The tribe traces its ancestry to Ishmael, who married a woman of the Arab Jurhum tribe and settled in the vicinity of Mecca according to Islamic tradition. Both the Banu Kinanah themselves and their various branches were polytheists, with their worship centering on the goddess al-Uzza. Islamic tradition holds that the Kinanah and the other descendants of Ishmael gradually dispersed throughout northern Arabia, losing their original faith and falling into idolatry.