Cancer Risk of 'Fake' Holy Water

The Well of Zamzam is a well located within the Masjid al Haram in Mecca, near the Kaaba, the holiest place in Islam.

Muslims believe that the well was revealed to Hagar, Abraham's wife, and the mother of Abraham's son Ishmael. (Abraham is known as Ibrahim to Muslims.) She was desperately seeking water for her infant son, but could find none. Mecca is located in a hot dry valley with few other sources of water. Muslim traditions say that Hagar ran seven times back and forth in the scorching heat between the two hills of Safa and Marwa, looking for water. God then sent the angel Gabriel, who scraped the ground, causing the spring to appear. On finding the spring, Hagar confined the pool of water with sand and stones. Other versions of the story say Ishmael scraped the ground with his heel and the ZamZam appeared.

The grandfather of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, Abdul Muttalib, is said to have rediscovered the well after it had been neglected and had filled with sand. He became the guardian of the well, charged with maintaining it and serving the Arabs who came to Mecca on pilgrimage (as was done even in pre-Islamic times).

Western academic historians doubt these stories, but do believe that the well might well have been important to the pre-Islamic inhabitants of Mecca, and perhaps one of the reasons that Mecca had become a pilgrimage site and trading center.

People have been told not to buy Zam Zam water after tests showed three times the permitted level of arsenic.

The water is advertised as coming from the sacred well of Zam Zam in Mecca, which is the most holy city in Islam, and demand increases during Ramadan.

Westminster City Council said the water cannot legally be exported, so any on sale is unlikely to be authentic.

The tests, carried out by the London council last year during the Islamic festival of Ramadan, found Zam Zam also contained twice the legal level of nitrates, which can affect infants.

"If you do see Zam Zam water on sale anywhere please inform your local Environmental Health team," said a Westminster City Council spokesman.

He added: "This advice does not relate to the genuine Zam Zam water being brought into UK by returning pilgrims, as an accompanied or unaccompanied "personal import"."

Source:
Wikipedia
BBC News