Black Stone
Encyclopedia
The Black Stone is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba
, the ancient stone building towards which Muslim
s pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque
in Mecca
, Saudi Arabia
. It is revered by Muslims as an Islam
ic relic, which according to Muslim tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve
.
The stone was venerated at the Kaaba in pre-Islamic pagan times. It was set intact into the Kaaba's wall by the Islamic Prophet
Muhammad
in the year 605 C.E., five years before his first revelation
. Since then it has been broken into a number of fragments and is now cemented into a silver frame in the side of the Kaaba. Its physical appearance is that of a fragmented dark rock, polished smooth by the hands of millions of pilgrims. Islamic tradition holds that it fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve where to build an altar. Although it has often been described as a meteorite, this hypothesis is now uncertain.
Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba as part of the Tawaf
ritual of the Hajj
. Many of them try, if possible, to stop and kiss the Black Stone, emulating the kiss that Islamic tradition records that it received from Muhammad. If they cannot reach it, they point to it on each of their seven circuits around the Kaaba.
The Black Stone consists of a number of fragments held together by a silver frame, which is fastened by silver nails to the Stone. Some of the smaller fragments have been cemented together to form the seven or eight fragments visible today. The Stone's exposed face measures about 20 centimetres (7.9 in) by 16 centimetres (6.3 in). Its original size is unclear; its recorded dimensions have changed considerably over time, as the stone has been remodelled on several occasions. In the 10th century, an observer described it as being one cubit
(slightly over 1.5 foot (0.4572 m) long). By the early 17th century, it was recorded as measuring 1.5 yards (1.4 m) by 1.33 yards (1.2 m). According to Ali Bey in the 18th century, it was 42 inches (106.7 cm) high, and Muhammad Ali
reported it as being 2.5 foot (0.762 m) long by 1.5 foot (0.4572 m) wide.
The Black Stone was first described in Western literature in the 19th and early 20th centuries by European travellers in Arabia, who visited the Kaaba in the guise of pilgrims. Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
visited Mecca in 1814, and provided a detailed description in his 1829 book Travels in Arabia:
Visiting the Kaaba in 1853, Sir Richard Francis Burton
noted that:
Ritter von Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Egypt
, was able to inspect a fragment of the Stone removed by Muhammad Ali in 1817 and reported that it had a pitch-black exterior and a silver-grey, fine-grained interior in which tiny cubes of a bottle-green material were embedded. There are reportedly a few white or yellow spots on the face of the Stone, and it is officially described as being white with the exception of the face.
The frame around the Black Stone and the black kiswah
or cloth enveloping the Kaaba were for centuries maintained by the Ottoman Sultans in their role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
. The frames wore out over time due to the constant handling by pilgrims and were periodically replaced. Worn-out frames were brought back to Istanbul
, where they are still kept as part of the Sacred Relics in the Topkapı Palace
.
The Black Stone was revered well before the preaching of Islam by Muhammad
. By the time of Muhammad
, it was already associated with the Kaaba, a pre-Islamic shrine that was revered as a sacred sanctuary and a site of pilgrimage. In her book, Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong
asserts that the Kaaba was dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity, and contained 360 idols which either represented the days of the year, or were effigies of the Arabian pantheon. The Semitic
cultures of the Middle East had a tradition of using unusual stones to mark places of worship, a phenomenon which is reflected in the Hebrew Bible
as well as the Qur'an
. A "red stone" was associated with the deity of the south Arabian city of Ghaiman, and there was a "white stone" in the Kaaba of al-Abalat (near the city of Tabala, south of Mecca). Worship at that time period was often associated with stone reverence, mountains, special rock formations, or distinctive trees. The Kaaba marked the location where the sacred world intersected with the profane, and the embedded Black Stone was a further symbol of this as an object that linked heaven and earth.
Muhammad is credited with setting the Black Stone in place in the wall of the Kaaba. A story found in Ibn Ishaq
's Sirah Rasul Allah tells how the clans of Mecca renovated the Kaaba following a major fire which had partly destroyed the structure. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed to facilitate the rebuilding work. The clans could not agree on which one of them should have the honour of setting the Black Stone back in its place. They decided to wait for the next man to come through the gate and ask him to make the decision. That individual happened to be the 35-year-old Muhammad, five years before his prophethood. He asked the elders of the clans to bring him a cloth and put the Black Stone in its centre. Each of the clan leaders held the corners of the cloth and carried the Black Stone to the right spot. Then Muhammad himself set the stone in place, satisfying the honour of all of the clans.
