Talk:Zamzam Well

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You have new messages (last change).

I think this article needs a little reorganisation. I've just stuck in an image of a dispenser, but I think some of the introductory text needs to be separated - for example, the stuff on the SGS and health benefits of the water perhaps need to be moved into a new section. We'll see.--Mpatel 10:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] western academic historians?

well ofcourse they doubt these stories....ummm hello.....they are not muslims......

[edit] Hagar

If you read Genesis Hagar was never maried to Abraham, but was only Sarah's servant. She was offered to Abraham only because Sarah couldn't have a child.

Hello? Considering this article is covering the Muslim perspective, don't you think we should be calling Hagar his wife? She's not his concubine in Islam!

Interestingly enough, she isn't mentioned in the Qur'an, and none of the mentions of Hagar (Hajar) in the six classic Sunni hadith collections describe her as Abraham's wife. She is described as his wife's maid-servant, or as a slave-girl. I'm willing to believe that later Muslims elevated her to wife, but there's no Qur'an or hadith basis for doing so. Zora 19:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I believe that this complete story of Hagar with her son in valley of Mecca is an Israelite or Arab folk lore. It has nothing to do with Qur'an or hadith. The only thing that is mentioned in Qur'an is that Abraham built Kabah with his son Ishmael. Both things doesn't go well, because this would mean that first Abraham left them in the desert and then came back to build the Kabah. And if Abraham was tested in such a big thing, then why not Qur'an or hadith mentioned it. If there is no problem with, someone can put on the article that it is not mentioned in Qur'an and hadith. TruthSpreaderTalk 04:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Secondly, there is no account of Hagar as slave of Abraham. Instead of Muslims raising the status of Hagar, why not to think the other way round, Maybe Jews changed her to a slave-girl so that Muhammad's claim could be nullified. This whole concept is also there in Gospel of Barnabas. TruthSpreaderTalk 04:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Thirdly, according to Islamic laws, if someone has child from a slave-girl, she becomes a wife. As Abraham was following the same religion, according to Muslims, then Ishmael still is the legitimate son of Abraham. TruthSpreaderTalk 05:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major revision

I've completely rewritten and reorganized the article -- much of which seems to have been a copyvio from Saudi websites! I have tried to make it clear which beliefs re Zamzam are Muslim beliefs, and which "facts" are more generally accepted. I also added the bit re fake Zamzam water, which I found while googling, and I hope that this will be of some use to readers. Don't BUY Zamzam water! It may be a poisonous fake! Zora 22:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Zam Zam Soft Drink / Soda

In Iran, a popular aerated soft drink is called Zam Zam. Available in Cola, Orange, etc. etc. Commking 22:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Added reference to existing Zam Zam Cola article. Thanks for help. Zora 00:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Well not running dry

If the Zamzam well isn't dry, when neighboring ones are, it could be that they've dried up because pumps are diverting all the groundwater to Zamzam.

Another explanation is that the water supply is being supplemented. An article on the Saudi service that maintains the water says that they pump it up and store it in tanks. It would be so easy to eke out the water supply with a little extra water from other sources.

Just a thought. No proof. But I'd believe in chicanery before I believed in miracles. Zora 09:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm -- just thought of another way to get more water out of Zamzam -- inject water into the water table somewhere else, which would increase the amount of ground water that can be pumped out at Zamzam. That would even be legit, right? Imagine surrounding Mecca with lovely green plantations, watered by imported water. Watering the plantations would send water seeping down to the water table. Zora 19:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

for me zam zam water is holy.Stupid people who wrote about the bad terms of zam zam is a great liar.

Actually there was a test that went on and they send a person into the well to check if there where any pumps but the person could not find any no matter how much he dug...i have proof if anyone wants it...Tere naam 00:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This is absurd, can zora tell me where the water is being pumped, miliions of gallons of water is coming out and going all across the world. where is the pipeline in Saudia which is filtering sea water and making good the water table. please do not just guess because of your animosity80.78.136.115 22:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Farhan

The article explains that most of the water sold as Zamzam water is not only fake, but contaminated with arsenic. There are apparently no "millions of gallons" to be explained. Zora 23:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Brain surgery' picture

I agree with Zora that the picture is somewhat 'ugly'. However, deleting it on that basis is rather POV; if it really is a picture of water flowing from the Zamzam well, then there's no good reason for deleting it. I think that, unless a better picture of water flowing from the Zamzam well can be found, then the image should be kept (at least if the picture is described in words). However, the image shouldn't be at the top of the article, as it certainly doesn't look like the Zamzam well and is in no way guaranteed to capture the reader's attention (due it it's obscure - or ugly - appearance). MP (talk) 11:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The picture is unsourced, and will be removed in seven days, so it doesn't seem like a good idea to put a lot of effort into formatting and placing it. Salman spent a fair bit of time today uploading pictures -- none of which are sourced and all of which will be removed.
It seems to me a kindness to the people doing Hajj not to post that picture ... how one could look at it and then want to drink Zamzam water is beyond me! Zora 12:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Academic historians

