This being done, he led her to a well or pit that had previously been dug for that purpose, pushed her into it, and then, filling the pit, levelled it with the rest of the ground. It does not seem that the latter practice could have been other than rare.
Al Mostatraf is quoted by Sale as saying that these practices were common throughout Arabia, and that the tribes of Koreish and Kendah were particularly notorious in this respect. The members of the former tribe were in the habit of burying their daughters alive in Mount Abu Dalama, near Mecca.
Among the Pre-Islamitic Arabians, the people of Tamim were noted for their addiction to this practice and claimed, in after years, that it was brought about by the action of their chief, Qays, who was a contemporary of the Prophet. According to this story, Moshamraj the Yashkorite descended on the camp of Qays and carried off, among other women, the daughter of the sister of Qays. This captive was assigned to the son of Moshamraj, and when her uncle appeared to ransom her, she declined to leave her new-found husband. Qays was so incensed over this action that, on returning home, he is said to have killed all of his daughters by burying them alive, and never thereafter allowed another daughter to live.
During his absence some time later, his wife gave birth to a daughter, and knowing the feeling of the father she sent the infant to some relatives to have the child raised in secrecy. When Qays returned home she told him that she had given birth to a dead child.
Years after, when the child had grown up, she came to visit her mother and while the two were together they were discovered by Qays.
“I came in,” related Qays himself to Mohammed, “and saw the girl; her mother had plaited her hair, and put rings in the side locks and strung them with sea shells and put on a chain of cowries, and given her a necklace of dried dates. I said:
“‘Who is this pretty girl?’ and her mother wept and said:
“‘She is your daughter’; and told me how she had saved her alive.
“So I waited until the mother ceased to be anxious about her; then I led her out one day, dug a pit and laid her in it, she crying: