We came to Saʿd so that he might unite us,
But Saʿd dispersed us—so we are no kin to Saʿd.(1)
And what is Saʿd but a rock in Tanūfah’s plain,
A lump of earth that guides to neither error nor right path.(2)
Ibn Isḥāq said: The tribe of Daws possessed an idol(3) belonging to ʿAmr ibn Ḥumamah al-Dawsī.
He also related that Quraysh had placed an idol called Hubal over a well inside the Kaʿbah; as Ibn Hishām has mentioned earlier, it was the first idol erected by ʿAmr ibn Luhayy—may Allah curse him.
Ibn Isḥāq added(4) that they set up Isāf and Nāʾilah at the site of Zamzam and would slaughter animals there in their honor. He went on to state that the two had originally been a man and a woman; the man committed fornication with her inside the Kaʿbah, so Allah transformed them into two stones.(5)
He continued: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm narrated to me, from ʿAmrah, that she(6) heard ʿĀʾishah say, “We have always heard that Isāf and Nāʾilah were a man and a woman from Jurhum who committed an outrage in the Kaʿbah, whereupon Allah turned them into two stones. Allah knows best.”
It has also been said(7) that Allah did not wait until they actually committed the act; rather, He transformed them beforehand. At that point they were set up at al-Ṣafā and al-Marwah. Later ʿAmr ibn Luhayy transported them to Zamzam, and the people began to circumambulate them.
Concerning this Abu Ṭālib said:
“Where the shaggy-haired folk make their mounts kneel,
At the flood-channel that runs from Isāf and Nāʾilah.”(8)
Al-Wāqidī reports that when the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—ordered Nāʾilah to be smashed on the Day of the Conquest, an old, black, grey-haired woman emerged from it, clawing at her face and crying out, “Woe and ruin!”(9)
Al-Suhaylī relates that the two mountains Aja and Salmā in the Ḥijāz were named after a man called Aja ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥayy who fornicated with Salmā bint Ḥām; both were crucified on those mountains, which thereafter bore their names. He added that between Aja and Salmā there stood an idol of the tribe of Ṭayyʾ known as Fals.(10)