��24 No god but God
The ancient city of Mecca radiates concentrically from the sanc-
tuary at its heart, its narrow dirt streets like arteries transporting pil-
grims back and forth from the Ka‘ba. The homes on the outer rings
are made of mud and straw: impermanent structures inevitably swept
away by the annual floods that inundate this valley. Closer to the city
center, the homes are larger and more permanent, though still made
of mud (only the Ka‘ba is stone). This is Mecca’s market quarter—the
suqs—where the air is thick and pungent with smoke, and the stalls
reek of blood and spices.
The caravan workers push their way wearily through the crowded
market, past the sheep hearts and goat tongues roasting over open
fires, past the boisterous merchants haggling with the pilgrims, past
the dark women crouching in courtyards, until they finally arrive at
the consecrated threshold of the sanctuary. The men cleanse them-
selves at the well of Zamzam, then announce their presence to “the
Lord of the House” before joining the swarm of pilgrims circling
the Ka‘ba.
Meanwhile, inside the sanctuary, an old man in a spotless white
tunic shuffles between the wood and stone idols, lighting candles and
rearranging the altars. This man is no priest; he is not even a Kahin.
He is someone far more important. He is a Quraysh: a member of the
powerful, fabulously wealthy tribe that had settled in Mecca centuries
earlier and who are now known throughout the Hijaz as ahl Allah:
“the Tribe of God,” the Wardens of the Sanctuary.
THE QURAYSH’S DOMINANCE of Mecca began at the end of the
fourth century C.E., when an ambitious young Arab named Qusayy
managed to gain control of the Ka‘ba by uniting a number of feuding
clans under his rule. Clans in the Arabian Peninsula were primarily
composed of large extended families that called themselves either bayt
(house of ) or banu (sons of ) the family’s patriarch. Muhammad’s clan
was thus known as Banu Hashim, “the Sons of Hashim.” Through
intermarriage and political alliances, a group of clans could merge to
become an ahl or a qawm: a “people,” more commonly called a tribe.
During the early settlement period of Mecca, a number of clans,
some of whom shared a loose alliance, vied for control of the city. In