Black Stone

The Black Stone, surrounded by its silver frame and the black cloth kiswah on the Kaaba in Mecca

The Black Stone (called الحجر الأسود al-Hajar-ul-Aswad in Arabic) is a Muslim object of reverence, which according to Islamic tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve. It is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient sacred stone building towards which Muslims pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Stone is roughly 30 cm (12 in.) in diameter, and 1.5 meters (5 ft.) above the ground.

When 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 it received from the Islamic prophet Muhammad. If they cannot reach it, they are to point to it on each of their seven circuits around the Kaaba.

The Stone is broken into a number of pieces from damage which was inflicted during the Middle Ages. It is now held together by a silver frame, which is fastened by silver nails to the Stone.

Origins and history

Islamic views

A 1315 illustration from the Jami al-Tawarikh, inspired by the Sirah Rasul Allah story of Muhammad and the Meccan clan elders lifting the Black Stone into place

It is said that it is Abraham who found the black rock and when Abraham rebuilt the Kaaba, the Archangel Gabriel brought the Stone out of hiding and gave it to him.

Muhammad is said to have played a key part in the history of the Black Stone. In 602, before the first of his prophetic revelations, he was present in Mecca during the rebuilding of the Kaaba. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed while a new structure was being constructed. A story found in Ibn Ishaq's Sirah Rasul Allah (as reconstructed and translated by Guillaume) shows Muhammad settling a quarrel between Meccan clans as to which clan should set the Black Stone in place. His solution was to have all the clan elders raise the cornerstone on a cloak, and then Muhammad set the Stone into its final place with his own hands.

Other views

The reverence of the Black Stone has its origins in India within the religion of Hinduism. The black stone of the Kabba, its formation, material, color, size and fixture completely resembles the Shiv Ling's which can be found in temples across the sub-continent. Shiv is one of gods of the Trinity of Gods within Hinduism which hold the highest positions only second to the Brahman (the self born, self existent, all prevading, all consuimg godhead who gave birth to all of creation)the trinity itself symbolic of the Creative, Preserving and Destructive power of God and the conciousness of these Gods resembles the conciousness of the creator, indicating that everything which happens within the universe, birth, preservation and destruction are all concious occourances. Lord Shiv represents the Destructive power of God and Lord Shiv is worshipped in temples across India in the form of a Black Stone embedded into the ground in a foundation shaped very much like the silver vessel which conceals and surrounds the Black Stone of the Kabba. These Black Stones in the temples of India are also very large in length and the diameter, exactly like the black stone of the Kabba. The Black stone also represents the physical Universe and its shape. The Shiv Linga also can vary in colour though at most places it made of black stone of varying variety at varying locations and in many places it is said to have risen from the earth by itself, indicating that god is self born. This Black Stone is constantly bathed with water dripping onto it from a vessel hangning overhead in the Hindu temples. It cannot be a mere co-incidence that the Kabba which was also the original temple of the Black Stone had a well within its premises, the ZamZam well, it is quite likely that before the Muslims destroyed the Original Kabba with all its idols barring the Black Stone, which was broken and then put together and established in a corner, the priests of the temple must have bathed the black stone with water as well. We know little of Pre Islamic Arabia, however evidences such as the one mentioned above and also other literary and archaeological evidences of Idol worship in pre Islamic Arabia clearly indicates that the religion of Hinduism and the Vedas was also practiced in the region. Another proof of this are the Pharsis and Bahais who fled Iran to avoid prosecution when Muslims took over the region, the faiths of both these people are almost identical to Hinduism. Whats even more shocking is there are many verses mentioned in the Holy Book Quaran which are almost identical to the monotheistic verses of the Vedas. It seems as if certain sections of the Vedas have been amalmagated with sections of Judaism and/or Christianity. Its also important to note that there are two more deities established in various corners of the Kabba apart from the Black Stone and Lord Shiv is the only deitiey who is established in temples in India with his entire family of one wife and two children all of whom are also deities representing various other powers of God. These are established in various corners of the temple while the ling(black stone) is established in the centre, being the central figure head. The positions also indicating that God lives in a physical manifestation within the centre of the universe. It is also indicated by some historians that the Black Stone was infact the deitiey of The Prophet Mohammads Clan which is why the Prophet Spared the destruction of the Black Stone and its family and allowed it to remain and infact began the ritual of kissing the stone as a sign of reverance after reestablishing the same. Evidence also suggests that the entire Middle East, Afghanistan and adjoining regions all followed the religion of the Veda and Hinduism, The Vedas being a part of the religion of Hinduism. Today this great religion of the ancient past,Hinduism, has been confined to the Sub-continent due to the unchecked expansion of Islam over the past 700 years. And pre Islamic History of the conquered lands has been systematically wiped out from the face of the earth and the minds of the people. But let the truth be revealed.

The reverence of the Black Stone evidently preceded the rise of Islam. 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.

