In somewhat unconventional fashion, in the introduction to his edited volume on the putative descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (sayyids, sharifs [ashraf]) Kazuo Morimoto sets the scene by referring firstly to the Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up, in which a woman pleads with a judge to consider her son's membership of the Prophet's House when sentencing him, and secondly by referring to a contemporary Iraqi Naqib al-Ashraf (Head of the Prophet's descendants) who, following Saddam Husayn's capture in 2003, declared his claim to be a sayyid to be false. Reflections on the meaning and implications of genealogical closeness to the Prophet are a prominent theme in most of the book's thirteen chapters, which are assembled into three parts, dealing with the ways Muslim scholars have discussed the status and privileges of the Prophet's descendants (Part 1) and their situation in the Middle East and beyond (Parts 2 and 3). Rather than merely presenting a collection of case studies, the volume is concerned to deal with central questions about the sayyids' identity and what membership of the Prophet's lineage has meant in a number of diverse Muslim societies, covering the period from around the ninth century onwards. As noted by the editor, “missing until recently … was a serious attempt to establish a coherent understanding of sayyids and sharifs as a whole through a synthesis of different local manifestations” (p. 3). It is laudable that several chapters deal with the sharifian phenomenon in places remote from the Middle Eastern heartlands such as Granada, Central Asia, Indonesia and India. The first five chapters deal with trans-regional themes such as dream accounts found in books on the merits of the Prophet's kin whose rationale is to advise readers to conduct themselves respectfully towards the sayyids for the sake of their ancestor (Morimoto). Roy Mottahedeh discusses interpretations of the Qur'anic verse 41 of Sura VIII, al-Anfal, commonly referred to as the “verse of khums (one-fifth)”, noting that there has been much debate about who falls into the category of the Prophet's relatives. Abu Hanifa argued that after the Prophet's demise the khums must be divided into three, with only his poor relatives profiting, whereas Ahmad b. Hanbal insisted that his share was to benefit the Muslim community.

Focusing on the ‘Alawi-Ishadi dispute on the sayyids’ status that took place in Southeast Asia (1914–1934), Yamaguchi Motoki widens the discussion by taking into account the contributions made by outsiders of the Hadhrami community in Southeast Asia and of the Hadhramaut. For example, the suggestion made by a Lebanese student of Muhammad ‘Abduh, Shakib Arslan (d. 1946), that the title sayyid be extended to non-sayyids “who have mastery” (siyada) (p. 60) was accepted by the ‘Alawis – a surprising move in light of ‘Umar al-‘Attas's earlier assertion that the sayyids had an exclusive right to the title. Motoki concludes that any privileges enjoyed by the Hadhrami sayyids in Southeast Asia came to be seen as a tradition that had no Islamic rationale. Such levelling tendencies are also reported from eighteenth-century Central Asia. Devin DeWeese highlights the life of Sharaf Ata, a saintly figure whose father was a descendant of the Caliph Abu Bakr, showing that claims to descent from one of the first three caliphs or from prominent shaykhs of the medieval period had as much prestige as ‘Alid descent.

The period between the eighth and twelfth centuries tells a different story. Against the background of the development of madhhab-transcending “‘Alidism”, a process during which the ‘Alids came to be perceived as deserving a special status (a perception they helped to promote), Teresa Bernheimer explores marriage rules and patterns regarding their women (shara'if, sg. sharifa), a subject dealt with by several contributors (Motoki, DeWeese, Hoffman, Kazuhiro). As boundaries between sayyids and non-sayyids were drawn which in some places became manifested in state doctrine, the shara'if were increasingly obliged to marry within their own ranks. As Bernheimer explains, this marriage pattern reflected the emerging “First Family of Islam” (p. 76) as well as changes in the notions of the status of the family within the social hierarchy of Muslim medieval society. She contends that restrictions in ‘Alid women's marriage options were not legally established. However, of the early Imams of the Yemeni Zaydi-Shi‘i School some ruled that descent was a prerequisite for the kafa'a (equivalence of spouses). The ahl al-madhhab listed both piety and descent as requirements.

As argued by Bernheimer, the establishment and spread of the niqaba or headship of the ‘Alids serves as another example of the institutionalization of their elevated status. Based on an analysis of Ottoman naqib al-ashraf registers which scrutinized claims to Prophetic descent and listed entitlements, Rüya Kiliç explains that although this assessment was based on patrilineal criteria, the maternal line was also accepted as evidence of sayyid descent. Indeed as in Morocco, the children of a sharifa whose father was not a sharif were able to adopt their mother's status – a privilege that granted them tax exemptions and access to hardship funds, but also served to significantly increase their numbers. Writing about Egypt and Syria under Ottoman rule, Michael Winter shows that unlike the ashraf who rioted and fought against anyone who stood against them – Bedouin, Janissaries, Napoleon – the nuqaba’ (sg. naqib) remained aloof for they held desirable positions as part of the ruling establishment. It is equally noteworthy that the niqaba, which was often held by members of the Prophet's House, took root in eighteenth-century Egyptian religious life via Sufism. In her study of the Islamic kingdom of Granada in the late fifteenth century, Mercedes García-Arenal also shows that “sharifism” was connected mainly to Sufi lodges.

