Note 12 — Chapter VIII

Zemzem is the name of a famous well at Mecca. According to the Muhammedans, it was formed from the source which God made appear in favor of Ismâil and Hagar, his mother, whom Abraham drove from his house, and obliged to retire to Arabia. When afterwards the patriarch came to visit his banished son Ismâil, and built the square temple, called Kâbah, he bestowed upon him the possession of it and the surrounding country, since called Mecca. This place became an object of contest between Ismâil’s posterity and the Arabian tribe of Jorhamides. The latter, after having possessed themselves of it, were attacked by the former, but before yielding it, they threw the sacred black stone, with the two gazelles of massive gold which an Arabian king had presented to the temple, into the well, and then completely filled it up. So it remained until the time of an ancestor of Muhammed, called Abdal mothleb; he was admonished by an heavenly voice to clear the well, the situation of which was at the same time indicated to him. This was near the idols Assat and Neilah, which were first to be removed, in spite of their adorers, the Koráishites. The latter, having ceded the well, claimed to share the treasure which Abdal mothleb had found in it. The new contest was to be decided by Ebn Sáid, a famous prophet, who lived on the confines of Syria. Upon the way to him, through a desert, when both parties were dying of thirst, a fountain which sprung up beneath the foot of Abdal mothleb’s camel brought about a reconciliation between them; the well was cleared; the treasure found was consecrated to the temple, which in after times gained so much celebrity.—(Herbelot after Khondemir.)