The Stone has suffered desecrations and significant damage over the centuries. It is said to have been struck and smashed to pieces by a stone fired from a catapult during the Umayyad
siege of Mecca in 756. The fragments were rejoined by 'Abd Allah ibn Zubayr using a silver ligament. In January 930 it was stolen by the Qarmatians, who carried the Black Stone away to their base in Hajar (modern Bahrain
). According to Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, writing in 1857, Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Qarmati set the Black Stone up in his own mosque, the Masjid al-Dirar, with the intention of redirecting the Hajj away from Mecca. However, this failed, and pilgrims continued to venerate the spot where the Black Stone had been.
According to historian Al-Juwayni
, the Stone was returned twenty-three years later, in 952. The Qarmatians held the Black Stone for ransom, and forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return. It was wrapped in a sack and thrown into the Friday Mosque of Kufa
, accompanied by a note saying "By command we took it, and by command we have brought it back." Its abduction and removal caused further damage, breaking the stone into seven pieces. Its abductor, Abu Tahir, is said to have met a terrible fate; according to Qutb al-Din, "the filthy Abu Tahir was afflicted with a gangrenous sore, his flesh was eaten away by worms, and he died a most terrible death."
The Stone has been subjected to other indignities during its history. In the 11th century, a man allegedly sent by the Fatimid
Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
attempted to smash the Black Stone, but was killed on the spot, having caused only slight damage. In 1674, according to Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, someone smeared the Black Stone with excrement so that "every one who kissed it retired with a sullied beard". The Shi'ite Persians were suspected of being responsible and were the target of curses from other Muslims for centuries afterwards, though explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton doubted that they were the culprits; he attributed the act to "some Jew or Greek, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry."
, when pilgrims must walk seven times around the Kaaba in an anti-clockwise direction. They attempt to kiss the Black Stone seven times, once for each circumambulation of the Kaaba, emulating the actions of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. In modern times, large crowds make it practically impossible for everyone to kiss the stone, so it is currently acceptable for pilgrims to simply point in the direction of the Stone on each of their circuits around the building. Some even say that the Stone is best considered simply as a marker, useful in keeping count of the ritual circumambulations (tawaf) that one has performed. Its black colour is deemed to symbolize the essential spiritual virtue of detachment and poverty for God (faqr) and the extinction of ego required to progress towards God (qalb
).
Writing in Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim's Progress, Muzaffar Iqbal
described his experience of venerating the Black Stone during a pilgrimage to Mecca:
. According to the Hadith
, "it descended from Paradise whiter than milk, but the sins of the sons of Adam made it black". According to belief, an angel spoke to the great prophet Abraham
, and told him to institute the rite of the stone in the hajj at Mecca.
Islamic tradition holds that the Stone fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve
where to build an altar, which became the first temple on Earth. Muslims believe that the stone was originally pure and dazzling white, but has since turned black because of the sins of the people. Adam's altar and the stone were said to have been lost during Noah's Flood and forgotten. Ibrahim
was said to have later found the Black Stone at the original site of Adam's altar when the angel Jibrail revealed it to him. Ibrahim ordered his son Ismael
- who is an ancestor of Muhammad - to build a new temple, the Kaaba, in which to embed the Stone.
Islam strictly prohibits idolatry
. Muslims believe that the Stone's role in hajj is simply representative and symbolic in nature, not related to belief in the stone itself as having any special power. A hadith
records that, when the second Caliph
Umar ibn al-Khattab (580-644) came to kiss the Stone, he said in front of all assembled: "No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither harm anyone nor benefit anyone. Had I not seen Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] kissing you, I would not have kissed you." Most Muslims follow the example of Umar: they pay their respects to the Stone in a spirit of trust in Muhammad
, not with any inherent belief in the Stone. This, however, does not indicate their disrespect to the Black Stone, but their belief that harm and benefit are in the hands of God, and nothing else. Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni, writing in 1911, commented that the pre-Islamic practice of venerating stones (including the Black Stone) arose not because such stones are "sacred for their own sake, but because of their relation to something holy and respected." The Indian Islamic scholar Muhammad Hamidullah
summed up the meaning of the Black Stone:
In recent years, however, literalist views of the Black Stone have emerged. A small minority accepts as literally true an allegorical hadith which asserts that "the Stone will appear on the Day of Judgement (Qiyamah
) with eyes to see and a tongue to speak, and give evidence in favor of all who kissed it in true devotion, but speak out against whoever indulged in gossip or profane conversations during his circumambulation of the Kaaba".
