:Black Stone

File:Black Stone front and side.PNG

The Black Stone was originally a single piece of rock but today consists of several pieces that have been cemented together. They are surrounded by a silver frame which is fastened by silver nails to the Kaaba's outer wall. The fragments are themselves made up of smaller pieces which have been combined to form the seven or eight fragments visible today. The Stone's exposed face measures about {{convert|20|cm|in}} by {{convert|16|cm|in}}. Its original size is unclear and the recorded dimensions have changed considerably over time, as the pieces have been rearranged in their cement matrix on several occasions.{{cite book |last=Burke |first=John G. |title=Cosmic Debris: Meteorites in History |publisher=University of California Press |pages=221–23 |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-520-07396-8}} In the 10th century, an observer described the Black Stone as being one cubit ({{convert|46|cm|in|abbr=on|disp=or}}) long. By the early 17th century, it was recorded as measuring {{convert|140|by|122|cm|ftin|abbr=on}}. According to Ali Bey in the 18th century, it was described as {{convert|110|cm|ftin|abbr=on}} high, and Muhammad Ali Pasha reported it as being {{convert|76|cm|ftin|abbr=on}} long by {{convert|46|cm|ftin|abbr=on}} wide.

The Black Stone is attached to the east corner of the Kaaba, known as al-Rukn al-Aswad (the 'Corner of the Black Stone').{{cite book |last=Ali |first=Maulana Muhammad |title=The Religion of Islam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=etnEKz_rOfgC&pg=PT351 |date=25 July 2011 |publisher=Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore USA |isbn=978-1-934271-18-6 |page=351}} The choice of the east corner may have had ritual significance; it faces the rain-bringing east wind (al-qabul) and the direction from which Canopus rises.{{cite book |last=Al-Azmeh |first=Aziz |title=The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xnU3DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA200 |year=2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-64155-2 |page=200}}

The silver 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.{{cite book |title=The sacred trusts: Pavilion of the Sacred Relics, Topkapı Palace Museum |last=Aydın |first=Hilmi |publisher=Tughra Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-932099-72-0}}

The Black Stone was described by European travellers to Arabia in the 19th- and early-20th centuries, who visited the Kaaba disguised as pilgrims. Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited Mecca in 1814, and provided a detailed description in his 1829 book Travels in Arabia:

{{Blockquote|text=It is an irregular oval, about seven inches [18 cm] in diameter, with an undulated 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.{{cite book |last=Burckhardt |first=Johann Ludwig |title=Travels in Arabia, Comprehending an Account of Those Territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans Regard as Sacred |url=https://archive.org/details/travelsinarabia04burcgoog |year=1829 |publisher=Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street |page=[https://archive.org/details/travelsinarabia04burcgoog/page/n265 250]}}}}

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

{{Blockquote|text=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.{{cite book |last=Burton |first=Sir Richard Francis |title=Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lbVSx5zKcrEC&pg=PA161 |year=1856 |publisher=Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts |page=161}}}}

Ritter von Laurin, the Austrian consul-general in Egypt, was able to inspect a fragment of the Stone removed by the Ottoman ruler 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 Black Stone was held in reverence well before Islam. It had long been associated with the Kaaba, which was built in the pre-Islamic period and was a site of pilgrimage of Nabataeans, who visited the shrine once a year to perform their pilgrimage. The Kaaba held 360 idols of the Meccan gods.{{cite book |pages=[https://archive.org/details/islamshorthistor00arms_354/page/n50 11] |title=Islam: A Short History |first=Karen |last=Armstrong |author-link=Karen Armstrong |isbn=978-0-8129-6618-3 |date=2002 |title-link=Islam: A Short History|publisher=Random House Publishing }}{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/33725224 | title=Arab Paganism. The roots of Islam. *al lah the Meccan (Muslim) pagan gods | last1=Ezra | first1=Eliyahu | access-date=28 June 2023 | archive-date=5 July 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705055558/https://www.academia.edu/33725224 | url-status=live }} The Semitic cultures of the Middle East had a tradition of using unusual stones to mark places of worship, while bowing, worshiping and praying to such sacred objects is also described in the Tanakh as idolatrous{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09475.html |title=The Biblical Injunction Against Idolatry |last=Rabinowitz |first=Louis |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Judaica |date=2008 |access-date=2014-04-20}} and was the subject of prophetic rebuke.{{bibleverse|Leviticus|26:1|KJV}}{{bibleverse|Isaiah|2:9|KJV}}{{bibleverse|Isaiah|44:17-18|KJV}}{{bibleverse|Jeremiah|2:27|KJV}}{{bibleverse|Hosea|2:13|KJV}}{{bibleverse|Habakkuk|2:19|KJV}} The meteorite-origin theory of the Black Stone has seen it likened by some writers to the meteorite which was placed and worshipped in the Greek Temple of Artemis.{{cite book |author1=Robert E. Krebs |title=Scientific Development and Misconceptions Through the Ages: A Reference Guide |date=1999 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0313302268 |page=209 |edition=illustrated}}{{cite book |editor1-last=Swartley |editor1-first=Keith E. |title=Encountering the World of Islam |date=2005 |publisher=Biblica |isbn=978-1932805246 |page=205 |edition=illustrated, reprint}}{{cite book |author1=Isaac Asimov |author-link1=Isaac Asimov |title=Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space |date=2011 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0307792273 |page=108}}

