Muslim Women and Water

Muslim Women and Water

Islamic history is interspersed with many stories on water but the stories that I was interested in was concerning women. One often repeated story is of Hajar (r.a), the mother of Prophet Ismail (a.s). The plight of a mother who ran between the mounts of Safa and Marwah in search of water to quench the thirst of her son is immortalized in the hajj ritual. The Angel Jibrail (a.s) appeared and hit the ground with his wing until water emerged known as the Zamzam.1 The Prophet (SAW) said that “ If she (Hajar) had left the water, (flow naturally without her intervention), it would have been flowing on the surface of the earth.”2 So it was with her hands that Hajar (r.a) secured the well of Zamzam, which brought about settlements in the barren land and thus began civilization in Makkah. The well of Zamzam still provides water for the millions of pilgrims who throng to the Masjidil Haraam.

If the first known public library was built by a Muslim woman, Fatima Al Fihri in 859 A.D, research is required to verify if the first woman to build a water canal was a Muslim woman by the name of Zubaida Bint Ja’far Al Mansour in 801 A.D. Zubaida was the granddaughter of Abbasid Caliph Al Mansour and the wife of the fifth Abbasid Caliph Harun Al-Rashid.

During on of her trips to Makkah for Hajj, she noticed there was acute water shortage and the pilgrims had to suffer from high price of drinking water. Immediately she summoned engineers to build a canal to provide free water to pilgrim all around Makkah. Ibn Al Jawzi reported that after was survey conducted, the engineers decided to bring the canal from the Hunain valley where there were water springs from the mountains but they warned that it was a gargantuan task. It would require digging tunnels under massive rocks and building tunnels along slopes over 10 miles and it would be a very costly project. Zubaida was not moved from her resolve and famously replied "Construct a qanat at any cost, even if I have to give a dinar in exchange for every single stroke of spade."

The entire area of Hunain valley, which contained springs and other sources of water was bought for this project. It was an enormous engineering feat to cut through mountains and digging barren rocky hills, which has survived over 1200 years with large sections still operating efficiently. The system consisted of canals (qanats), galleries for water collection and transport, manholes, retaining walls, culverts, dams, bridges, pools, water storage tanks and distribution outlets embellished with beautifully shaped stone taps. The project took ten years to build and cost was approximately one million dinars which was paid fully by Zubaida, thus the canal was named after her as Ain Zubaida.3

Ain Zubaida operated under the auspices of an Awqaf (trust fund and maintenance system). The awqaf derived its liquidy from incomes generated by vast property holdings. This self-financing system (awqaf) provided capital for the purchase of material, as well as operation and maintenance work performed by the labor force. Common folks also contributed towards the building of the canal by volunteering their skills and time to work in the so-called “after-shift” hours.4

During the Ottoman Empire, the canals were repaired and maintained very well. For over 600 years, they provided the pilgrims with free drinking water. The canals only became discontinued about 30 or 40 years ago. However, the canal was not forgotten and in 2001, King Abdullah allocated a committee to preserve it in order to maintain it historic importance.

The philanthropic attitude towards providing free water is very much prevalent in the Islamic traditions as it was encouraged by the Prophet (SAW), “The best form of charity is giving someone water (to drink)”5. Thus endowing money for the construction of a fountain and a water supply line to it was an act of piety, which played an important role during the Ottoman Empire. The nobility and privileged including women, used to build public fountains also as a symbol of their economic,

social and political standing. Some of the famous fountains are Fountain of Qasim Pasha (1527) and the Fountain of Ahmed III (1728) at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The mothers of Sultans during the Ottoman empire, like Safiya Sultan, mother of Sultan Mehmed III (1595-1603) and Kocem Sultan, mother of Sultan Murad IV (1623-1640) and Sultan Ibrahim I (1640-1648) had many waqf foundations to provide revenue for their many charities including public baths and fountains.6

One of the innovations of these public fountains is the sabil-kuttab. The sabil-kuttab is a combination of a public fountain and an elementary school. These sabils are famous in Egypt during the eighteenth century when drinking water brought from the Nile has to be paid for. The sabils have underground cisterns that are filled with water. Water from the cistern was cooled and aerated as it cascaded from a carved marble slab and distributed from marble basins. The upper floor of the building is used as school for children to learn to read and write in Arabic and to memorize the Quran. The salaries of the teacher, attendants of the sabil and the maintenance costs were all paid by waqf established by the founder.7

One of the famous sabil-kuttabs in Egypt is built by Nafisa Al Bayda in 1796. She was a slave who was bought by Ali Bey who later married her. She later married Murad Bey, a Mamluk who rose to power at the end of the eighteenth century. Nafisa was successful on her own right and achieved great wealth through business investments in land and trade. The sabil-kuttab was restored in 1998.8

With the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the income sources of waqfs began to dry up along with the fountains and other waqf artifacts. Most of the public fountains were damaged or even demolished, together with it the Islamic philanthropic tradition of providing water to those who were thirsty. The names of those women who endowed their property to build infrastructure for public use have withstood time and will continue to do so. While the nobility and aristocrats of Europe commissioned artists

1 Sahih Bukhari: Volume 044, Book 055, Hadith 583 2 ibid

2 ibid

3 Prof. Omar Siraj Abu Rizaiza, lecture on the historical dimensions of Ain Zubaida at a meeting organised by the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London at the Brunei Gallery, on 30th of April, 2012.
4 ibid5 Sahih Sunan An-Nasaa’i and Sahih Sunan Ibn Maajah
6 Ghada Talhami. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa : The Scarecrow Press, UK.
7 Jaroslaw Dobrowolski. 2001. Living Stones of Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, New York.
8 Williams, Caroline. 2002. Islamic Monuments of Cairo: The Practical Guide. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 144-145.

to paint their portraits and sculptors to sculpt their busts, for posterity, rich Muslims provided benefit to people to garner provision for the hereafter.
In a time where water is increasingly becoming scarce, and bottled water is an accepted norm, there is a need to revive the waqf system to provide free water for public use. Women can be in the forefront for this cause, as mentioned in this article, there are great examples to emulate.
Figure 1: The Sabil Kuttab of Nafisa Al Bayda in Cairo, Egypt
Figure 2: Ain Zubaida in Makkah