[^206] Upon his death...

[^206] Upon his death, his body was enshrouded in two pieces of Yemeni cloth which cost the value of five thousand grams of gold.[^207] It is said his daughter, Hind, manumitted forty slaves in one day.[^208] Al-Walid ibn Mughirah, the elder chief of the Banu-Makhzum, had a great wealth and a great number of children; he was quite famous[^209] and later reprimanded by the Holy Qur'an because of his false pride and ambition.[^210] The wealth of `Abdullah ibn Jad`an Tamimi and his luxurious parties were considered fabulous.

[^211] Poets composed eulogies to receive prizes.[^212] A poet likened him to Caesar.[^213] It is said that at one tribal war, he gave a thousand camels to a thousand warriors[^214] and armed a hundred warriors at his cost.[^215] He was the custodian and seller of female slaves.[^216] He used to drink out of golden ware.[^217] Upon the seizure of Mecca and when he was on the way to the Battle of Hunayn, the Holy Prophets borrowed one hundred sets of shields and the required ammunitions from safwan ibn Umayyah, one of the infidels of Mecca.[^218] (2) Quraysh, who had taken away the position of the Kaaba’s custodianship from Quza`ah[^219] since the time of Qusayy, the fourth generation away from the Holy Prophet, had distributed among the chiefs of the different Quraysh clans the different responsibilities related to the Kaaba, such as watering the pilgrims, guest-affairs, curtain-management and services of the Kaaba; they had in this way secured a religious position for itself.

Besides, the Quraysh had distributed among the heads of its different branches the municipal affairs, such as the control of the reception of blood-money and the like.[^220] Quraysh's Power and Influences Quraysh, who was a small, insignificant and impoverished tribe at the southern part of Hijaz and later became a strong and famous tribe due to its religious and economic power, turned out to be superior to other tribes in honesty, decency and creditability.

In the words of contemporary historians, the Quraysh had some special privileges among other Arab tribes in the same way that priests had special privileges among Christians on those days.[^221] After the event of the Elephant Army and the defeat of Abrahah, the significance of the people of Quraysh raised drastically among the other tribes.[^222] This was due to the fact that its members were the custodians of the Kaaba.