You Have No Rights in the Water

Now Sayyidatunā Hājar has water, but she doesn't have food, and she doesn't have company. So she still has the social needs and psychological needs. There was a tribe called Jurhum — an Arab tribe, Bedouins — travelling in that area. They saw birds hovering in the sky. Birds in the desert means water. They said: we know that there's no water over there, so what are these birds doing? Fa-arsalū jariyyan aw jariyyayn. And all of this that I'm mentioning to you is from a long hadith in al-Bukhārī. So they sent one or two men to go and investigate. So the men went rushing. They came back with the good news that there is water in the middle of the desert.

This group of Jurhum moved towards the source of water, and they came there; they arrived there to find this woman and her child. So they asked a strange question, and they got an even stranger answer. Their question was: would you allow us to camp here? Would you allow us to camp here? What is strange about this? These are a group of men, fighters, in the middle of the desert, taking permission from a woman and her child. If they wanted, they could have eliminated her with a move of a hand. With a strike of a sword, she could have been over with. But they were very noble. So they came and asked her that strange question: would you give us permission to stay here? Because in the desert, if you have water, that's where you want to be.

And they got a strange answer. She said: yes, but you have no rights in the water. The water belongs to us. And what's strange about that answer? The strange thing about it is that she is in no position to negotiate and bargain, and she is nevertheless saying: you have no right in the water; if you want to stay here, you have to stay on our terms; the water belongs to us. But they accepted. They said: yes, we agree. And that is how Jurhum came to stay in that area, and that is the beginning of the settlement.