Is the British queen a distant relative of Prophet Muhammad?

A recent study asserted that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, head of the Church of England, might also be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The study, first published by Moroccan newspaper Al-Ousboue and later picked up by several major outlets like The Economist and the Daily Mail, traced the monarch’s lineage back 43 generations to the founder of Islam, sparking widespread interest across in the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East. According to the study, the queen’s bloodline runs through the Earl of Cambridge, in the 14th century, across medieval Muslim Spain, to Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. Her link to Muhammad has previously been verified by Ali Gomaa, the former grand mufti of Egypt, and Burke’s Peerage, a British authority on royal pedigrees. According to the Economist, much of the link revolves around a Muslim princess called Zaida, who fled an attack on Seville in Muslim Spain in the 11th century and found refuge in the court of Alfonso VI of Castille. There, “she changed her name to Isabella, converted to Christianity and bore Alfonso a son, Sancho, one of whose descendants later married the Earl of Cambridge,” reports Economist said. However, the report notes that Zaida’s own origins are not without debate. “Some make her the daughter of Muatamid bin Abbad, a wine-drinking caliph descended from the Prophet. Others say she married into his family,” reads the report. According to The Economist, reaction to the queen’s purported Muslim link has been varied in the Arab world. Some have warned of a perfidious plot to revive the British empire with help from Muslims, particularly Shias, who revere the Prophet’s descendants. Some welcomed the news. “It builds a bridge between our two religions and kingdoms,” says Abdelhamid Al-Aouni, who wrote the article in Al-Ousboue. Other reports have called the queen sayyida or sherifa, titles reserved for the Prophet’s descendants. The queen’s son, Prince Charles, is intrigued by Islam. He is a patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.