The Kaaba has been associated{{By whom|date=May 2024}} with fertility rites of Arabia.{{cite book |last=Rice |first=Edward |title=Eastern Definitions: A Short Encyclopedia of Religions of the Orient |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/easterndefinitio00rice/page/433 433] |date=1978 |isbn=978-0-385-08563-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/easterndefinitio00rice/page/433}}{{cite book |last=Ibn Ishaq |first=Muhammad |title=Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah – The Life of Muhammad Translated by A. Guillaume |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |pages=88–89 |date=1955 |url=https://archive.org/stream/TheLifeOfMohammedGuillaume/The_Life_Of_Mohammed_Guillaume#page/n67/mode/1up |isbn=978-0-19-636033-1}}{{failed verification|date=August 2019}} Some New Age writers remark on the apparent similarity of the Black Stone and its frame to the external female genitalia.{{cite book |last=Tate |first=Karen |title=Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations |publisher=Consortium of Collective Consciousness Publishing |location=San Francisco |page=165 |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b7KbLLjzuRgC&pg=PA166 |isbn=978-1-888729-11-5 |access-date=30 October 2020 |archive-date=5 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705055628/https://books.google.com/books?id=b7KbLLjzuRgC&pg=PA166 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last=Camphausen |first=Rufus |title=The Yoni, Sacred Symbol of Female Creative Power |publisher=Inner Traditions Bear and Company |location=Vermont |page=134 |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-89281-562-3}}{{Dubious|date=May 2024|reason=Both citations are to New Age authors in fringe publications. These works are not prominent enough to include in the history section.}} However, the silver frame was placed on the Black Stone to secure the fragments, after the original stone was broken.{{cite book |last=Burke |first=John G. |title=Cosmic Debris: Meteorites in History |publisher=University of California Press |page=222 |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-520-07396-8}}{{cite book |last=Hassan |first=Ashraf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JSHFDgAAQBAJ&q=black+stone+silver+frame+fragments&pg=PA262 |title=Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia [4 volumes] |publisher=ABC-CLIO |editor=Cenap Çakmak |page=262 |year=1991 |isbn=978-1-61-069217-5 |access-date=30 October 2020 |archive-date=5 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705055559/https://books.google.com/books?id=JSHFDgAAQBAJ&q=black+stone+silver+frame+fragments&pg=PA262 |url-status=live }}{{cite book |last1=Glassé |first1=Cyril |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=focLrox-frUC&pg=PA245 |title=The New Encyclopedia of Islam |last2=Smith |first2=Huston |publisher=Rowman Altamira |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7591-0190-6 |pages=245–246 |language=en}}

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.{{cite book |author=Grunebaum, G. E. von |title=Classical Islam: A History 600 A.D.–1258 A.D. |publisher=Aldine Publishing Company |page=24 |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-202-15016-1}} 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 as a link between heaven and earth.{{cite book |title=Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths |url=https://archive.org/details/jerusalemonecity0000arms |url-access=limited |last=Armstrong |first=Karen |page=[https://archive.org/details/jerusalemonecity0000arms/page/221 221] |year=1996 |publisher=A.A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-679-43596-9}} Aziz Al-Azmeh claims that the divine name ar-Rahman (one of the names of God in Islam and cognate to one of the Jewish names of God Ha'Rachaman, both meaning "the Merciful One" or "the Gracious One"){{cite web |title=The Names of God |url=http://www.themitzvahproject.org/serv03111.htm |website=www.themitzvahproject.org |publisher=The Mitzvah Project |access-date=15 September 2021 |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915170953/http://www.themitzvahproject.org/serv03111.htm |url-status=live }} was used for astral gods in Mecca and might have been associated with the Black Stone.{{cite book |last=ʻAẓmah |first=ʻAzīz |title=The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiqeclAyH-4C&pg=PA105 |year=2007 |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-963-7326-73-8 |page=105}} Muhammad is said to have called the stone "the right hand of al-Rahman".Al-Azmeh, p. 219

