A new report claims that the British royal lineage dates back to the founder of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, through the Arab kings of Seville, who once ruled Spain.

A March article in Moroccan newspaper Al-Ousboue restates claims, which first surfaced in 1986, by Harold B Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage Partnership, that the queen is a 43rd direct descendant of the Prophet via Muhammad's daughter Fatimah.

"This makes the blood of the Prophet in the veins of kings who ruled Morocco, Andulasia and Europe," Abdel-Hamid Al-Awni, who wrote the article, said.

If true, the latest claims make the world's longest-reigning living monarch, 91-year-old queen Elizabeth II, who is head of the Commonwealth, a cousin of both king Mohammed VI of Morocco and king Abdullah II of Jordan.

Awni, in his article in the Arabic-language newspaper, points out the delicious irony of it given that at the time of princess Diana's death, several conspiracy theorists claimed she was deliberately killed because she was pregnant with Egyptian Dodi Fayed's child and the British establishment could not stomach a Muslim heir to the throne.

Awni traces the queen's lineage back several generations across medieval Muslim Spain through Fatimah the Prophet's daughter.

Awni points out that the ruler of Seville in the 11th century, Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, was a direct descendant of the Prophet through Fatimah.

Al-Qasim formed his own dynasty, the Abbasids, and became the ruler of Seville in al-Andalus in 1023. He had a daughter named Zaida. During an attack on the Abbasid kingdom by the Almoravids, the Muslim princess fled to king Alfonso VI's court - the Spanish king of Leon, Castille and Galicia. She changed her name to Isabella, converted to Roman Catholicism and bore Alfonso VI of Castille a son called Sancha and his blood line runs through Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd earl of Cambridge, grandson of king Edward III of England.

A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace told TOI: "We do not make a comment on these kinds of claims."

Source: The Times of India