There were of course internal divisions among the Prophet's descendants, but generally their illustrious status inevitably contributed to or created social hierarchies – another feature dealt with in several chapters, most notably in Arthur Buehler's on medieval India. Postulating an affinity between Muslim stratification and the Hindu caste system, the author provocatively suggests that the first Muslims who came to India looked at Hindu low castes through the lens of the Brahmins. Following those castes' conversion to Islam, these attitudes persisted and divisions between the Muslim nobility (ashraf) and the ajlaf (Indian converts/“commoners”) manifested themselves. The category of ashraf comprised the sayyids (the highest status group) as well as others such as the Shaykhs who trace descent to the Companions. All claimed to have been foreign-born or descendants of non-South Asian Muslims. Towards the end of Mughal rule in 1858 a process of “ashrafization” was under way whereby “common” Muslims sought upward mobility by becoming ashraf in order to “bask in the shadows of Sayyid-ship” (p. 232). According to the author this process, which has been unique to South Asia, is to be understood with reference to the notion of purity which according to the Qur'an sets “prophets' families” apart from other Muslims (p. 242) and of course had been prevalent in India for centuries. (However, the author could not find any reference to this notion in his source material.) Buehler argues that the distinction between sayyids and “common Muslims” became a distinction between the ashraf and the ajlaf, such that the ashraf qua foreign-born Muslims were able to claim membership of the category of “pure ones” (p. 242). Just why the sayyids would accept such a potential dilution of their status remains an open question.

Valerie Hoffman's chapter deals with (predominantly) Hadhrami immigration to the Swahili coast of East Africa during the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. The Hadhramis made up the majority of ‘ulama, many of whom were sayyids. In this multi-ethnic environment, the shurafa’ (locally called masharifu) enjoyed special respect until the rise of African nationalist movements in the twentieth century, in the course of which the veneration of the Prophet and his descendants was denounced as heresy. Much of the data echo similar Islamic (often anti-Sufi) reform movements elsewhere in North Africa and the Arab world. Young African men who studied in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan brought back reformist ideas. In a polemic treatise on the life of Imam ‘Ali, Shaykh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui, the Chief Kadhi of Kenia, challenged the status of the masharifu by questioning beliefs in their baraka and their powers of intercession, and by accusing them of abusing their privileged status and of making false claims to sharifian descent. After Kenya and Zanzibar became independent in the 1960s, Egyptian and Saudi scholars took over from Hadhrami ones, and sharifian or Arab descent no longer carried any weight. Arab entrepreneurs who have returned in recent years have failed to emphasize their descent status.

Whereas Hoffman identifies the Egyptian journal al-Manar as one of the factors that contributed to undermining the sayyids’ status, Arai Kazuhiro explores the “commodification of the sayyids” (p. 250) via the Indonesian magazine alKisah. Owned by Harun Musawa, an “Arab Indonesian” sayyid, the magazine focuses on features such as the Qur'an, the sahaba and Sufis. It places great emphasis on religious personalities of sayyid descent, and tends to corroborate the sayyids' claim that their ancestors introduced Islam to the region, a view which is contested by others. Figures related to the Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim (Hadhramaut), where many Southeast Asian students are taught, receive particularly prominent treatment. The author considers the magazine to be a vehicle for sayyid self-promotion. Unfortunately, he has not carried out audience-oriented research – hence the question posed by him “what makes the sayyids marketable?” (p. 263) remains unanswered.

While there are many fine historical and anthropological studies of the Prophet's descendants, there has not been a compilation of the kind presented here. The only exception is an issue of Oriente Moderno (The Role of the Sadat/Ašraf in Muslim History and Civilization [1999]), edited by Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti (who presents a proposal for a historical atlas on the ‘Alids in the volume under review). Morimoto's volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the status and identity of those who have provided charismatic leadership across the Muslim world for over a millennium, and there is much original data and many hypotheses, which are likely to stir stimulating debate. Taken together, the chapters provide a highly informed overview of some key features of those who throughout the history of Islam have often enjoyed exceptional symbolic capital, but have also faced persecution. The book privileges those in high positions over those who had only a rudimentary education and pursued “low” professions, and were often classed with “ordinary” Muslims. Few authors pay attention to internal divisions within specific sharifian status groups which tend to be rather heterogeneous. Several show that madhhab-related identities are not always emphasized, and that special sympathy for the sayyids is by no means limited to Shi‘is. Most chapters tend to take the notion of sharifian charisma for granted without interrogating it in the context of their rich data. Thus questions as to why the mystique of descent has survived into the twenty-first century and still enchants the believers remain valid. An afterword contextualizing some of the common themes and analytical strands would have been useful and aided the editor's goal of establishing a “Sayyido-Sharifology” (p. 4), a rather undesirable neologism. In light of the use of an array of terms such as ‘Alids, Talibids, Hashimites and Husaynids, a glossary would have been in order. The transliteration is inconsistent throughout the volume, and it is unclear why the plural of sayyid is anglicized while that of sharif is either an Arabic (ashraf/shurafa’) or an anglicized one (sharifs) (ditto naqibs/nuqaba' al-ashraf/naqib al-ashrafs). However, these shortcomings should not deflect attention from a volume providing excellent interpretation of texts produced by Muslim scholars and analysis of the social and political circumstances in which the Prophet's offspring have lived their lives.