According to Islamic belief, Muhammad is credited with setting the Black Stone in the current 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.{{cite book |title=The sacred trusts: Pavilion of the Sacred Relics, Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul |editor1=Uğurluel, Talha |editor2=Doğru, Ahmet |author1=Dairesi, Hırka-i Saadet |author2=Aydın, Hilmi |publisher=Tughra Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-932099-72-0}}{{cite book |last=Al-A'zami |first=Muhammad Mustafa |year=2003 |title=The History of The Qur'anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments |page=24 |publisher=UK Islamic Academy |isbn=978-1-872531-65-6}}

They decided to wait for the next man to come through the gate and ask him to make the decision. That person was 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 set the stone in place, satisfying the honour of all of the clans. After his Conquest of Mecca in 630, Muhammad is said to have ridden round the Kaaba seven times on his camel, touching the Black Stone with his stick in a gesture of reverence.

The Stone has suffered repeated desecrations and damage over the course of time. It is said to have been struck and smashed to pieces by a stone fired from a catapult during the Umayyad Caliphate's siege of Mecca in 683. The fragments were rejoined by Abd Allah ibn al-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 Eastern Arabia). According to Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, writing in 1857, the Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Jannabi set the Black Stone up in his own mosque, the Masjid al-Dirar, with the intention of redirecting the hajj away from Mecca. This failed, as pilgrims continued to venerate the spot where the Black Stone had been.{{cite book |last=Peters |first=Francis E. |title=Mecca: a literary history of the Muslim Holy Land |pages=125–26 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-691-03267-2}}

According to the 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.{{cite web |url=http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/islam/shia/qarma.html |title=Qarmatiyyah |publisher=St. Martin's College |work=Overview of World Religions |access-date=4 May 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428055134/http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/islam/shia/qarma.html |archive-date=28 April 2007}}{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/68328/Black-Stone-of-Mecca |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |title=Black Stone of Mecca (Islam) |access-date=11 May 2012}} 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." To protect the shattered stone, the custodians of the Kaaba commissioned a pair of Meccan goldsmiths to build a silver frame to surround it, and it has been enclosed in a similar frame ever since.

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 allegedly smeared the Black Stone with excrement so that "every one who kissed it retired with a sullied beard". According to the archaic Sunni belief,{{Cite book |title=Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes? |last=Keynoush |first=Banafsheh |year=2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1137589392 |page=59}} by the accusation of one boy, the Persian of an unknown faith was suspected of sacrilege, where Sunnis of Mecca "have turned the circumstance to their own advantage" by assaulting, beating random Persians and forbidding them from Hajj until the ban was overturned by the order of Muhammad Ali. The explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton pointed out on the alleged "excrement action" that "it is scarcely necessary to say that a Shi'a, as well as a Sunni, would look upon such an action with lively horror", and that the real culprit was "some Jew or Christian, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry".As quoted in [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Personal_Narrative_of_a_Pilgrimage_to_Al_Madinah_and_Meccah/Volume_III|Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah] by Richard Francis Burton, Volume III: "In A.D. 1674 some wretch smeared the Black Stone with impurity, and every one who kissed it retired with a sullied beard. The Persians, says Burckhardt, were suspected of this sacrilege, and now their ill-fame has spread far; at Alexandria they were described to me as a people who defile the Kaaba. It is scarcely necessary to say that a Shi'a, as well as a Sunni, would look upon such an action with lively horror. The people of Meccah, however, like the Madani, have turned the circumstance to their own advantage, and make an occasional "avanie". Thus, nine or ten years ago, on the testimony of a boy who swore that he saw the inside of the Kaaba defiled by a Persian, they rose up, cruelly beat the schismatics, and carried them off to their peculiar quarter the Shamiyah, forbidding their ingress to the Kaaba. Indeed, till Mohammed Ali's time, the Persians rarely ventured upon a pilgrimage, and even now that man is happy who gets over it without a beating. The defilement of the Black Stone was probably the work of some Jew or Greek, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry." Note: Burton pointed out to the suspect as a "Jew or Greek". The "Greek" here is to be understood as a Christian, and not a Greek national per se.

