# The Origins of the Islamic State/Part 1/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX
The Floods in Makkah
Umm-Nahshal flood. Al-ʿAbbâs ibn-Hishâm from ibn-Kharrabûdh al-Makki and others:—Makkah was visited by four floods. One was umm-Nahshal flood which took place in the days of ʿUmar ibn-al-Khaṭṭâb. This flood rose so high that it penetrated into the Mosque from the highest part of Makkah. ʿUmar therefore made two dams, the higher of which extended between the house of Babbah (so called by its occupants, the house being that of ʿAbdallâh ibn-al-Ḥârith ibn-ʿAbd-al-Muṭṭalib ibn-ʿAbd-Manâf who ruled al-Baṣrah at the time of the insurrection of ibn-az-Zubair) and the house of Abân ibn-ʿUthmân ibn-ʿAffân. The lower dam lay at al-Ḥammârîn; and it is the one known as Âl-Âsîd dam. Thus was the flood kept back from the Ḥaram mosque. According to the same tradition umm-Nahshal, the daughter of ʿUbaidah ibn-Saʿîd ibn-al-ʿÂṣi ibn-Umaiyah, was carried away by the flood from the higher part of Makkah and therefore was the flood named after her.
Al-Juḥâf w-al-Jurâf. Another flood was that of al-Juḥâf w-al-Jurâf which took place in the year 80 in the time of ʿAbd-al-Malik ibn-Marwân. It overtook the pilgrims on a Monday morning and carried them away together with their baggage, and surrounded the Kaʿbah. About this the poet said:
"Ghassân never saw a day like Monday, when so many were saddened and so many eyes wept; and when the flood carried away the people of al-Miṣrain and made the secluded women run astray climbing the mountains."
On this occasion, ʿAbd-al-Malik wrote to his ʿâmil in Makkah, ʿAbdallâh ibn-Sufyân al-Makhzûmi—others say that the poet al-Ḥârith ibn-Ḳhâlid al-Makhzûmi was his ʿâmil—ordering him to build walls without clay around the houses that bordered on the valley, and around the Mosque, and to erect dams at the openings of the roads, so that the houses should be secure. To this effect, he sent a Christian who made the walls and set up the dam known as the banu-Ḳurâd's or banu-Jumaḥ's. Other dams were constructed in lower Makkah. A poet says:
"One drop of tears I shall keep, the other I shall pour forth, if I pass the dam of the banu-Ḳurâd."
Al-Mukhabbil. Another flood was the one called al-Mukhabbil. When it came, many were afflicted with a disease in their body and palsy in their tongues. Hence the name al-Mukhabbil [rendering some limb crippled].
Abu-Shâkir. Still another flood came later in the caliphate of Hishâm ibn-ʿAbd-al-Malik in the year 120. It is known as abu-Shâkir flood after Maslamah ibn-Hishâm, who in that year had charge of the fair [of the pilgrims].
Wâdi-Makkah. The flood of Wâdi-Makkah comes from a place known as Sidrat ʿAttâb ibn-Asîd ibn-abi-l-Îṣ.
The flood in the caliphate of ar-Rashîd. It was reported by ʿAbbâs ibn-Hishâm that a great flood took place in the caliphate of al-Maʾmûm ʿAbdallâh ibn-ar-Rashîd; and its water rose almost as high as the "stone."
​The limits of al-Ḥaram. Al-ʿAbbâs from ʿIkrimah:—A part of the limits set to al-Ḥaram having been obliterated in the days of Muʿâwiyah ibn-abi-Sufyân, he wrote to Marwân ibn-al-Ḥakam, his ʿâmil in al-Madînah, ordering him to ask Kurz ibn-ʿAlḳamah-l-Khuzâʿi, if he were still alive, to establish the limits of al-Ḥaram, since he was familiar with them. Kurz was still alive; and he established the limits which are today the marks of al-Ḥaram. According to al-Kalbi, this was Kurz ibn-ʿAlḳamah ibn-Hilâl ibn-Juraibah ibn-ʿAbd-Nuhm ibn-Ḥulail ibn-Ḥubshîyah-l-Khuzâʿi, the one who followed the steps of the Prophet to the cave in which the Prophet, accompanied by abu-Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddîḳ, had disappeared, when he wanted to take the Hegira to al-Madînah. Kurz saw on the cave a spider web, and below it, the Prophet's foot-print which he recognized saying, "This is the Prophet's foot, but here the track is lost."
* ↑ Azraḳi, pp. 394–398.
* ↑ Azraḳi, pp. 394–395: "ʿUbaid".
* ↑ Al-Baṣrah and al-Kûfah.
* ↑ Cf. Azraḳi, p. 396.
* ↑ The "black stone" of al-Kaʿbah; Azraḳi, p. 397.