called Khalifas of the day. The person who was responsible for this trend was Muawiyah. Most of the Imams who were the descendents of the Prophet (pbuh) were killed by poison. Even the Abbasid ruler did not spare them. The rulers loved their throne so much that they did not tolerate the popularity of these noble men and eliminated them, before they might become dangerous for their kin 3 CHAPTER ONE TheMakkans Quraish A tiny spot in the Arabian peninsula became the focal point for all the pagan Bedouins of the desert, because of the presence of the House of God also known as the Kaba. The pagans were deeply religious people, they held the view that there is a God to cover each aspect of their lives. There was a tribe called Quraish, among the pagans who were both intelligent and enterprising. The Quraish preferred a sedentary life over a nomadic one, so they capitalized on the Bedouin religious devotion and their preference for a nomadic life. The tribe of Quraish installed themselves in Makkah around the House of God (Kaba) and the well of Zumzum. The Quraish and some of its powerful members controlled the supervision and the religious rituals of the House of Gods. The members of Quraish tribe consisted of three groups, one was the priestly group, which controlled the house of God and sustained itself on the income that it generated from the pilgrims. The second group of Quraish were engaged in trade and business. These people were responsible to convert Makkah the center of commerce and trade and took their goods to various destination on their trading mission. The third group of Quraish consisted of people who earned their living by providing other services to the pilgrims and other people. Makkah was also a trade route of Arabian peninsula so the tribe of Quraish were rather well off economically. They were very happy to maintain their way of life and they were always ready to defend it at any cost. We shall see later on that the little known tribe 4 of Quraish produced great leaders and generals that changed the history of the world for ever. Hashemite The term Hashemite refers to those who belonged to Banu Hashim, a clan within larger Quraish tribe. The Hashemite trace their ancestry from Hashim ibn Abdal Manaf the great grand father of the Prophet (pbuh). In the early days the Hashemites were engaged in a continuous struggle against the Umayyads for the control of Khelafat. After the over throw of the Umayyad dynasty from power the Abbasids presented themselves as Hashemite, as they claimed to be the descendent of Abbas ibn Abdal Muttalib an uncle of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) Muhammd Sallalaho-Alaihe-Wassallam Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born in 570 AD in Makkah. His Father, Abdullah, died several weeks before his birth in Yathrib (Medinah) where he went to visit his father's maternal relatives. His mother died while on the return journey from Medinah at a place called ‘Abwa’ when he was only six years old. He was raised by his paternal grandfather Abd al Muttalib until the age of eight, and after his grandfather’s death by Abu Talib, his paternal uncle. Abd al Muttalib's mother, Salma, was a native of Medinah and he was born and raised as a young boy in Medinah before his uncle brought him to Makkah to succeed him. Many years before Muhammad's birth, Abd al Muttalib had established himself as an influential leader of the Arab tribe of Quraish in Makkah and took care of the Holy 5 sanctuary Kabah. Makkah was a city state well connected to the caravan routes to Syria and Egypt in the north and northwest and Yemen in the south. Under the guardianship of Abu Talib, Muhammad (pbuh) began to earn a living as a businessman and a trader. At the age of twelve, he accompanied Abu Talib with a merchant caravan as far as Bostra in Syria. Muhammad(pbuh) was popularly known as ‘al-Ameen’ for his unimpeachable character by the Makkans and visitors alike. The title Al-Ameen means the Honest, the Reliable and the Trustworthy, and it signified the highest standard of moral in public life.