File:Coveting the Black Stone.jpg

The Black Stone plays a central role in the ritual of {{transliteration|ar|istilam}}, when pilgrims kiss the Black Stone, touch it with their hands or raise their hands towards it while repeating the {{transliteration|ar|takbir}} "God is Greatest". They perform this in the course of walking seven times around the Kaaba in a counterclockwise direction ({{transliteration|ar|tawaf}}), emulating the actions of Muhammad. At the end of each circuit, they perform {{transliteration|ar|istilam}} and may approach the Black Stone to kiss it at the end of {{transliteration|ar|tawaf}}.{{cite book |editor1-last=Ali |editor1-first=Saad |editor2-last=Nishino |editor2-first=Ko |editor3-last=Manocha |editor3-first=Dinesh |last1=Curtis |first1=Sean |last2=Guy |first2=Stephen J. |last3=Zafar |first3=Basim |last4=Manocha |first4=Dinesh |title=Modeling, Simulation and Visual Analysis of Crowds: A Multidisciplinary Perspective |chapter=Virtual Tawaf: A Velocity-Space-Based Solution for Simulating Heterogeneous Behavior in Dense Crowds |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ajm3BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA200 |date=2013 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-1-4614-8483-7 |page=200}} In modern times, large crowds make it practically impossible for everyone to kiss the stone, so it is currently acceptable to point in the direction of the Stone on each of their seven circuits around the Kaaba. Some{{who|date=May 2024}} even say that the Stone is best considered simply as a marker, useful in keeping count of the ritual circumambulations that one has performed.{{cite web |website=The Saudi Arabia Information Resource |title=The Holy City of Makkah |access-date=12 August 2006 |url=http://www.saudinf.com/main/a83.htm |archive-date=21 August 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821222527/http://www.saudinf.com/main/a83.htm |url-status=usurped }}

Writing in Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim's Passage, Muzaffar Iqbal described his experience of venerating the Black Stone during a pilgrimage to Mecca:

{{Blockquote|At the end of the second [circumambulation of the Kaaba], I was granted one of those extraordinary moments which sometimes occur around the Black Stone. As I approached the Corner the large crowd was suddenly pushed back by a strong man who had just kissed the Black Stone. This push generated a backward current, creating a momentary opening around the Black Stone as I came to it; I swiftly accepted the opportunity reciting, {{transliteration|ar|Bismillahi Allahu akbar wa lillahi-hamd}} ["In the name of God, God is great, all praise to God"], put my hands on the Black Stone and kissed it. Thousands of silver lines sparkled, the Stone glistened, and something stirred deep inside me. A few seconds passed. Then I was pushed away by the guard.{{cite book |last=Iqbal |first=Muzaffar |title=Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim's Passage |page=21 |publisher=The Other Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-983-9154-92-4}}}}

The Black Stone and the Kaaba's opposite corner, {{transliteration|ar|al-Rukn al-Yamani}}, are both often perfumed by the mosque's custodians. This can cause problems for pilgrims in the state of {{transliteration|ar|ihram}} ('consecration'), who are forbidden from using scented products and will require a {{transliteration|ar|kaffara}} (donation) as a penance if they touch either.{{cite book |last1=Ham |first1=Anthony |last2=Shams |first2=Martha Brekhus |last3=Madden |first3=Andrew |title=Saudi Arabia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PddTr1X7hEgC&pg=PA75 |year=2004 |publisher=Lonely Planet Publications |isbn=978-1-74059-667-1 |page=75}}

File:Mosquée Masjid el Haram à la Mecque.jpg in Mecca. The Black Stone is set into the eastern corner of the building.]]

