Arabia Before Islam
3 of 6 · Ancient times · The age of Ibrahim · Safa and Marwah, Makkah
The Spring of Zamzam
When the water ran out, Hajar's milk dried up and her baby began to cry with thirst. Unable to watch him suffer, she climbed the nearby hill of Safa to search the horizon, then hurried across the valley to the hill of Marwah, back and forth, seven times. The Prophet ﷺ said that this is why pilgrims walk between the two hills to this day (Sahih al-Bukhari 3364).
On her last climb she heard a voice. An angel struck the ground near the child, and water welled up. Hajar quickly banked it with sand and scooped it into her water-skin. The Prophet ﷺ later prayed for Allah's mercy on her and said that had she left it alone, Zamzam would have become a flowing stream.
Water brings life, and life brings people. A tribe called Jurhum, passing nearby, saw birds circling and found the spring. They asked Hajar's permission to settle, and she agreed on the condition that the water remained hers. Isma'il grew up among them, learned their Arabic, and married from them. The empty valley had become a home.
Hajar did everything she could and left the result to Allah; the Sa'y of Hajj (walking between Safa and Marwah) still honours that effort.
Where in your life are you being asked to keep running between the hills, doing your part while trusting the outcome to Allah?
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3364 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Qur'an 2:158
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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