In Muslim societies, descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad enjoyed a special status and were often granted privileges and financial benefits. However, as the number of purported prophetic descendants grew, it became necessary to control access to their privileges and to verify claims of belonging to this distinguished group. In the 17th and 18th centuries, at a time of political unrest and uncertainty, this process of verification took on a new urgency in the Maghrib, in present-day Morocco. This raises the question of the methods and criteria by which certain knowledge about prophetic descent was established and legitimized. Focusing on Sulaymān b. Muḥammad al-Ḥawwāt (d. 1816), a Moroccan literary scholar, genealogist, and descendant of the Prophet, this paper examines his engagement with the verification of such claims in the 18th century. What epistemic practices did al-Ḥawwāt employ to produce certain knowledge in an age of increased uncertainty? One of his major projects was to investigate the lineage of the descendants of the Iraqi scholar and saint ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 1166) in Fez, to whom prophetic descent was attributed. This endeavor, presented as verification (taḥqīq), involved the critical examination of information from books, letters, and documents, as well as the systematic and thoughtful evaluation of various forms of evidence. This paper shows how knowledge was understood by the author as a dynamic and processual concept capable of stabilizing both social and religious order. While aiming to establish certain knowledge, al-Ḥawwāt's writing also reflects an awareness of the limitations of human knowledge, illustrating the balance between certainty and ambiguity in Islamic thought. Religious obligation was what drove al-Ḥawwāt in his quest for verification. At the same time, he emphasized that reliable and accurate knowledge is a central foundation for stability and order in society, especially in times of political and social uncertainty.