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Recordings › Neanderthals And Denisovans & The Islamic Narrative | Mufti Abu Layth · 19 Jan 2022 › Segment 4 of 4

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Is it true that Africans have no Neanderthal DNA?

muftis jahannam jahanam jahannum

Why people of African ancestry have no Neanderthal DNA

QuestionLive chat · questioner not identifiedAnswered 19 Jan 2022Segment 4 of 4 in the recording2022-01-19-S04

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This segment13:56 to 15:54 · 1 min 58 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

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Generally yes: Neanderthals never lived in Africa, though some people seen as African today have mixed ancestry from migration.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth responds to joking chat comments and to a viewer who had never heard that Africans have no Neanderthal DNA, saying this is anthropology. He explains that someone considered African today may have non-African ancestry because people have always migrated, mentioning that his own ancestry DNA test showed a share of Gaelic ancestry. He says that people with only African ancestry have no Neanderthal DNA because Neanderthals were not in Africa.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified

I never heard that Africans don't have Neanderthal DNA; is that true?

Position stated

correctedChecked by two independent reviews, not by the channel

Mufti Abu Layth says people with only African ancestry have no Neanderthal DNA because Neanderthals were not in Africa.

In his words

“people who have only had african ancestry they won't have any uh neanderthal dna that's the the science behind it it's not just a statement because neanderthals were not in africa”

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Category: historical claim

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Kind: general teaching

Transcript

machine13:56 to 15:54 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
13:56

homo sapien women and tourists [Laughter] i'm sure it was all a very long time ago and yeah well not much you can do about it you can just embrace the genes now um mufti going all dr omar okay i don't know doctor i never heard africans don't have neanderthal dna this is not dr um or this is anthropology okay so that's generally how it is it doesn't mean that no person

14:35

who you may deem today to be african will have that because it could be that who you come across today and is african somewhere in the ancestry had someone that wasn't african so it could be that because people have migrated all the time so you don't know like when i did my ancestry dna 13 came through as gaelic um which is like what like irish welsh and scottish like 13 of you think what the hell is 13 of it doing all the way

15:14

in over there but it's it's like that so you're going to see that because people move around so you may have somewhere an ancestor that has contributed a certain dna so just because doesn't mean today but in essence people who have only had african ancestry they won't have any uh neanderthal dna that's the the science behind it it's not just a statement because neanderthals were not in africa so how the hell are they gonna get so where are the genes gonna come from so

Paragraphs overlapping 13:56 to 15:54. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2022-01-19-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/4/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7 
Mufti Abu Layth. (2022, January 19). Is it true that Africans have no Neanderthal DNA? [Video, segment 2022-01-19-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/4/
Chicago author-date 
Mufti Abu Layth. 2022. "Is it true that Africans have no Neanderthal DNA?" Video, segment 2022-01-19-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 19, 2022. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/4/
BibTeX 
@misc{abulayth-2022-01-19-S04,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Is it true that Africans have no Neanderthal DNA?}},
  year = {2022},
  month = {1},
  date = {2022-01-19},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/4/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/4/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2022-01-19-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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