[muawiyah]

50,000 ~ includes people who were born outside of approved marriages or those that occur with girls from the tribes where there is no expectation of royal status ~ plus, they've been using that 6,000 number for a good 5 decades and you just know that's not so.

As you undoubtedly recall, when they had about 1,500,000 people they were reporting 7,000,000 ~ today the estimate they seem to accept is about 24,000,000 ~

It's not unbelievable that they have a whopping huge population these days ~ there's so little to do there otherwise.

Now, why would anyone continue to accept the 6,000 number.

[Bill Russell]

Fair enough, thanks for the sourcing/reasoning on the numbers....you are correct the 6,000 number has been around for a long time ... adding family members who have no royal status to the mix certainly increases the numbers, along with natural population increases.... I don’t see it as a major issue to this particular discussion. But I was thrown a bit by the big jump in the number......Thanks again.

V/R

Bill