One tradition holds that the Black Stone was placed by Adam in the original Kaaba.{{Cite book |last=Glassé |first=Cyril |title=The New Encyclopedia of Islam |date=January 29, 2003 |publisher=AltaMira Press |isbn=978-0759101906 |edition= |pages=91 |language=en}}

Muslims believe that the stone was originally pure and dazzling white, but has since turned black because of the sins of the people who touch it.Saying of the Prophet, Collection of Tirmizi, VII, 49Shaykh Tabarsi, Tafsir, vol. 1, pp. 460, 468. Quoted in translation by Francis E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, p. 5. SUNY Press, 1994. {{ISBN|0-7914-1876-6}}

According to a prophetic tradition, "Touching them both (the Black Stone and {{transliteration|ar|al-Rukn al-Yamani}}) is an expiation for sins."{{cite book |last=ibn Isa at-Tirmidhi |first=Muhammad |title=Jami' at-Tirmidhi: Book of Hajj |volume=2nd, Hadith 959}} Adam's altar and the stone were said to have been lost during Noah's Flood and forgotten. Ibrahim (Abraham) 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.Cyril Glassé, New Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 245. Rowman Altamira, 2001. {{ISBN|0-7591-0190-6}} Ibrahim ordered his son Ismael – who in Muslim belief is an ancestor of Muhammad – to build a new temple, the Kaaba, into which the stone was to be embedded.

Another tradition says that the Black Stone was originally an angel that had been placed by God in the Garden of Eden to guard Adam. The angel was absent when Adam ate the forbidden fruit and was punished by being turned into a jewel – the Black Stone. God granted it the power of speech and placed it at the top of Abu Qubays, a mountain in the historic region of Khurasan, before moving the mountain to Mecca. When Ibrahim took the Black Stone from Abu Qubays to build the Kaaba, the mountain asked Ibrahim to intercede with God so that it would not be returned to Khurasan and would stay in Mecca.{{cite journal |title=Adam: a Study of Some Legends in Tafsir and Hadit Literature |journal=Israel Oriental Studies |number=13 |year=1993 |publisher=E.J. Brill |isbn=978-9004099012 |pages=113–74}}

Another tradition holds that it was brought down to Earth by "an angel from heaven".{{Cite book |last=Frankopan |first=Peter |title=The Silk Roads: A New History of the World |date=March 2017 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-1-101-94633-6 |edition=First Vintage Books |series= |location=New York |pages=75 |author-link=Peter Frankopan}}

According to some scholars, the Black Stone was the same stone that Islamic tradition describes as greeting Muhammad before his prophethood. This led to a debate about whether the Black Stone's greeting comprised actual speech or merely a sound, and following that, whether the stone was a living creature or an inanimate object. Whichever was the case, the stone was held to be a symbol of prophethood.

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."{{cite web |author=University of Southern California |title=Pilgrimage (Hajj) |access-date=12 August 2006 |url=http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/026.sbt.html#002.026.667 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060830145427/http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/026.sbt.html#002.026.667 |archive-date=30 August 2006 |df=dmy-all}} In the hadith collection Kanz al-Ummal, it is recorded that Ali responded to Umar, saying, "This stone (Hajar Aswad) can indeed benefit and harm.{{nbsp}}[...] Allah says in Quran that he created human beings from the progeny of Adam and made them witness over themselves and asked them, 'Am I not your creator?' Upon this, all of them confirmed it. Thus Allah wrote this confirmation. And this stone has a pair of eyes, ears and a tongue and it opened its mouth upon the order of Allah, who put that confirmation in it and ordered to witness it to all those worshippers who come for Hajj."{{cite book |last=ibn Abd-al-Malik al-Hindi |first=Ali |title=Kanz al-Ummal |year=1998 |location=Lebanon}}

Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni, writing in 1911, commented on the practice 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".{{cite book |last=Lazarus-Yafeh |first=Hava |title=Some religious aspects of Islam: a collection of articles |pages=120–24 |publisher=Brill |year=1981 |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-06329-7}} The Indian Islamic scholar Muhammad Hamidullah summed up the meaning of the Black Stone:

{{Blockquote|[T]he Prophet has named the (Black Stone) the "right hand of God" ({{transliteration|ar|yamin-Allah}}), and for purpose. In fact one poses there one's hand to conclude the pact, and God obtains there our pact of allegiance and submission. In the quranic terminology, God is the king, and{{nbsp}}[...] in (his) realm there is a metropolis ({{transliteration|ar|Umm al-Qurra}}) and in the metropolis naturally a palace ({{transliteration|ar|Bait-Allah}}, home of God). If a subject wants to testify to his loyalty, he has to go to the royal palace and conclude personally the pact of allegiance. The right hand of the invisible God must be visible symbolically. And that is the {{transliteration|ar|al-Hajar al-Aswad}}, the Black Stone in the Ka'bah.{{cite book |last=Shenk |first=David W. |title=Journeys of the Muslim nation and the Christian church: exploring the mission of two communities |page=161 |publisher=Uzima Publishing House |year=2006 |isbn=978-9966-855-21-3}}}}

In recent years several literalist views of the Black Stone have emerged. A small minority accepts as literally true a hadith, usually taken as allegorical, which asserts that "the Stone will appear on the Day of Judgement ({{transliteration|ar|Qiyamah}}) with eyes to see and a tongue to speak, and give evidence in favour 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".

