Re: Is it permissible to give zakah to Syeds?
like armughal says, you do find syeds in the hijaz region too, however they're dispersed to the eastern provinces, and most of them are shias. Most arab/non arab syeds tend to be shias, and until recently shias were very persecuted in that country, and thereby had to hide their identities, and emigrate to safer places, such as iran and the subcontinent. But even in arabia, theres plenty of syeds in countries like Iraq and Iran and Egypt.
While theres a lot of fake syeds around, most genuine syeds do have some way of tracing their lineage back to the prophet, like family shajray.