stone, an agate
, a piece of natural glass
or — most popularly — a stony meteorite
. Paul Partsch, the curator of the Austro-Hungarian imperial collection of minerals, published the first comprehensive history of the Black Stone in 1857 in which he favoured a meteoritic origin for the Stone. Robert Dietz and John McHone proposed in 1974 that the Black Stone was actually an agate, judging from its physical attributes and a report by an Arab geologist that the Stone contained clearly discernible diffusion banding characteristic of agates. A significant clue to its nature is provided by an account of the Stone's recovery in 951 AD after it had been stolen 21 years earlier; according to a chronicler, the Stone was identified by its ability to float in water. If this account is accurate, it would rule out the Black Stone being an agate, basalt lava or stony meteorite, though it would be compatible with it being glass or pumice
.
Elsebeth Thomsen of the University of Copenhagen
proposed a different hypothesis in 1980. She suggested that the Black Stone may be a glass fragment or impactite
from the impact of a fragmented meteorite that fell some 6,000 years ago at Wabar
, a site in the Rub' al Khali desert some 1,100 km east of Mecca. The craters at Wabar are notable for the presence of blocks of silica glass, fused by the heat of the impact and impregnated by beads of nickel-iron alloy from the meteorite (most of which was destroyed in the impact). Some of the glass blocks are made of shiny black glass with a white or yellow interior and gas-filled hollows, which allow them to float on water. Although scientists did not become aware of the Wabar craters
until 1932, they were located near a caravan route from Oman
and were very likely known to the inhabitants of the desert. The wider area was certainly well-known; in ancient Arabic poetry, Wabar or Ubar (also known as "Iram of the Pillars
") was the site of a fabulous city that was destroyed by fire from the heavens because of the wickedness of its king. If the estimated age of the crater is accurate, it would have been well within the period of human habitation in Arabia and the impact itself may have been witnessed. However, a recent (2004) scientific analysis of the Wabar site suggests that the impact event happened much more recently than first thought and might have occurred only within the last 200–300 years. The meteoritic hypothesis is now seen as doubtful, and the British Natural History Museum
suggests that it may be a pseudometeorite, i.e., a terrestrial rock mistakenly attributed to a meteoritic origin.
Kaaba
The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
, the ancient stone building towards which Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque
Masjid al-Haram
Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca, it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while performing daily prayers and is Islam's holiest place...
in Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
. It is revered by Muslims as an Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic relic, which according to Muslim tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
.
The stone was venerated at the Kaaba in pre-Islamic pagan times. It was set intact into the Kaaba's wall by the Islamic Prophet
Prophets of Islam
Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
in the year 605 C.E., five years before his first revelation
Muhammad's first revelation
Muhammad's first revelation is the event in which he is said to have been visited by the angel Gabriel who revealed to him a verse from the Qur'an. It was after this event that Muhammad proclaimed to be a prophet of God.-Background:...
. Since then it has been broken into a number of fragments and is now cemented into a silver frame in the side of the Kaaba. Its physical appearance is that of a fragmented dark rock, polished smooth by the hands of millions of pilgrims. Islamic tradition holds that it fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve where to build an altar. Although it has often been described as a meteorite, this hypothesis is now uncertain.
Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba as part of the Tawaf
Tawaf
Tawaf is one of the Islamic rituals of pilgrimage. During the Hajj and Umrah, Muslims are to circumambulate the Kaaba seven times, in a counterclockwise direction...
ritual of the Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
. Many of them try, if possible, to stop and kiss the Black Stone, emulating the kiss that Islamic tradition records that it received from Muhammad. If they cannot reach it, they point to it on each of their seven circuits around the Kaaba.
Physical description
Cubit
The cubit is a traditional unit of length, based on the length of the forearm. Cubits of various lengths were employed in many parts of the world in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and into Early Modern Times....
(slightly over 1.5 foot (0.4572 m) long). By the early 17th century, it was recorded as measuring 1.5 yards (1.4 m) by 1.33 yards (1.2 m). According to Ali Bey in the 18th century, it was 42 inches (106.7 cm) high, and Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
reported it as being 2.5 foot (0.762 m) long by 1.5 foot (0.4572 m) wide.
