Ibn ʿAbbās may Allah be well pleased with both father and son, reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘I was sired by no fornication of pagan ignorance; I was sired by naught but bonds of marriage, like the marriage of Islam.’
Hishām ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī reported that his father said: ‘I wrote five hundred ancestors of the Prophet ﷺ, and found in them no extra-marital bonds, nor any of the customs of the pagan ignorance.’
ʿAlī – may Allah ennoble his countenance, reported that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘I came from marriage, and never from fornication, from the time of Adam until my father and mother begat me. None of the fornication of pagan ignorance touched me.’
Ibn ʿAbbās may Allah be well pleased with both father and son, reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘There were no bonds of fornication whatsoever among my forebears; Allah continued to pass me down from goodly loins to pure wombs, cleansed and refined. No two branches diverged save that I was in the best of them.’
Anas may Allah be well pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ recited ‘There has come unto you a messenger from the best of you8’ [9:128], and then said: ‘I am the best of you in lineage, kinship and ancestry; my forebears from Adam were unsullied by fornication.’
ʿĀʾisha, the mother of the believers may Allah be well pleased with her, reported that the Prophet ﷺ declared that Jibrīl s said: ‘I searched the earth from East to West and saw therein no man finer than Muḥammad ﷺ, and no tribe finer than the sons of Hāshim.’
Al-Bukhārī reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ, on the authority of Abū Hurayra may Allah be well pleased with him, that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘I was sent forth through the finest generations of the sons of Adam, generation after generation, until I arrived at the generation in which I am.’
Muslim reports in his Ṣaḥīḥ, on the authority of Wāʾila ibn al-Asqaʿ may Allah be well pleased with him, that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Allah elected Kināna from the sons of Ismāʿīl, and elected Quraysh from Kināna, and elected the sons of Hāshim from Quraysh, and elected me from the sons of Hāshim.’
Al-ʿAbbās may Allah be well pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Allah created mankind and placed me in their finest group, and the best of the two nations11. He then appraised the tribes, and placed me in the best household of them. Thus I am the best of them in person and the best of them in household’ [Al-Tirmidhi] – that is, the best of them in spirit and person, as well as the best of them in lineage.
Ibn ʿUmar may Allah be well pleased with him and his father, reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Allah appraised His creatures and chose from them the sons of Adam, and then appraised the sons of Adam and chose from them the Arabs, and then chose me from the Arabs; and thus I remain a chosen one from chosen ones. Yea, whoso loves the Arabs, loves them because he loves me; and whoso hates the Arabs, hates them because he hates me.’ [Al-Hakim, Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Tabarani]
Know that he ﷺ was the only child of his mother and father, having neither brother nor sister, which meant that their superiority would pass to him alone, and their progeny would be confined to him alone, and he would be singled out with a lineage which Allah ordained for prophethood and chose for the ultimate nobility. Once you study his lineage and discover the purity of his birth, you will be certain that he is a descendant of noble forebears. He ﷺ is the Prophet whose identity is of the Arabs, the Meccans, those of the Sanctuary, those of Hāshim, and those of Quraysh; he is the finest of the chosen sons of Hāshim, elected from the finest tribe of the Arabs and the noblest, purest, strongest, mightiest, most eloquent, most just, most pious, most honourable and most generous of them, on both his father’s and mother’s side; and he hailed from the dearest of lands to Allah.
Perhaps the great ḥadīth scholar Shams al-Dīn ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn al- Dimashqī said it best:
The forefathers of Muḥammad ﷺ,
To preserve the honour of his name,
Forsook all lewdness and were unblemished,
Till from Adam to his parents he came.