George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

draw the pilgrims from Mecca, they sent it back of their own accord; at the same time bantering its devotees by telling them it was not the true stone: but, as it is said, it was proved to be no counterfeit by its peculiar quality of swimming on water ¹.

Another thing observable in this temple is the stone in Abraham’s place, wherein they pretend to thew his footsteps, telling us he stood on it when he built the Caaba ², and that it served him for a scaffold, rising and falling of itself as he had occasion ³; though another tradition says he stood upon it while the wife of his son lsmael, whom he paid a visit to, washed his head ⁴. It is now enclosed in an iron chest, out of which the pilgrims drink the water of Zemzem ⁵, and are ordered to pray at it by the Korân ⁶. The officers of the temple took care to hide this stone when the Karmatians took the other ⁷.

The last thing I shall take notice of in the temple is the well Zemzem on the east side of the Caaba, and which is covered with a small building and cupola. The Mohammedans are persuaded it is the very spring which gushed out for the relief of Ismael, when Hagar his mother wandered with him in the desart ⁸; and some pretend it was so named from her calling to him, when the spied it, in the Egyptian tongue, Zem, zem, that is, Stay, stay ⁹, though it seems rather to have had the name from the murmuring of its waters. The water of this well is reckoned holy, and is highly reverenced; being not only drank with particular devotion by the pilgrims, but also sent in bottles, as a great rarity, to most parts of the Mohammedan dominions. Abd’allah, surnamed al Hâfedh, from his great memory, particularly as to the traditions of Mohammed, gave out that he acquired that faculty by drinking large draughts of Zemzem water ¹⁰, to which I really believe it as efficacious as that of Helicon to the inspiring of a poet.

To this temple every Mohammedan, who has health and means sufficient ¹¹, ought once, at least, in his life to go on pilgrimage; nor are women excused from the performance of this duty. The pilgrims meet at different places near Mecca, according to the different parts from whence they come ¹², during the months of Shawâl and Dhu’lkaada; being obliged to be there by the beginning of