Y chromosomes of self-identified Syeds from the Indian subcontinent show evidence of elevated Arab ancestry but not of a
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Y chromosomes of self-identified Syeds from the Indian subcontinent show evidence of elevated Arab ancestry but not of a recent common patrilineal origin Elise M. S. Belle & Saima Shah & Tudor Parfitt & Mark G. Thomas
Received: 11 March 2010 / Accepted: 28 May 2010 / Published online: 29 June 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract Several cultural or religious groups claim descent from a common ancestor. The extent to which this claimed ancestry is real or socially constructed can be assessed by means of genetic studies. Syed is a common honorific title given to male Muslims belonging to certain families claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his grandsons Hassan and Hussein, who lived 1,400 years ago and were the sons of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima. If all Syeds really are in direct descent from Hassan and Hussein, we would expect the Y chromosomes of Syeds to be less diverse than those of non-Syeds. Outside the Arab world, we would also expect to find that Syeds share Y chromosomes with Arab populations to a greater extent than they do with their non-Syed geographic neighbours. In this study, we found that the Y chromosomes of self-identified Syeds from India and Pakistan are no less diverse than
those non-Syeds from the same regions, suggesting that there is no biological basis to the belief that self-identified Syeds in this part of the world share a recent common ancestry. In addition to Syeds, we also considered members of other hereditary Muslim lineages, which either claim descent from the tribe or family of Muhammad or from the residents of Medinah. Here, we found that these lineages showed greater affinity to geographically distant Arab populations, than to their neighbours from the Indian subcontinent, who do not belong to an Islamic honorific lineage.
Elise M. S. Belle and Saima Shah contributed equally to the work.
Several studies have been carried out in order to better understand the link between social and biological kinship in human societies. In particular, it is relatively widespread for traditional societies and religious groups to claim descent from a common ancestor, and genetic analyses have been used to test some of these claims. For instance, Y chromosome data have allowed the assessment of the genetic relatedness of individuals belonging to paternally inherited Jewish castes (Behar et al. 2003; Skorecki et al. 1997; Thomas et al. 1998). It has also been used to investigate oral histories concerning the foundation of an ancient ruling dynasty in Cameroon (Veeramah et al. 2008) and to test beliefs of common ancestry which are widespread in traditional tribes and clans from Central Asia (Chaix et al. 2004). In this study, we were interested in investigating the claim of a recent common origin for a particular religious group: the Syeds. According to Islamic tradition, the
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12520-010-0040-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. E. M. S. Belle : M
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