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The Disappearance and Rediscovery of Zamzam and the ‘Well of the Ka'ba’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

G. E. Hawting
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Extract

According to Muslim tradition, some time after the spring of Zamzam had been caused by God to gush forth for Hagar and Ishmael following their expulsion into the wilderness by Abraham, it disappeared. Because of the sins of the tribe of Jurhum, which until then had possessed Mecca and the control of its sanctuary (wilāyat al-bayt), Zamzam, the well of the sanctuary, dis-appeared or was hidden, and Jurhum was driven out of Mecca and lost the wilāyat al-bayt. The rediscovery of the well is associated with the grandfather of the Prophet, 'Abd al-Muttahb. At a much later, but unspecified date, we are told, he experienced a dream in which the place of Zamzam was revealed to him. From this time on the well, according to tradition, enjoyed a continuous existence, it being one of the features of the Meccan sanctuary which were taken over when Muhammad adopted the sanctuary for Islam. Zamzam, however, is not the only well associated with the Meccan sanctuary. Muslim tradition knows too of a dry pit inside the Ka'ba which is sometimes referred to as the ‘well of the Ka'ba’.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 44 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980

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References

1 I am grateful to Professor P. M. Holt, Mr. Michael Cook, and Dr J. Wansbrough for reading earlier versions and offering advice

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