The Black Stone was first described in Western literature in the 19th and early 20th centuries by European travellers in Arabia, who visited the Kaaba in the guise of pilgrims. Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in French and signed Louis...
visited Mecca in 1814, and provided a detailed description in his 1829 book Travels in Arabia:
Visiting the Kaaba in 1853, Sir Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...
noted that:
Ritter von Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, was able to inspect a fragment of the Stone removed by Muhammad Ali in 1817 and reported that it had a pitch-black exterior and a silver-grey, fine-grained interior in which tiny cubes of a bottle-green material were embedded. There are reportedly a few white or yellow spots on the face of the Stone, and it is officially described as being white with the exception of the face.
The frame around the Black Stone and the black kiswah
Kiswah
Kiswah is the cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is draped annually on the 9th day of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah, the day pilgrims leave for the plains of Mount Arafat during the Hajj...
or cloth enveloping the Kaaba were for centuries maintained by the Ottoman Sultans in their role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques , a historical term, was a pious title taken by the Ayyubids, the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, and the Ottoman Sultans; it has been revived by modern Saudi kings.-Saudi monarchy:...
. The frames wore out over time due to the constant handling by pilgrims and were periodically replaced. Worn-out frames were brought back to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, where they are still kept as part of the Sacred Relics in the Topkapı Palace
Topkapi Palace
The Topkapı Palace is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years of their 624-year reign....
.
History and tradition
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
. By the time of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, it was already associated with the Kaaba, a pre-Islamic shrine that was revered as a sacred sanctuary and a site of pilgrimage. In her book, Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong FRSL , is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith...
asserts that the Kaaba was dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity, and contained 360 idols which either represented the days of the year, or were effigies of the Arabian pantheon. The Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
cultures of the Middle East had a tradition of using unusual stones to mark places of worship, a phenomenon which is reflected in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
as well as the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. A "red stone" was associated with the deity of the south Arabian city of Ghaiman, and there was a "white stone" in the Kaaba of al-Abalat (near the city of Tabala, south of Mecca). Worship at that time period was often associated with stone reverence, mountains, special rock formations, or distinctive trees. The Kaaba marked the location where the sacred world intersected with the profane, and the embedded Black Stone was a further symbol of this as an object that linked heaven and earth.
Muhammad is credited with setting the Black Stone in place in the wall of the Kaaba. A story found in Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
's Sirah Rasul Allah tells how the clans of Mecca renovated the Kaaba following a major fire which had partly destroyed the structure. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed to facilitate the rebuilding work. The clans could not agree on which one of them should have the honour of setting the Black Stone back in its place. They decided to wait for the next man to come through the gate and ask him to make the decision. That individual happened to be the 35-year-old Muhammad, five years before his prophethood. He asked the elders of the clans to bring him a cloth and put the Black Stone in its centre. Each of the clan leaders held the corners of the cloth and carried the Black Stone to the right spot. Then Muhammad himself set the stone in place, satisfying the honour of all of the clans.
The Stone has suffered desecrations and significant damage over the centuries. It is said to have been struck and smashed to pieces by a stone fired from a catapult during the Umayyad
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
siege of Mecca in 756. The fragments were rejoined by 'Abd Allah ibn Zubayr using a silver ligament. In January 930 it was stolen by the Qarmatians, who carried the Black Stone away to their base in Hajar (modern Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
). According to Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, writing in 1857, Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Qarmati set the Black Stone up in his own mosque, the Masjid al-Dirar, with the intention of redirecting the Hajj away from Mecca. However, this failed, and pilgrims continued to venerate the spot where the Black Stone had been.
According to historian Al-Juwayni
Al-Juwayni
Imam al-Haramayn Dhia' ul-Din Abd al-Malik ibn Yusuf al-Juwayni al-Shafi'i was a Sunni Shafi'i hadith and Kalam scholar...
, the Stone was returned twenty-three years later, in 952. The Qarmatians held the Black Stone for ransom, and forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return. It was wrapped in a sack and thrown into the Friday Mosque of Kufa
Kufa
Kufa is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
, accompanied by a note saying "By command we took it, and by command we have brought it back." Its abduction and removal caused further damage, breaking the stone into seven pieces. Its abductor, Abu Tahir, is said to have met a terrible fate; according to Qutb al-Din, "the filthy Abu Tahir was afflicted with a gangrenous sore, his flesh was eaten away by worms, and he died a most terrible death."
