Guillaume--Life of Muhammad.pdf - Radical Truth

75
The Life of Muhammad
The tears flow, weeping for a town
Wherein is a sure sanctuary and the sacred places.
Weeping for a temple whose doves unharmed,
Dwell safely there, with flocks of sparrows.
Wild creatures there are tame, unharried,
But leaving its sanctuary are hunted freely (100).
fAmr b. al-Harith, remembering Bakr and Ghubshan and the townsmen
of Mecca whom they had left behind there, said also:
Journey forth, 0 men; the time will come
When one day you will not be able to leave.
Hasten your beasts and loosen their reins,
Before death comes; and do what you must do.
We were men like you; fate changed us
And you will be as we once were (101).
THE DESPOTISM OF KHUzAfAIN THEIR CUSTODY OF
THE TEMPLE
Then Ghubshan of Khuza'a controlled the temple instead of B. Bakr b.
'Abd Manat the man who was controlling it being 'Amr b. al-I;larith al-
Ghubshani.
,
Quraysh at that time "vere in scattered settlements, an
d
tents
'
dispersed among their people, B. Kina-na. So Khuza'a possessed the te~ple,
passing it on from son to son until the last of them, l;lulayl b.l;labashlya b.
Saliil b. Ka'b b. 'Amr al-Khuza'I (102).
THE MARRIAGE OF QU$A YY B.
DAUGHTER OF I;lULAYL
KILAB WITH I.I UBBA
Qu~ayyb. Kilab asked l;lulayl b.l;lubshiya for h~s daughter_l;l~bba. l;lul':l'l
agreed and gave her to him and she bare hIm Abd aI-Dar, Abd Manaf,
Abdu'I-'Uzza, and 'Abd. By the time that the children of Qu~ayy had
spread abroad and increased in wealth a~d reputat~on~ulayldIed. ,~ow
Qu~ayy thought that he had a better claIm than h.huza a and B. Bakr to
control the Ka'ba and I\1ecca, and that Qura;ysh were the nobl:st offspring
of Ishmael b. Abraham and the purest. descendants of hIS so~~.
He spoke to Quraysh and B. Kinana askmg them to dnve out Khuza a
and B. Bakr from Mecca and they agreed to do so.
Now Rabj'a b. Uaram of 'Udhra b. Sa'd b. Layd had come to Mecca
after the dcath of Kilab and had married Fatima d. Sa'd b. Saya!. (Zuhra
I
Or 'houses'.
The Life of Muhammad 49
at that time was a grown man and stayed behind, while Qu~ayy had just
been weaned.) Rabl'a took Fatima away to his land and she carried Qu~ayy
with her, and subsequently gave birth to Riza~. When Qu~ayy reached
man's estate he came to Mecca and dwelt there.
Thus it was that when his people asked him to join them in the War he
wrote to his brother Riza~, who shared the same mother, asking him to
come and support him. Thereupon Riza~ set out accompanied by his half-
. brothers l;lunn, Ma~miid, and Julhuma, all sons of Rabi'a but not by
Fatima, together with a number of Quga'a among the Arab pilgrims, having 76
agreed to support Qu~ayy.
Khuza'a allege that l;lulayl b. l;lubshiya had enjoined this on Qu~ayy
when he saw how his daughter's children had multiplied, saying: 'You
have a better right to the Ka'ba and to rule in Mecca than Khuza'a', so that
this was the reason wh)" Qu~ayy acted as he did. But this is a st~xy which
we have not heard from any other source, and only God knows the truth.
(T. When the people had assembled in Mecca and gone to the mauqij,
completed the I;ajj and come down to Mina, Qu~ayy assembled his possessions
and his followers from his own tribe of Quraysh, the B. Kinana, and
such of the Quga'a as were with him, there only remained the ceremony of
dismissa!.) ,
AL-GHAUTH'S AUTHORITY OVER MEN ON PILGRIMAGE
Al-Ghauth b. Murr b. Udd b. al-Ya's b. Mugar used to give permission'
to men on pilgrimage to leave 'Arafa, and this function descended to his
children after him. He and his sons used to be called $iifa.' AI-Ghauth
used to exercise this function because his mother was a woman of Jurhum
who had been barren and vowed to Allah that if she bore a son she would
give him to the Ka'ba as a slave to serve it and to look after it. In course of
time she gave birth to al-Ghauth and he used to look after the Ka'ba in
early times with his Jurhum uncles and presided over the order ofdeparture
from 'Arafa because of the office which he held in the Ka'ba. His sons
carried on the practice until they were cut off.
1 T. 1095. I~-15. The narrative goes on with the words: '!;iUfa used to send the people
away'-W. 76. 17.
Z 'It seems possible that the Ijeiza or "permission", i.e. the word of command that termie
nates the wocuf, was originally the permission to fall upon the slaughtered victims. In the
Meccan pilgrimage the Ijaza which terminated the wocuf at 'Arata was the signal for a hot
race to the neighbouring sanctuary of Mozdalifa, where the sacred fire of the god Cozal;t
burned; it was, in fact, not so much the pennission too leave 'Arafa as to draw near to Cozal;t.
The race itselfiscalled Ifi4la, which may mean "dispersion" or"distribution". Itcannot well
mean the former, for 'Arafa is not holy ground, but merely the point of assemblage just
outside the l:Iaram at which the ceremonies began, and the atation at 'Arafa is only the
preparation for the vigil at Mozdalifa. On the other hand, if the meaning is "distribution"
the Ifti9a answers to the rush of Nilus's Saracens to partake of the sacrifice! W.R.S., R.S.
341 f. Cf. WeBh. 82; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, :160.
3 The meaning of this name is obscure.
B '080
E