The nature of the Black Stone has been much debated. It has been described variously as basalt stone, an agate, a piece of natural glass or—most popularly—a stony meteorite. {{ill|Paul Partsch|de|Paul Partsch}}, the curator of the Austro-Hungarian imperial collection of minerals, published the first comprehensive analysis of the Black Stone in 1857, in which he favoured a meteoritic origin for the stone.{{cite journal |last=Partsch |first=Paul Maria |title=Über den schwarzen Stein der Kaaba zu Mekka, mitgetheilt aus den hinterlassenen Schriften des wirklichen Mitgliedens |journal=Denkschriften der Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien |issue=13 |year=1857 |publisher=Erste Abtheilung |pages=1–5 |url=http://www.landesmuseum.at/pdf_frei_remote/DAKW_13_1_0001-0005.pdf |access-date=29 August 2015 |archive-date=19 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919061303/http://www.landesmuseum.at/pdf_frei_remote/DAKW_13_1_0001-0005.pdf |url-status=live }} 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 CE, after it had been stolen 21 years earlier. According to a chronicler,{{Who|date=August 2024}} the stone was identified by its ability to float in water, which would rule out the Black Stone being an agate, a basalt lava, or a stony meteorite, though it would be compatible with it being glass or pumice.{{cite book |first1=Alex |last1=Bevan |first2=John |last2=De Laeter |title=Meteorites: A Journey Through Space and Time |pages=14–15 |publisher=UNSW Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-86840-490-5}}

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 6,000 years ago at Wabar,{{cite journal |title=New Light on the Origin of the Holy Black Stone of the Ka'ba |last=Thomsen |first=E. |journal=Meteoritics |volume=15 |number=1 |page=87 |bibcode=1980Metic..15...87T |doi=10.1111/j.1945-5100.1980.tb00176.x |year=1980}} a site in the Rub' al Khali desert {{convert|1100|km|mi}} east of Mecca. A 2004 scientific analysis of the Wabar site suggests that the impact event happened much more recently than first thought and might have occurred within the last 200–300 years.{{cite journal |last1=Prescott |first1=J. R. |title=Luminescence dating of the Wabar meteorite craters, Saudi Arabia |journal=Journal of Geophysical Research |volume=109 |issue=E1 |year=2004 |pages=E01008 |issn=0148-0227 |doi=10.1029/2003JE002136 |bibcode=2004JGRE..109.1008P|doi-access=free }}

The meteoritic hypothesis is viewed by geologists as doubtful. The British Natural History Museum suggests that it may be a pseudometeorite; in other words, a terrestrial rock mistakenly attributed to a meteoritic origin.{{cite book |title=Catalogue of meteorites: with special reference to those represented in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London |volume=1 |page=263 |editor=Grady, Monica M. |last1=Grady |first1=Monica M. |last2=Graham |first2=A. L. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-521-66303-8}}

The Black Stone has never been analysed with modern scientific techniques and its origins remain the subject of speculation.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oiTNCgAAQBAJ&q=Wabar+meteorite+craters+black+stone&pg=PT68 |title=Meteorite: Nature and Culture |last=Golia |first=Maria |date=2015 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1780235479 |language=en |access-date=30 October 2020 |archive-date=5 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230705055559/https://books.google.com/books?id=oiTNCgAAQBAJ&q=Wabar+meteorite+craters+black+stone&pg=PT68 |url-status=live }}

== See also ==

• Qibla, direction in which Muslims pray
• List of individual rocks

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Commons category}}

• Grunebaum, G. E. von (1970). Classical Islam: A History 600 A.D.–1258 A.D.. Aldine Publishing Company. {{ISBN|978-0-202-15016-1}}
• Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri (2002). Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar): Biography of the Prophet. Dar-us-Salam Publications. {{ISBN|1-59144-071-8}}.
• 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}}.

{{Characters and names in the Quran}}

{{Authority control}}

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{{Good article}}

Category:Islamic pilgrimages

Category:Stones

Category:Sacred rocks

Category:Hajj

Category:Kaaba

Category:Meteorites in culture

Category:Hajj terminology

Category:Temple of Artemis