The Black Stone

The Black Stone is a stone of reverence, made up of several parts, oval in shape, reddish-black in colour, and 30 cm in diameter. It is found in the south-eastern corner of the Kaaba from the outside. According to Islamic belief, it is the starting point and end of the circumambulation. It is raised from the ground by a meter and a half, and is surrounded by… With a frame of pure silver to preserve it, and the place of the stone appears oval. As for its dark color, it is due to the sins committed according to the narrations from the Prophet Muhammad. Ibn Abbas narrated on the authority of the Prophet Muhammad that he said: “The Black Stone descended from Paradise, white as milk, and it was blackened by the sins of the sons of Adam.” It is black on the surface of the stone, but the rest of its body is as white as it is.

Muhammad bin Khuza’a described it when the Qarmatians returned the stone in the year 339 AH and inspected it before it was placed and said: “I looked at the black stone while it was uprooted, and I saw blackness at its tip only, and the rest of it was white, and its length was about a cubit.” The Black Stone is considered one of the stones of Paradise, as the Prophet Muhammad said: “The Black Stone is one of the stones of Paradise.” It is one of the rubies of Paradise, as the Prophet Muhammad said: “The Corner and the Maqam are two rubies of Paradise. And Morocco.

Abdullah bin Al-Zubair was the first to attach the Black Stone to silver. Then the successive caliphs started making silver collars whenever necessary. In Shaban 1375 AH, King Saud bin Abdul Aziz put in place a new silver collar, and it was restored during the reign of King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz in the year 1422 AH.

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A drawing showing the location of the Black Stone in the Kaaba, symbolized by the number (1).
The black stone consists of several parts linked together by a silver frame, which is fastened with silver nails to the stone. Some small parts were reinforced together by gluing seven or eight parts together. The original size of the stone is about 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) by 16 centimeters (6.3 inches). Its original size is unclear as its dimensions have changed over time, and the stone has been reshaped on several occasions.

A hand drawing of the stone by Al-Kurdi, after he placed a piece of paper on the stone and drew it to its correct size, 1st Rabi’ al-Awwal 1376 AH.
Muhammad bin Khuza’a said when the Qarmatians returned the stone in the year 339 AH and inspected it before placing it and said: “I looked at the black stone while it was uprooted, and I saw blackness at its tip only, and the rest of it was white, and its length was about a cubit.”

In the tenth century AD, historians described it as an oval shape measuring one cubit (just over 1.5 feet (0.46 m). In the early seventeenth century AD, its measurements were recorded as 1.5 yards (1.4 m) by 1.33 yards (1.22 m). In the On the eighteenth, Ali Bey the Great made the first attempt to measure the Black Stone, and its length reached 42 inches (110 cm). During the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha, it was measured better, as its measurements were recorded: 2.5 feet (0.76 m) long by 1.5 feet (0.46 m) wide.

The Black Stone was first described in Western literature at the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century by European travelers in the Arabian Peninsula, where they visited the Kaaba. The Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited Mecca in 1814, and provided a detailed description of it in 1829 in the book “Travels in the Arab Countries.”

Among the later scholars, it was described and drawn by the calligrapher Muhammad Taher al-Kurdi and said:

“What appears from the Black Stone now in our time – the middle of the fourteenth century AH – and we receive and accept it are eight small pieces of different sizes, the largest of which is the size of a single date, which had fallen from it during the attacks on it by some ignorant and aggressors in previous times. The number of pieces visible from it was fifteen, and that was fifty years ago, i.e. the beginning of the fourteenth century AH. Then these pieces decreased due to the repairs that took place within the framework of the Black Stone. Small pieces of paper were mixed with wax, musk, and amber, and were also placed on the precious stone itself. »
Name it
The Black Stone was named according to what Ibn Abbas narrated on the authority of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “The Black Stone descended from Paradise, white as snow, and it was blackened by the sins of the sons of Adam.” Some called it the Happiest Stone, but the validity of this name has not been proven with evidence except in a narration of a weak hadith narrated by Al-Hakim in Al-Mustadrak.

What was also called in the hadith “the corner” was described by the predecessors. Al-Fakihi narrated “on the authority of Mujahid who said: I looked at the corner when Ibn al-Zubayr demolished the house, and all of it inside the house was white.”

Historical origins
The German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke suggested comparing the Black Stone to an ancient Yemeni deity that belonged to the Ghayman tribe in the south-eastern part of Sana’a. It is called in Sabaean inscriptions 𐩢𐩴𐩧|𐩤𐩢𐩣𐩣 “Hajar Qahim” meaning a black stone. Maria Höfner rejected Nöldeke’s hypothesis based on mere linguistic similarity in the absence of any details about the deity, while the Iraqi historian Jawad Ali supported this comparison and the French engraver Christian Roupin confirmed it.

Traces of him

A drawing of the stone from the front and side, from a book by the orientalist William Muir.
According to Islamic monuments, the stone was brought by Gabriel from heaven. Ibn Jarir narrated in his interpretation, and Al-Azraqi narrated in “Akhbar Mecca” with a good chain of transmission, and Al-Hakim also narrated it in his Mustadrak, and he said: It is authentic according to Muslim’s conditions, and they did not narrate it on the authority of Khalid bin Arara that a man rose to Ali said:

“Won’t you tell me about the house? Was it the first house built on earth? He said: No, but it is the first house in which the blessing was placed, the shrine of Abraham, and whoever enters it will be safe, and if you wish, I will tell you how it was built: God revealed to Abraham that I should build a house for me on earth. He said: Ibrahim was fed up with that, so God sent the Tranquility – which is a strong wind and has two heads – and one of them followed the other until it reached Mecca, and it encircled the place of the House like a hujfa encircles, and He commanded Abraham to build where the Tranquility rests. So Ibrahim built, and a stone remained, so the boy went away seeking something, and Abraham said: No, seek a stone as I command you. He said: So the boy went looking for a stone for himself, and he came to him and found that the black stone had been installed in its place. He said: O father, who brought you this stone? He said: It was brought to me by someone who did not trust in your construction. Gabriel brought it from heaven. So he completed it.

Name it
The Black Stone was named according to what Ibn Abbas narrated on the authority of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “The Black Stone descended from Paradise, white as snow, and it was blackened by the sins of the sons of Adam.” Some called it the Happiest Stone, but the validity of this name has not been proven with evidence except in a narration of a weak hadith narrated by Al-Hakim in Al-Mustadrak.

Traces of him

It was also stated in the hadith that “the Black Stone is from Paradise,” and on the authority of Ibn Abbas that the Prophet Muhammad said: “The Black Stone descended while it was whiter than milk, and it was blackened by the sins of the sons of Adam.” However, Muslims do not worship this stone, and it was narrated on the authority of Omar ibn al-Khattab that he used to kiss the Black Stone and say: “I know that you are a stone that does no harm or benefit, and had I not seen the Messenger of God kissing you, I would not have kissed you.”

Its history
Restated by the Prophet Muhammad

An image of a hypothetical drawing while the Prophet Muhammad was raising the Black Stone, carried on a garment by the Quraish tribes: from the book Jami’ al-Tawarikh by al-Hamdhani.
It was mentioned in biography books that when the Prophet Muhammad was thirty-five years old (i.e. before the mission), the Quraysh wanted to rebuild the Kaaba, and a dispute arose over which of them would have the honor of placing the Black Stone in its place, to the point that war almost broke out between them because of that. Finally, it was agreed that they would judge among themselves the first person to enter through the gate of Safa. When they saw Muhammad the first to enter, they said: “This trustworthy person, we are satisfied with his ruling.” Then they told him their story, and he said: “Bring me a garment.” He brought it, spread it out, took the stone and placed it in his hand. Then he said: “Let the leader of each tribe take one of the edges of this garment.” They did so, and they all carried it to the place next to the stone in the building. Then he took it. He placed the stone in its place, and thus the dispute was settled.

Al-Zubair and Yazid bin Muawiyah
The Black Stone was not moved or absent from the era of Qusayy bin Kilab until the construction of Abdullah bin Al-Zubayr, and he was the first to bind the Black Stone with silver when it cracked due to the events that took place in the year 64 AH, when the Kaaba burned due to the war between Ibn Al-Zubayr, who was holed up inside it, and the army of Yazid bin Muawiyah, and the act was repeated in the year 73 AH by Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf Al-Thaqafi, then the Abbasid Caliph Harun Al-Rashid added to it the excavation of diamonds and poured silver on it.

The Qarmatian incident
Main article: Qarmatian sedition
The Qarmatian incident is considered the most horrific incident that happened to the Black Stone. They raided the Sacred Mosque, killed what was in it, took the stone, and hid it for 22 years. It was returned to its place in the year 339 AH. In the year 317 AH, specifically on the Day of Tarwiyah, Abu Taher al-Qarmati, the king of Bahrain and the leader of the Qarmatians, launched a raid on Mecca while the people were in ihram, uprooted the Black Stone, sent it to Hajar and killed a large number of pilgrims. They also tried to steal the shrine of Abraham, but the guards hid it. In approximately the year 318 AH, the Qarmatians ordered people to make a pilgrimage to Ayn al-Ka’iba in the town of Jish in Qatif after they placed the Black Stone there in a large house. The Qarmatians ordered the residents of the Qatif region to make a pilgrimage to that place, but the people rejected those orders, so the Qarmatians killed many people from the people of Qatif. It was said: His dead in Mecca reached thirty thousand.

