Quraysh, Keepers of the House

Centuries passed, tribes came and went, and the custodianship of the Sacred House settled at last with Quraysh, the descendants of Isma'il (as) through Fihr ibn Malik. The man who gathered the scattered clans of Quraysh into Makkah and organised them around the service of the House was Qusayy, the Prophet's ﷺ ancestor five generations back. After him the duties were divided among the clans: feeding the pilgrims, watering them, holding the keys.

The watering of pilgrims, the siqayah, belonged to the line of Hashim, a man so generous in famine years that he earned his name from breaking bread for his people. Hashim's son was 'Abdul-Muttalib, the grandfather who would one day cradle a newborn ﷺ and carry him to this very House.

In 'Abdul-Muttalib's time the well of Zamzam lay lost, buried and forgotten for generations. He was shown its place in a dream, and with his only son at the time he dug where the dream had pointed, beside the Ka'bah, until the water of Isma'il's (as) well rose again. Quraysh disputed his claim to it, but the well stayed in his keeping, and pilgrims drank from it as they drink from it today.

Makkah in those days was a city of merchants whose two great caravans, winter to Yemen and summer to Syria, the Qur'an itself mentions. Quraysh enjoyed safety in a violent land for one reason: they were the neighbours of the House. The Arabs would not touch the people of the sanctuary. Their entire standing rested on a building they filled with idols, dedicated by Ibrahim (as) to the One God. The contradiction could not last forever.