Abdul Mutalib was the son of Hashim. He was given the custody as a dispenser of water to the Congress of pilgrims (This office is called Siqayah in Arabic). Before him his father Hashim was given the same task to do so and that goes to his forefather. The pilgrims gather in Makkah in holy month Dzul Hijjah to perform Haj. The water for the pilgrims was taken from the wells all around Makkah. Year In and year out the amount of pilgrims increased. When a blistering drought was prevalent here he was unable to quench the thirsty lips of the pilgrims who thronged in their thousands. So he prayed to Allah and besought his benevolence to show him a way out. This is his story
“On one mid-night when I was sound asleep in the Hijar (the place where the remains of Prophet Ishmael and his mother Hagar are buried) which has the odour of sanctity from dateless past I was commanded in a blessed vision to dig Tyba. Not comprehending the exact meaning of the term which is quite new to me. I queried the supernatural spirit that commanded me to say what Tyba meant. He reply not, vanished abruptly. The next night, when I took my bed exactly the same spot the same thing happened. The supernatural visitant again appeared in my dream ordering me to dig al-Madnuna. When I asked him to clarify the term, he without responding a whit disappeared in a trice. On the third night when I was in the deep slumber in the same sacred spot the same spirit appeared again in my dream ordered me to dig ZamZam. When I asked him to clarify that term and specify the spot where it was located he said that it was a holy well which would never run dry and the water which would satiate the thirst of the pilgrims. He added that it was between the dung and the blood and beneath the surface on which ants and ravens had built their holes and nest.
“Thus my prayer was answered and my ambition was tickled. Indeed, ambition does not clash with destiny but goes hand in hand with it for it is the destiny that makes one to have an ambition and sometimes directs him in his very dream
End of part 3
Coming up next The Well part 4
