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

According to Islamic tradition, the Stone fell from Heaven during the time of Adam and Eve, when it was a pure and dazzling white, but has since turned black because of the sins it has absorbed over the years. It is said that it was Abraham who found the black rock and when he rebuilt the Kaaba, the Archangel Gabriel brought the Stone out of hiding and gave it to him.

Muhammad is credited with playing 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 origins of the Black Stone can be traced back to the Indian Sub-Continent where it is worshipped even today in scores of temples established across the Sub-Continent in the form of the Shiv Lingam. Whatever has been mentioned here can be physically verified by visting Shiv Temples across India. Also note that most ancient Indian temples had water bodies such as wells within its compound as has the kabba, in the form of the ZamZam well. Moreover the size, shape, structure and material of the Black Stone of the Kabba is identical to the Shiv Lingam's in India. The foundation of the stone is also identical to the foundation of the Shiv lingams in Hindu Temples across India. It is also a know fact that the Kabba was a pilgrimage long before Islam came into existence.

It is also important to point out that, the moon is always associated with Lord Shiva in Hinduism. A Crescent is always painted across the forehead of the Shiva emblem or the Shivs image. The crescent must also have been present in the Kabba on the Shiv Ling. And the Crescent has also been adopted as a religious symbol of Islam. Additionally its important to note that circumambulation of temples is a common ritual in Hindu temples across India by the devotees and the practice of circumambulation of the Kaaba by Muslim Pilgrims also reflects a similar tradition which even existed prior to the rise of Islam. All of the above described facts can be physically verified by visiting Temples across India.

With so many striking similarities between the Black Stone of the kabba and those of the Shiv Lings across India’s temples, the history of the Kabba being a shrine to over 300 idols and the rituals practiced at the kabba being almost identical to hindu rituals in India, it can clearly be deduced that Hindu influence was prevalent in Pre Islamic Arabia.

Verses from the remains of the SAYAR-UL-OKULA a poem by UMAR-BINE-HASSNA of Pre Islamic Arabia are also indicative of the same. Please read some excerpts below:

QAFA VINAK ZIQRA MIN ULUMIN TAV ASERU KALUBAN AYATTUL HAWA VA TAZAKKARU A man who has spent all his life in sin and immorality and has wasted away his life in passion and fury,

VA TAZAKEROHA AUDAN ELALVADAE LILVARA VALUK YANK ZATULLA HE YOM TAB ASERU If he repents in the end and wants to return to morality, is there a way for his redemption?

VA AHLOLAHA AZAHU ARMIMAN MAHADEV O MANAZEL ILAMUDDINE MINJUM VA SAYATTARU Even if only once he sincerely worships Mahadeva, he can attain the highest position in the path of righteousness.

VA SAHABI KEYAM FEEM QAMIL HINDE YOMAN VA YAQULOON LATAHAZAN FAINNAK TAVAJ3ARU Oh Lord! Take away all my life and in return pray grant me even a single day's stay in Hind (India) as a man becomes spiritually free on reaching that holy land.

I think its important that the truth be told and I don’t believe that any Muslim should have a problem with their past. What’s even more important is the fact that there are verses in the Quaran which are identical to verses found in the more ancient Vedic Scriptures. Moreover the Bahais and the Pharsis of Pre Islamic Iran, who fled Iran when it was conquered by Muslim hordes to escape prosecution also follow faiths almost identical to the Vedic/hindu faith-the persecution of the Bahais and Pharsis can be verified by Historical records.

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