Grunebaum, in Classical Islam, says that the Kaaba was a place of pilgrimage even in pre-Islamic times, and was probably the only sanctuary built of stone, but that there are other sources which indicate there were other "Kaaba" structures in other parts of Arabia. A "red stone" was the deity of the south Arabian city of Ghaiman, and there was a "white stone" in the Ka'ba of al-Abalat (near the city of Tabala, south of Mecca). He points out that the experience of divinity of that time period was often associated with stone fetishes, mountains, special rock formations, or "trees of strange growth."

The physical properties of the Black Stone were first described in the 19th and early 20th centuries by European travellers in Arabia who visited the Kaaba in the guise of pilgrims. The Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who visited Mecca around 1815 in the guise of a pilgrim, provided a detailed description in his 1829 book Travels in Arabia:

It is an irregular oval, about seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface, composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly well smoothed; it looks as if the whole had been broken into as many pieces by a violent blow, and then united again. It is very difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone which has been worn to its present surface by the millions of touches and kisses it has received. It appeared to me like a lava, containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellow substance. Its colour is now a deep reddish brown approaching to black. It is surrounded on all sides by a border composed of a substance which I took to be a close cement of pitch and gravel of a similar, but not quite the same, brownish colour. This border serves to support its detached pieces; it is two or three inches in breadth, and rises a little above the surface of the stone. Both the border and the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, broader below than above, and on the two sides, with a considerable swelling below, as if a part of the stone were hidden under it. The lower part of the border is studded with silver nails.

Visiting the Kaaba in 1853, Sir Richard Francis Burton noted that:

The colour appeared to me black and metallic, and the centre of the stone was sunk about two inches below the metallic circle. Round the sides was a reddish brown cement, almost level with the metal, and sloping down to the middle of the stone. The band is now a massive arch of gold or silver gilt. I found the aperture in which the stone is, one span and three fingers broad.

The Black Stone has been described variously as basalt lava, an agate, a piece of natural glass or — most popularly — a stony meteorite. It is evidently a hard rock, having survived so much handling. 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.

It has been suggested that the Black Stone may be a glass fragment from the impact of a fragmented meteorite 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.

Ritual role

The current ritual of the Hajj involves pilgrims attempting to kiss the Black Stone seven times (once for each circumambulation of the Kaaba), emulating the actions of Muhammad. When Umar ibn al-Khattab (580-644), the second Caliph, 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." Many Muslims follow Umar: they pay their respects to the Stone in a spirit of trust in Muhammad, not with any belief in the Stone itself. 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. In modern times, large crowds no longer make it practically possible 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) one has performed.

Some Muslims also accept this hadith, from Tirmidhi, which asserts that at the Last Judgement (Qiyamah), the Black Stone will speak for those who kissed it:

"It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbas said: The Messenger of Allah said concerning the Stone: "By Allah, Allah will bring it forth on the Day of Resurrection, and it will have two eyes with which it will see and a tongue with which it will speak, and it will testify in favour of those who touched it in sincerity." "

Apart from the ritual role of the Black Stone, its black colour is deemed to symbolise the essential spiritual virtue of detachment and poverty for God (faqr) and the extinction of ego required to progress towards God (qalb).

Damage

The Black Stone is broken into a number of fragments, with varying accounts putting the number at between seven and fifteen, held together by a silver frame. The damage appears to have occurred in several stages. Legend has it that during the siege of Mecca in 683, the Kaaba was ignited by a flaming arrow and the fire's heat cracked the Black Stone into three large parts and several smaller fragments. In 930, the Black Stone was seized by the Qarmatians and carried off to their base at Bahrain. According to the historian Al-Juwayni, the Stone was returned in 951 under somewhat mysterious circumstances; wrapped in a sack, it was 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. Some Muslims believe the Black Stone should be less accessible to the general public, as a way of protecting such a relic.

See also

• Foundation Stone

References

• Grunebaum, G. E. von (1970). Classical Islam: A History 600 A.D. - 1258 A.D.. Aldine Publishing Company. ISBN 202-15016-X
• Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri (2002). Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar): Biography of the Prophet. Dar-us-Salam Publications. ISBN 1591440718.
• Elliott, Jeri (1992). Your Door to Arabia. ISBN 0-473-01546-3.
• Mohamed, Mamdouh N. (1996). Hajj to Umrah: From A to Z. Amana Publications. ISBN 0-915957-54-x.
• Time-Life Books (1988). Time Frame AD 600-800: The March of Islam, ISBN 0-8094-6420-9.
• Bob Trubshaw (February 1993). "The Black Stone - the Omphalos of the Goddess". Mercian Mysteries (No. 14). {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)

External links

• Picture of the Black Stone
• Information about the Kaaba and viewpoints regarding the status of the Black Stone
• General information about the Kaaba and the Black Stone
• Reflections from the Hajj, by S. Khan and A. Zahoor