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The ʿAin ʿArafāt () or ʿAin ʿArafa was a pipeline that supplied water to the Hajj pilgrims in the ʿArafāt plain from the 11th century and was extended to Mecca in the 1560s. The line was about 28 kilometres long after this extension; Their starting point was a watercourse in Naʿmān, a wadi between Mecca and at-Tā'if. The extension to Mecca in the 1560s by the Ottoman state took place in order to place the Meccan water supply, which until then was almost completely dependent on ʿAin Hunain, on a broader basis. From that time until the early 20th century. In the 20th century, the ʿAin ʿArafāt formed the most important basis of Mecca’s water supply. Since the end of the 17th century In the 20th century, the ʿAin ʿArafāt is also called ʿAin Zubaida, assuming that this pipeline was originally built by Zubaida bint Jaʿfar, but this name also serves as a generic term for the two historical water pipelines of Mecca – ʿAin ʿArafāt and ʿAin Hunain together. Another name occasionally used for the ʿAin-ʿArafāt leadership is ʿAin Naʿmān because its water came from Wādī Naʿmān.

History of the management until its extension to Mecca

The Zubaida potions in the ʿArafāt plain
Although since the middle of the 16. In the 20th century, it was generally assumed that the pipeline which transported the water from the spring in the Wādī Naʿmān to the ʿArafāt plain had already been created by Zubaida bint Jaʿfar, the wife of Hārūn ar-Rashid, but none of Zubaida’s older works mention such a construction project. Neither al-Masʿūdī (gest. 957) nor the Meccan local historians al-Azraqī (gest. 837) and al-Fākihī (end of 9th century), all of whom report extensively on the Zubaida water pipeline ʿAin al-Mushāsh, mention that it has established a second pipeline after ʿArafāt. Al-Azraqī, however, mentions a Zubaida potion (siqāyat Zubaida), which was located between Muzdalifa and the ʿArafāt plain. Whether the water of these potions was brought through a water pipe is not mentioned. The potion shines until the late 15. It continued in the century. During this period, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn Fahd referred to the Muzlima fountain between ʿArafa plain and Muzdalifa as the “installation of Zubaida” (ʿamal Zubaida).

First news about a water pipeline to ʿArafāt
The first author to mention a water pipe leading to the ʿArafāt plain is the Persian traveler Nāsir-i Chusrau (d. between 1072 and 1076). He writes in his Safarnāma that a prince of Aden, who was called the son of Shad-dil, had an underground water pipe built and spent a lot of money on it. The water brought from a distant mountain was dammed in ʿArafāt, where seed fields and vegetable gardens were planted, which were watered with them. In addition, a basin was created in which the water collected. Bringing water carriers