Tuhfat al-azhar wa-zulal al-anhar. Volume 3

In traditional societies, ancestry is an important organising principle, often determining the lives of individuals or groups from the moment that they are born. In the Arab world, nasab (pl. ansab) or lineage was and to some extent still is, a major factor in the distribution of wordly and religious power, while administrative positions, trades, crafts and certain offices in the world of scholars...