One day a man comes to Madina. His name is Muthalib and is the brother of Hashim. He came to Madina to claim his nephew, Sheiba who is now around eight years old. Muthalib said, “We want to take him back to his land in Mecca”.

The mother’s side of the family refused to give him up, but then al-Muthalib convinced them by saying that he belongs to the noblest family of Quraish, he needs to go back to his heritage and learn about his family, and start assuming responsibilities in Mecca. Eventually the mother’s family agreed and allowed Sheiba to go with his uncle.

Now, so far, no one in Mecca has seen this child, Sheiba. In those days slavery was quiet rampant in Arabia. You could go out in the market, buy a slave and walk back home. Usually they are purchased young so that they can be trained well.

Since, Sheiba is a new comer in Mecca, the people of Mecca assumed that he was the slave of Muthalib and they called him Abdul Muthalib – meaning slave of Muthalib. Abdul Muthalib is the grand father of Rasoolullah (SAW).

So far we discussed the lineage of Rasoolullah from Ibrahim (A) to Ismail (A) to Qusayy to Hashim to Abdul Muthalib.

Two important events happened in the life of Abdul Muthalib – Recovering Zam Zam and Sacrificing his son, Abdullah.

Recovering Zam Zam

Remember the well of Zam Zam when Jurhum erased all of its marks before they left Mecca? It was unkown was 300 plus years.  Abdul Muthalib sees a dream in which someone comes to him and tells, “Dig Pure”. “What is Pure?” responds Abdul Muthalib in the dream. He doesn’t hear anything back and that was the end of the dream.

The following night, the same voice come to him and tells him, “Dig the Precious”. “What is the Precious?” responds Abdul Muthalib in the dream. Again, he doesn’t hear anything back and that was the end of the dream.

The third night the voice come back to him and says, “Dig Zam Zam”. “What is Zam Zam?” responds Abdul Muthalib in the dream. The voice replies, “It will never fail or dry up. It will water the grand pilgrim. It lies between the dung and the blood near the nest of the crow with the white leg and the ant’s nest”.

Zam Zam is defined and the symbols are given to Abdul Muthalib to find it. He starts going around Kaaba and see some dung and blood; a camel was slaughtered in that place and the slaughterers left its insides in the open. He then saw a crow with a white leg in the same area along with a colony of ants. Abdul Muthalib realized that this is the where the well of his grand father is.

He called his son, al-Harif, and started digging. For those who have been to Mecca can understand that Zam Zam is not very far Kaaba. Obviously this angered the people of Quraish. Here you have two men digging around one of the most visited place in Arabia and they want to stop it. They started questioning Abdul Muthalib, “What are you doing? You are digging next to al-Kaaba”.

Abdul Muthalib kept on working with his and the people of Quraish kept of protesting. At that time, Abdul Muthalib had only one son.  They kept on digging and digging; and the people of Quraish kept on wondering what’s going on? What is this man digging for? What is he looking for? So they left him alone.

Suddenly they heard Abdul Muthalib shouting praising Allah (SWT). People came rushing and to their amazement found Abdul Muthalib uncover the rim of the well of Zam Zam.

Now all of the leaders of Quraish gathered and said, “Yeah, this is the well of our grandfather Ismail. This belongs to all of us. Let’s share.”

“Wait a minute. I was the one who saw the dream, I was the one who uncovered the it, it belongs to me and me alone”, replied Abdul Muthalib.

They said, “No way. We are all descendants of Ismail. So it belong to all of us”

Abdul Muthalib refused to give up and they kept on insisting. When they were unable to solve the dispute and about to go on war on it, someone suggested to them, “Let’s solve the dispute by going to the witch of Bani Saath”. The witch claims to have connections with the spirits.

So Abdul Muthalib and the leaders of Quraish travelled to the place of the witch to find out that she relocated to Syria.  They said, “We will follow her wherever she is” and they started journey to Sham. Along the way they ran out of water. They were in the middle of the desert with no water and Abdul Muthalib said, “If we are gonna die here, let’s at least dig our graves and whenever one of us dies, the rest could put him in the grave and cover him. So at least, in the end there will be only one uncovered, rather that everyone exposed. At least let’s honor our dead”.

They all dug their graves and waited for death to arrive. After waiting for some time, Abdul Muthalib said, “This is not right for men like us to sit here waiting for death. Let’s do something. Let’s go look for water.”

They agreed and went in different direction looking for water. After a short while, Abdul Muthalib finds water. So they said, “If Allah saved you in the middle of this desert and provided you with water, and if Allah have shown you a dream to uncover the well of Zam Zam, then this surely indicates that it’s a blessing for you and it belongs to you. We give up our claim. It’s all yours. Let’s go back.”

The other important event of sacrificing Abdullah will be discussed in the next session, Insha Allah.

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