Sayyid (pronounced [ˈsæjjɪd], or [ˈsæjjed], Arabic: سيد‎; meaning Mister; plural Sadah Arabic: سادة‎, Sādah) is an honorific title, it denotes males accepted as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husain ibn Ali, sons of the prophet's daughter Fatima Zahra and his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Daughters of sayyids are given the titles Sayyida, Alawiyah, Syarifah, or Sharifah. Children of a Sayyida mother but a non-Sayyid father cannot be attributed the title of Sayyid, however they may claim the title Mirza for males or Mirziya for females. Sayyids are by definition a branch of the tribe of Banu Hashim, a clan from the tribe of Quraish that traces its lineage to Adnan and thence to the Prophet Ismael.

In the Arab world, it is the equivalent of the English word "liege-lord" or "master" when referring to a descendant of Muhammad, as in Sayyid John Smith. This is the reason the word sidi (from the contracted form sayyidī, 'my liege') is used in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic.

Sayyid Qutb (Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [ˈsæjjed ˈʔotˤb], Arabic: [ˈsæjjed ˈqotˤb]) (also Said, Syed, Seyyid, Sayid, or Sayed; Koteb, Qutub, Kotb, or Kutb) (Arabic: سيد قطب‎; October 9, 1906 – August 29, 1966) was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s.

Author of 24 books, including novels, literary arts’ critique and works on education, he is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his books Social Justice and Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones). His magnum opus, Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the shade of the Qur'an), is a 30-volume commentary on the Qur'an.

During most of his life, Qutb's inner circle mainly consisted of influential politicians, intellectuals, poets and literary figures, both of his age and of the preceding generation. By the mid-1940s, many of his writings were officially among the curricula of schools, colleges and universities.

Shaykh al-Sharif Al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Alawi ibn Abbas ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Maliki al-Hasani al-'Idrisi al-Makki (1944–2004) was a prominent Sunni Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia.

Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki was born in Mecca to a family of well known scholars who, like himself, taught in the Sacred Mosque. The Maliki family is one of the most respected families in Mecca and has produced great scholars, who have taught in the Masjid al-Haram of Mecca for centuries.

Five of the his ancestors have been the Maliki Imams of the Masjid al-Haram of Mecca. His grandfather, al-Sayyid Abbas al-Maliki was the Mufti and Qadi of Mecca and the Imam and Khatib of Masjid al-Haram. He held this position during the Ottoman then Hashemite times, and continued to hold it after the Saudi Kingdom was established too.^{[citation needed]} The late King Abd-al-Aziz bin Sa‘ud had great respect for him.^{[citation needed]} His father, al-Sayyid Alawi al-Maliki was considered one of the greatest Ulama of Mecca in the previous century. He taught the various traditional Islamic sciences in the Masjid al-Haram of Mecca for nearly 40 years.

Grand AyatollahSayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Persian: سید علی حسینی خامنه ای‎, Azerbaijani: سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای – Seyyid Əli Xameneyi, pronounced [ʔæˈliː hoseiˈniː xɒːmeneˈʔiː] ( listen); born 17 July 1939) is the Supreme Leader of Iran, and a Twelver Shi'a marja. He had also served as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. In 2010, Forbes selected him 26th in the list of 'World's Most Powerful People'.

Holding absolute power in his country, he has been described as one of only three people having "important influence" during the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran . Khamenei was the victim of an attempted assassination in June 1981 that paralyzed his right arm, although so far the biggest challenge to his leadership has been the mass protests following the June 2009 presidential elections during which he strongly supported president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They have had a falling out since.

Khamenei holds the title of Sayyed, which means that he claims direct patrilineal descent from Ali ibn Abi Talib. Some^[which?] of Khamenei's ancestors are from Tafresh in today's Markazi province, and had migrated from their original home in Tafresh to Tabriz. Born in Mashhad, he is second eldest of eight children, and two of his brothers are also clerics. His younger brother, Hadi Khamenei, is a renowned newspaper editor and cleric. Khamenei is Iranian Azeri on his father's side and his mother is a Yazd-native Persian.