A legacy of a thousand kids
Painting of Sultan Ismail
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Moulay Ismail fathered 888 children, the highest progeny throughout recorded history that can actually be verified.
In a report, Dominique Busnot, a French diplomat who frequently went on expeditions to Morocco, says the Sultan may actually have had 1171 children from four wives and 500 concubines. At the time of the report, Ismail was 57 and had ruled for 32 years.
The numbers seem fairly high. That is why a group of scientists ran a simulation to verify how many times Moulay Ismail should have had sex to father that many children and how many concubines were actually needed for that.
According to the simulation developed by the Anthropology Department at the University of Vienna, the Sultan needed to have sex an average of 0.83 to 1.43 times per day to sire that many offspring. Moreover, the researchers suggested he needed a harem of only 65 to 110 women to do so (considering fertility cycles).
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