pedigree of such person is traced upwards (as it invariably is) to the time of
Mahomet, or indeed two or three generations beyond it, the details are founded
on records of this nature, and are generally trustworthy. When genealogical
study became the fashion, prodigious pains and learning were expended on the
work. A Peer might as well want his armorial bearings, as a professed
descendant of one of the early Moslems his pedigree; and rather than have
none, it had to be invented. The contemporaries of Mahomet known by name,
number no fewer than 9000. By the end of the first century, the genealogy of
each one, and also of every distinguished Arab before and after, was traced up
to his family and tribe, and thus connected with a pedigree reaching to Adam!
Such is Arab lineage.