Anon, I reverted your edit softening the stance of academic historians against the pious Muslim version of the history. Historians simply do not take pious legends as fact; they want proof. I'd be willing to change the sentence if you could come up with even one historian (tenured, reputable university, holds position in a history department) who accepts the folkloric Muslim version. Zora 19:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

so i guess we need to accept the folkloric budhist version iquadri 15:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Iquadri, I had to delete your addition again. The fluoride business is already mentioned in the article. As for the growth of algae -- we can't state it as accepted-by-encyclopedia fact that there is no algae and that this is miraculous in the absence of some scientific confirmation. A religious magazine is not proof. That belief would be worth mentioning if it were widespread -- then it would be a notable POV. However, while I have many times seen Muslims say that Zamzam water cures disease, or sates hunger, I haven't seen that algae theory mentioned until now. There are some 300 google hits for "Zamzam algae" and 15,000 for "Zamzam disease". Most of those 300 hits seem to be copies of the same article.
I'm not trying to be difficult. It's just that I take matters of fact, and proof, very seriously. Zora 16:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


Accepted,, by the way.. i added only once.. so dont know what u are saying about the addition again thingy... ok. .by the way.. i have to say one thing.. aside from your remarks about muhammad's wives as stray cats thingy.. i really have to compliment you on your work related to islam related articles.. initially when i read the discussion boards.. i thought its some passionate muslim contributing (your battles with striver and others related to shia and sunni povs), however i was a little surprised when i checked your profile page and found you are a budhist.. hats off too you.. but i have to ask one question out of curiousity.. how you came to write articles particularly about islam.. i mean what interested you..?? iquadri 18:13, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (known to Muslims as Ibrahim)

Shouldn't this be changed back to "known as Ibrahim in Arabic"? I'm not going to change it as I don't find it to be that important a matter but I will bring it up anyways. It's true that Muslims call him Ibrahim, but Arab Christians also call him Ibrahim, see the Smith Van Dyke's Arabic Bible:

فَلا يُدْعَى اسْمُكَ بَعْدُ ابْرَامَ بَلْ يَكُونُ اسْمُكَ ابْرَاهِيمَ لانِّي اجْعَلُكَ ابا لِجُمْهُورٍ مِنَ الامَمِ

(I don't know why the Arabic text won't appear properlly....but anyways)

ابْرَاهِيمَ

That's the Arabic found in this version of the Bible for Ibrahim. It coincides with the English transliteration 'Ibrahim' and not 'Abraham'. If it was being displayed properlly, one could see it better, but it can be confirmed if anyone has a copy of this bible (and plus there is a number of online Bible sites and I'm sure one of em has this translation). This matches perfectly with the Quranic use of 'Ibrahim' which can be seen here (from 2:135)

It doesn't allow me to copy-paste the Arabic but the phonetical transliteration should give an idea:

Full: 2:135 Waqaloo koonoo hoodan aw nasara tahtadoo qul bal millata ibraheema haneefan wama kana mina almushrikeena

"ibraheema"

Also, I'm going to bring up that the Hebrew name for 'Abraham' Gen 17:5 ולא־יקרא עוד את־שׁמך אברם והיה שׁמך אברהם כי אב־המון גוים נתתיך׃ where 'Abraham' is אברהם which is pronounced as 'Ib-raw-heem' or 'Ib-raw-ham' if I'm correct.

So I would assume from this that in the two Semetic languages, Abraham is 'Ibrahim', and it shouldn't be attributed to Muslims as a Muslim name. (But my Hebrew is shakey at best and I still consult a dictionary when I'm reading the books so I can't vouch a hundred percent on the second part).

[edit] Tofiqul Alam?

I know nothing about Islam or the Zamzam well, but the first sentence in the second paragraph of "Zamzam today" ("Tofiqul Alam has drank this water and it has helped hime cure his mental illness.") seems suspicious. Can someone who knows something about this topic check up on this/edit it? On top of being of questionable veracity, the sentence is poorly placed in the article and contains a misspelling.

[edit] river?

If water spontaneously flows out of this well, doesn't that make it the source of a river? If so, why is that river not mentioned here? Michael Hardy 18:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

According to the Saudi info, the water is pumped up. So far as I know, there are no historic records of water flowing spontaneously. According to Muslim belief, the well was "restored" by Muhammad's grandfather, who had to dig to find it. I would need to do some research to find cites, but I assume that, before pumps, the water was pulled up in buckets. Zora 19:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hagar again

Someone has again modified the article to read that Hagar was Abraham's wife. Many Muslims seem to believe that; however, Christians and Jews don't, and there is actually no support in the earliest Muslim texts for that belief. When there's a dispute, Wikipedia can't choose one side or another; we give all sides. Since there isn't ROOM in this article to discuss the wife/concubine question, let's just leave it out, OK? I tried to reword the sentence so that it takes no position on Hagar's status. Arguments re her status should go in her article. OK? Zora 19:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I just looked at the article for Hagar -- it's a mess. It needs to be rewritten and retitled. Hagar (Bible) should be Hagar (Abrahamic religions). Let's take the dispute over there. Zora 20:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
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