Whenever a person was undecided about what he should do in a matter...

Whenever a person was undecided about what he should do in a matter, he would go to a diviner who employed these shafts for fortune-telling, and drew a lot from under a cloth, and that shaft indicated to him what he should do. The above systems of 'Ansab' and 'Azlam' were entrusted to another clan of the Quraish tribe. Thus the allocation of the said positions was intended to prevent disputes and war, but clashes nonetheless occurred from time to time.

However, sometimes disputes would rise and through the application of this organisation, albeit defective, they managed to prevent wars. After Qussi bin-kalab no armed clashes occurred between the branches of the Quraish tribe, except an old one and that…