According to Wikipedia, Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif was “the second ruler of the Moroccan Alaouite dynasty.” Among other things Ismail is known for is his reputed extremely large family size,
Moulay Ismaïl is alleged to have fathered a total of 867 children, including 525 sons and 342 daughters, was noted by 1703 and his 700th son was born in 1721. This is widely considered the record number of offspring for any man throughout history that can be verified.
There are some people who are skeptical that a single man could have fathered so many children, however, so Elisabeth Oberzaucher and Karl Grammer decided to tackle this in their 2014 paper for PLOS One, The Case of Moulay Ismael–Fact or Fancy? According to the abstract,
Textbooks on evolutionary psychology and biology cite the case of the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty (1672–1727) who was supposed to have sired 888 children. This example for male reproduction has been challenged and led to a still unresolved discussion. The scientific debate is shaped by assumptions about reproductive constraints which cannot be tested directly—and the figures used are sometimes arbitrary. Therefore we developed a computer simulation which tests how many copulations per day were necessary to reach the reported reproductive outcome. We based our calculations on a report dating 1704, thus computing whether it was possible to have 600 sons in a reproductive timespan of 32 years. The algorithm is based on three different models of conception and different social and biological constraints. In the first model we used a random mating pool with unrestricted access to females. In the second model we used a restricted harem pool. The results indicate that Moulay Ismael could have achieved this high reproductive success. A comparison of the three conception models highlights the necessity to consider female sexual habits when assessing fertility across the cycle. We also show that the harem size needed is far smaller than the reported numbers.
There are two interesting tidbits, beyond the obvious, in the paper.
First, the researchers note that although Ismael had an extremely large harem of 504 women, if a man wants to maximize his reproductive success, any more women added to the harem over 110 will not lead to any appreciable increase in the number of offspring. Ismael’s additional 400 women in his harem was simply stunting.
Second, there’s this disgusting claim based on Dominique Busnot’s history of Ismail’s rule, Histoire du règne de Moulay Ismaïl (emphasis added),
In 1704 Busnot reports Moulay to have 600 sons from four wives and 500 concubines. Daughters by his four wives were allowed to live, whereas daughters born by his concubines were suffocated by the midwifes at birth.