The pilgrims who visited the Ka'aba often brought vowed...

The pilgrims who visited the Ka'aba often brought vowed offering for dropping them within the sacred grille. Once a year or every six months the custodian would open the door of the Ka'aba, collect whatever had been offered and then divide that amongst the various clans. Position of the repairs and maintenance of the holy Ka'aba and other buildings of Mecca which were entrusted to one particular clan Position of "Ansab and Azlam", which could be called the office of lottery.

There was a custom among the Arabs called "Isar" (from "Yusr" meaning ease and plenty) incidentally the Arabic word is also related to 'gambling and lottery' At present, too, in winter there comes a time when a villager has consumed whatever he has in store, is left with nothing, and is in dire need Such conditions often occurred in Arabia during winters particularly when rainfall was scanty in spring and summer Such a custom also exists in remote parts of Iran near the annual spring festival.

So to provide relief the Arabs resorted to a measure by which a part of the wealth of the rich would be contributed to help the needy. Such practices are common among people who have not developed a secure economic system and are faced with straitened circumstances. The Arabs invented a lottery as a game of chance This game of luck was played as follows: They took ten wooden shafts, on seven of which they wrote a number of shares from one to seven serially and the remaining three were left blank.

These shafts were then handed over to a trustworthy man. Then a camel was bought, and the price of it was paid by drawing lots with these wooden beams which determined the share of the money to be paid by the participants. With this money the camel was bought and slaughtered, and the meat was distributed on the basis of lottery members again. These wooden shafts were called 'Ansab' which in from 'Naseeb' meaning destiny.

They also had another form of lottery called 'Azlam' which served for divining whether a step should be taken in a matter or not. Here they prepared seven small wooden shafts on each of which either a positive load as 'do it', or negative indication such as 'don't do it' or 'to your advantage' or 'to the advantage of the other side' etc. were written and one of them was left blank.