The Stone has been subjected to other indignities during its history. In the 11th century, a man allegedly sent by the Fatimid
Fatimid
The Fatimid Islamic Caliphate or al-Fāṭimiyyūn was a Berber Shia Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171.The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the...
Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tāriqu l-Ḥākim, called Al-Hakim bi Amr al-Lāh , was the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam .- History :...
attempted to smash the Black Stone, but was killed on the spot, having caused only slight damage. In 1674, according to Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, someone smeared the Black Stone with excrement so that "every one who kissed it retired with a sullied beard". The Shi'ite Persians were suspected of being responsible and were the target of curses from other Muslims for centuries afterwards, though explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton doubted that they were the culprits; he attributed the act to "some Jew or Greek, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry."
Ritual role
The Black Stone plays an important role in the central ritual of the HajjHajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
, when pilgrims must walk seven times around the Kaaba in an anti-clockwise direction. They attempt to kiss the Black Stone seven times, once for each circumambulation of the Kaaba, emulating the actions of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. In modern times, large crowds make it practically impossible for everyone to kiss the stone, so it is currently acceptable for pilgrims to simply point in the direction of the Stone on each of their circuits around the building. Some even say that the Stone is best considered simply as a marker, useful in keeping count of the ritual circumambulations (tawaf) that one has performed. Its black colour is deemed to symbolize the essential spiritual virtue of detachment and poverty for God (faqr) and the extinction of ego required to progress towards God (qalb
Qalb
قلب is an Arabic word meaning "Heart". It is the second among the six purities or Lataif-e-sitta in Sufi philosophy.-Sixteen stages of Taming Qalb:To attend Tasfiya-e-Qalb, the Salik needs to achieve the following sixteen goals.#Zuhd or abstention from evil...
).
Writing in Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim's Progress, Muzaffar Iqbal
Muzaffar Iqbal
Muzaffar Iqbāl , is a Pakistani-Canadian chemist by training and an Islamic scholar by vocation.-Career:...
described his experience of venerating the Black Stone during a pilgrimage to Mecca:
Meaning and symbolism
The Black Stone, in Muslim belief, originated in the time of AdamAdam
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...
. According to the Hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
, "it descended from Paradise whiter than milk, but the sins of the sons of Adam made it black". According to belief, an angel spoke to the great prophet Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, and told him to institute the rite of the stone in the hajj at Mecca.
Islamic tradition holds that the Stone fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
where to build an altar, which became the first temple on Earth. Muslims believe that the stone was originally pure and dazzling white, but has since turned black because of the sins of the people. Adam's altar and the stone were said to have been lost during Noah's Flood and forgotten. Ibrahim
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
was said to have later found the Black Stone at the original site of Adam's altar when the angel Jibrail revealed it to him. Ibrahim ordered his son Ismael
Ismaël
Ismaël is a given name or surname, and may refer to:* Ismaël Alassane , Nigerien football defender* Ismaël Bangoura , Guinean football striker* Ismaël Bouzid , Algerian football player...
- who is an ancestor of Muhammad - to build a new temple, the Kaaba, in which to embed the Stone.
Islam strictly prohibits idolatry
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
. Muslims believe that the Stone's role in hajj is simply representative and symbolic in nature, not related to belief in the stone itself as having any special power. A hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
records that, when the second Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Umar ibn al-Khattab (580-644) came to kiss the Stone, he said in front of all assembled: "No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither harm anyone nor benefit anyone. Had I not seen Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] kissing you, I would not have kissed you." Most Muslims follow the example of Umar: they pay their respects to the Stone in a spirit of trust in Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, not with any inherent belief in the Stone. This, however, does not indicate their disrespect to the Black Stone, but their belief that harm and benefit are in the hands of God, and nothing else. Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni, writing in 1911, commented that the pre-Islamic practice of venerating stones (including the Black Stone) arose not because such stones are "sacred for their own sake, but because of their relation to something holy and respected." The Indian Islamic scholar Muhammad Hamidullah
Muhammad Hamidullah
Muhammad Hamidullah or Muhammad Hameedullah, D. Phil., D. Litt., HI., was a Hyderabadi from Hyderabad State , Muhaddith, Faqih, scholar of Islam and International Law, and foremost a prolific academic author Muhammad Hamidullah or Muhammad Hameedullah, D. Phil., D. Litt., HI., (Urdu: محمد...
summed up the meaning of the Black Stone:
In recent years, however, literalist views of the Black Stone have emerged. A small minority accepts as literally true an allegorical hadith which asserts that "the Stone will appear on the Day of Judgement (Qiyamah
Qiyamah
In Islam, Yawm al-Qiyāmah or Yawm ad-Din is believed to be God's final assessment of humanity as it exists. The sequence of events is the annihilation of all creatures allowable, resurrection of the body, and the judgment of all sentient creatures.The exact time when these events are to occur...
