Isāf and Nāʾilah

Abū Dharr states that he then saw two women making ṭawāf, and they would touch Isāf and Nāʾilah on every turn. What's the story of Isāf and Nāʾilah? Isāf and Nāʾilah were a man and a woman who were in love and couldn't get married, and they had an appointment, a date, to meet next to the Kaʿbah. And they intended to fornicate next to the House of Allah. Allah (swt) turned them into stones on the spot. After the passage of some time, the mushrikīn of Quraysh started worshipping them — started worshipping these two stones, Isāf and Nāʾilah — to show you how, when you open the floodgate for Shayṭān, you can't close it. He just throws you into dungeons of darkness; you can never get out of it. It's a spiral — if you get in, you never come out. Darkness over darkness, one veil after another.

Now, the story of idol worship actually started as erecting statues after righteous men die. Shayṭān came to the people of Nūḥ (peace be upon him) and told them, after the righteous men had passed away, "Why don't you erect statues of these righteous men, so that they would remind you of Allah?" He came to teach them something that looked good — he said the statues would remind them of Allah (swt) — so they did that. And then, after a few generations, he started telling them to worship the statues. That's how idol worship grew.

Isāf and Nāʾilah were worshipped in this way: these two women would make the ṭawāf, and they would touch Isāf and Nāʾilah on every turn. Now, Abū Dharr despised idol worship, so he threw out a comment. He said, "Why don't you make one of them have intercourse with the other?" Either the woman didn't understand what he said, or they didn't believe what they heard — they continued. When Abū Dharr saw that his words didn't deter them, he threw out an even cruder comment, which need not be repeated here. Now the women weren't sure of what they heard; they immediately just started running and screaming, wailing down the streets of Makkah. And who did they run into?