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 thewilāyat 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’.

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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⁴⁰Ibid., 43.

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⁵⁸ AI-Azraqī, 111.

⁵⁹ According to al-Azraqī, 171, Muḥammad found 70,000awqiya of gold in thejubb which was in the Ka'ba at the time of thefath.

⁶⁰ Al-Azraqī, 169–73.

⁶¹Ibid., 157–8; cf. al-Ya'qūbī, II, 452–3; W. Barthold, ‘Tibet’, inEncyclopaedia of Islam, first edition.