) with eyes to see and a tongue to speak, and give evidence in favor of all who kissed it in true devotion, but speak out against whoever indulged in gossip or profane conversations during his circumambulation of the Kaaba".
Scientific origins
The nature of the Black Stone has been much debated. It has been described variously as basaltBasalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
stone, an agate
Agate
Agate is a microcrystalline variety of silica, chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.-Etymology...
, a piece of natural glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
or — most popularly — a stony meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
. Paul Partsch, the curator of the Austro-Hungarian imperial collection of minerals, published the first comprehensive history of the Black Stone in 1857 in which he favoured a meteoritic origin for the Stone. Robert Dietz and John McHone proposed in 1974 that the Black Stone was actually an agate, judging from its physical attributes and a report by an Arab geologist that the Stone contained clearly discernible diffusion banding characteristic of agates. A significant clue to its nature is provided by an account of the Stone's recovery in 951 AD after it had been stolen 21 years earlier; according to a chronicler, the Stone was identified by its ability to float in water. If this account is accurate, it would rule out the Black Stone being an agate, basalt lava or stony meteorite, though it would be compatible with it being glass or pumice
Pumice
Pumice is a textural term for a volcanic rock that is a solidified frothy lava typically created when super-heated, highly pressurized rock is violently ejected from a volcano. It can be formed when lava and water are mixed. This unusual formation is due to the simultaneous actions of rapid...
.
Elsebeth Thomsen of the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
proposed a different hypothesis in 1980. She suggested that the Black Stone may be a glass fragment or impactite
Impactite
Impactite is an informal term describing a rock created or modified by the impact of a meteorite. The term encompasses shock-metamorphosed target rocks, melts and mixtures of the two, as well as sedimentary rocks with significant impact-derived components .-Some localities:*Nördlinger Ries...
from the impact of a fragmented meteorite that fell some 6,000 years ago at Wabar
Wabar craters
The Wabar craters are impact craters brought to the attention of Western scholars by an explorer searching for the legendary city of Ubar in Arabia.-1932 Philby:...
, a site in the Rub' al Khali desert some 1,100 km east of Mecca. The craters at Wabar are notable for the presence of blocks of silica glass, fused by the heat of the impact and impregnated by beads of nickel-iron alloy from the meteorite (most of which was destroyed in the impact). Some of the glass blocks are made of shiny black glass with a white or yellow interior and gas-filled hollows, which allow them to float on water. Although scientists did not become aware of the Wabar craters
Wabar craters
The Wabar craters are impact craters brought to the attention of Western scholars by an explorer searching for the legendary city of Ubar in Arabia.-1932 Philby:...
until 1932, they were located near a caravan route from Oman
Oman
Oman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...
and were very likely known to the inhabitants of the desert. The wider area was certainly well-known; in ancient Arabic poetry, Wabar or Ubar (also known as "Iram of the Pillars
Iram of the Pillars
Iram of the Pillars , also called Aram, Iram, Irum, Irem, Erum, Wabar, Ubar, or the City of a Thousand Pillars, is a lost city on the Arabian Peninsula.-Introduction:Ubar, a name of a region or a name of a people, was mentioned in ancient records, and was spoken of in folk...
") was the site of a fabulous city that was destroyed by fire from the heavens because of the wickedness of its king. If the estimated age of the crater is accurate, it would have been well within the period of human habitation in Arabia and the impact itself may have been witnessed. However, a recent (2004) scientific analysis of the Wabar site suggests that the impact event happened much more recently than first thought and might have occurred only within the last 200–300 years. The meteoritic hypothesis is now seen as doubtful, and the British Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
suggests that it may be a pseudometeorite, i.e., a terrestrial rock mistakenly attributed to a meteoritic origin.