I say: There is no doubt about this. After the death of Quṣayy, Quraysh bound themselves by oaths and disputed the offices that Quṣayy had assigned to his son ʿAbd al-Dār—the watering of the pilgrims, the provision of food, the carrying of the banner, the council-house, and the custodianship of the Kaʿbah. Banū ʿAbd Manāf challenged them over these honors, and various clans of Quraysh rallied behind each faction, pledging mutual support. The partisans of Banū ʿAbd Manāf produced a bowl filled with perfume, dipped their hands into it when swearing their oath, and, on rising, wiped their hands on the corners of the Kaʿbah. Hence they were called al-Muṭayyabūn (“the Scented Ones”), as noted earlier. That covenant, however, belongs to antiquity; what is meant here is the Pact of al-Fuḍūl, which took place in the house of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Judʿān, as al-Humaydī narrates from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAbd Allāh, from Muḥammad and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the two sons of Abū Bakr. They relate that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“I witnessed, in the house of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Judʿān, a pact such that, were I called to it in Islam, I would answer. Its members swore that every rightful due would be restored to its owner and that no oppressor would wrong anyone again.”
They add that the Pact of al-Fuḍūl was concluded twenty years before the advent of prophethood, in the month of Dhu’l-Qaʿdah, four months after the War of al-Fijār, for that war had taken place in Shaʿbān of the same year. The Pact of al-Fuḍūl was the noblest and most honorable alliance ever known among the Arabs. The first to speak of it and summon the people to it was al-Zubayr ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.
Its occasion was that a man from Zubayd arrived in Mecca with goods to sell. Al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil bought them but withheld the price. The Zubaydi appealed for redress to the confederate clans—ʿAbd al-Dār, Makhzūm, Jumāḥ, Sahm, and ʿAdiyy ibn Kaʿb—but they refused to aid him against al-ʿĀṣ and brusquely dismissed him. Seeing the injustice, the Zubaydi mounted Abu Qubays at sunrise while Quraysh were sitting in their assemblies around the Kaʿbah and declaimed:
“O house of Fihr! A wronged man’s wares are withheld
In Mecca’s heart, far from his home and kin;
A dusty pilgrim whose ʿumrah is unmet—
O men between the Hijr and the Stone, come to his aid!
The Sanctuary belongs to him whose honor is intact,
While no sanctuary shields the robe of a treacherous rogue.”
At this al-Zubayr ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib rose and said, “Shall this be left unattended?” Hāshim, Zuhrah, and Taym ibn Murrah then gathered in the house of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Judʿān. He prepared a meal for them, and in the sacred month of Dhu’l-Qaʿdah they pledged and swore by Allah to stand as one hand with the oppressed against the oppressor until the wronged party received his right—so long as the sea can wet a tuft of wool and Mount Thabīr remains fixed in its place.