Banu Khuza'a - The Rule of The Banu Khuza'ah Over Mecca (According To The Classical Arab Historians)

The Rule of The Banu Khuza'ah Over Mecca (According To The Classical Arab Historians)

After Hājar (Hagar of the Bible), the wife of the Prophet Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and their son Ismā’īl (Ishmael) had settled in Mecca, the tribe of Jurhum, a tribe said to be related to the Biblical Amalekites, happened to pass through there and agreed with Hājar that they should remain there to in order to get to know her better to help to provide water for her. They settled in Mecca and in the area around. Once Ismā’īl had become a youth he married a woman of the tribe of Jurhum. Ismā’īl was the custodian of the Sacred House (Ka’bah), and after he died he made his son Nābit his successor. And then after Nābit the job was given to his uncles from Jurhum, and with them were the descendants of Ismā’īl. Then Muḑāḑah ibn 'Amr al-Jurhamī assumed the burden of the affairs of the Sacred House.

Jurhum’s custodianship of the Sanctuary lasted for a period of time, but they then started to become weaker in faith, putting the continuing sanctity of the Sacred House at peril. They considered all the funds collected at the Sanctuary to be their property, and started to perform sinful acts within its precincts. It came to the point where a man and a woman, called Asāf and Nā’ilah, performed coitus in the Sacred House, and according to the Muslim sources Allah turned them into two stones to punish them for this sacrilegious act.

Their aggression against the sanctity of the Sanctuary was the catalyst that made the Banū Bakr bin ‘Abd al-Manāf bin Kinānah, descendants of Ismā’īl, join with Khuzā’ah in fighting Jurhum and they expelled them from Mecca.

After the Jurhumites had fled, Khuzā’ah became custodians of the Sacred House, passing the duty on from father to son for a long time, five hundred years it is said. The first one of Khuzā’ah to govern the Sacred House was ‘Amr bin Rabī’ah (Luḥay) who travelled to Syria-Palestine (al-Shām) to seek a cure for a disease he was suffering from; he found the people there worshiping idols, and he liked this religion, so he brought back an idol called Hubal back to Mecca and called on the people to worship it. Hubal had the figure of an old man with a long beard and was made of carnelian. Its right hand had been cut off but the Quraysh would later provide it with a hand made of gold. 'Amr ibn Rabī'ah then was the first to change the religion of the Arabs. Muslims historians consider that the people of Mecca were following the monotheistic religion of Ibrāhīm and Ismā'īl up to this point (see Hanif), when polytheism was introduced. 'Amr ibn Luḥay became very famous among the other Arab tribes, because he fed all the pilgrims to the Sacred House, and distributed Yemeni cloaks to them. Lots of the tribes started to visit Mecca on pilgrimage, and took their own idols with them, placing the round the Ka'bah to worship.

It is narrated that Banū Qays ‘Aylān bin MuDar coveted the Sacred House and they came one day in a great mass, accompanied by some other tribes, with the intention of seizing it. At that time the leader of Banū Qays ‘Aylān was ‘Amr ibn al-Zarb al-'Udwānī. Khuzā’ah went out to fight them, and a battled ensued, and finally the Banū Qays ‘Aylān fled.

Similarly a group of the Hawāzin also launched a raid on the Banū Ḑāṭir bin Ḥabshah, one of the Banū Khuzā'ah, just after the Hawāzin had attacked the Banū Malūḥ (who belonged to Kinānah); then the Banū Ḑāṭir and a group of Khuzā'ah raided the Hawāzin and killed many men. On another occasion the Hawazin raided Khuza'ah, and the fought at al-MaHSab near Mina; they succeeded in beating the Banu 'Unqa' and some of the Banu DaTir from Khuza'ah.