Ibn Katheer mentioned in the events of the year 317 AH that Abu Taher Al-Qarmati ordered:

“To pull out the Black Stone, then a man came to him and hit him with a weight in his hand and said: Where are the Ababil birds? Where are the stones from the shale? Then they took out the Black Stone and took it when they went with them to their country, and it remained with them for twenty-two years until they returned it, as we will mention in the year three hundred and thirty-nine. We belong to God and to Him we shall return. When Al-Qurmati returned to his country with the Black Stone, the Emir of Mecca followed him, along with his family and his soldiers, and he asked him and interceded for him to return the Black Stone so that it could be placed in its place. He gave it all of the money he had, but he did not pay any attention to it. So the Emir of Mecca fought him, and Al-Qurmati killed him and killed most of his household, the people of Mecca, and his soldiers. And he continued on his way to his country, carrying the stone and the pilgrims’ money.”

An old picture painted on black stone
It was stated in “The Tuhfat of the Rookie and the Prostrator with Ahkam Al-Masjid” by Abu Bakr Al-Jara’i that it was said:

“They sold him (i.e. the Qarmatians) to Caliph Al-Muqtadir for thirty thousand dinars. And when they wanted to hand it over, they testified that they would not hand over the Black Stone, and he said to them after the testimony: O you who have no sense, who among you knew that this was the Black Stone? Perhaps we brought a black stone from this wilderness instead of it, so the people remained silent, and among them was Abdullah bin Akeem, the hadith narrator. He told us that there is a sign in the Black Stone, and if it is present, then it is it, and if it is not there, then it is not him. Then he brought up a strange hadith that the Black Stone floats on the surface of water and does not heat up with fire if it is lit on it. So Al-Qarmati brought a basin containing water and put the stone in it and it floated on the water. Then fire was kindled on him, but he did not feel it, so Abdullah al-Muhaddith extended his hand and took the stone, kissed it, and said: I bear witness that it is the Black Stone. Al-Qarmati was amazed at that, and said: This is a religion that is confirmed by transmission. The stone was sent to Mecca.
However, Ibn Dihiya said: “This Abdullah bin Aqim is not known, and the Black Stone is a solid stone with no defect in it. What floats on water has some penetration, such as pumice and the like.”

As Ibn Kathir mentioned in the events of the year 339 AH, he mentioned the news of the stone’s return and said:

“In this blessed year, in Dhul-Qa’dah, the Black Stone of Mecca was returned to its place in the House… Their king at that time was Abu Taher Suleiman bin Abi Saeed Al-Hussein Al-Janabi, and when this happened, the Muslims venerated this, and the Emir Bajkam Al-Turki gave them fifty thousand dinars for To return it to its place, but they did not do so, and they said: We took it by order, so we will not return it except by the order of the one by whose order we took it. When it was this year, they carried it to Kufa and hung it on the seventh cylinder of its mosque for the people to see it, and Abu Tahir’s brother wrote a letter in it: We took this stone by order and we returned it by order of the one who ordered us to take it so that the people could perform Hajj and perform their rituals.
An incident in the year 363 AH

An old stone frame, in the brick vault of the Saray.
Ibn Fahd Al-Makki mentioned in his book “Ithaf Al-Wari Bi Akhbar Umm Al-Qura” in the news of the year 363 AH, the story of a Christian man who came from the Roman lands, and had given him a lot of money to go to the Corner, so he struck the Corner severely with a pickaxe, and when they were about to strike him again, a man from Yemen rushed to attack him. He was wandering around the house and stabbed him with a dagger until he killed him.

Incident in the year 413 AH
In one of the incidents in the year 413 AH, there was another attack on the stone, carried out by a group of ten knights, who were seduced by the Al-Ubaidi ruler in Egypt. They were led by a man with a drawn sword in one hand and a pin in the other. The narration is by Ibn Fahd Al-Makki:

“After the imam finished the Friday prayer for the first day of departure, and before the pilgrims returned from Mina, he stood up, aiming at the stone as if he was receiving it, and he struck the face of the stone three successive blows with a rolling pin,” and he said: “For how long will the Black Stone be worshiped?” Neither Muhammad nor Ali will prevent me from doing what I do, for today I want to demolish this house and raise it up. There were ten knights at the gates of the mosque to support him, so a man took the initiative and revolted against him, then he stabbed him with a dagger, and people surrounded him, killed him, cut him down, and burned him with fire. The stone remained in that state for two days, and its face had been scratched in the middle, and it had cracks on the right and left, and it was peeling from those blows, and fragments like nails had fallen from it, and its cracks came out brown and yellow, and then some of the Banu Shaybah collected what they found of what had fallen from it. They kneaded it with musk and lacquer – a red dye – and filled the cracks with it.”
An incident in the year 990 AH
Imam Ibn Allan mentioned in his book “The Virtue of the Black Stone” that in the year 990 AH:

“An Iraqi non-Arab man came and was attracted. He hit the black stone with a pin in his hand. Prince Nasser Jawish was present at the house. He surprised the non-Arab with a dagger and killed him.”
An incident in the year 1351 AH
Sheikh Hussein Ba Salamah mentioned an incident in his book “The History of the Holy Kaaba,” where he says:

“At the end of the month of Muharram in the year 1351 AH, a Persian man from the country of Afghanistan came and uprooted a piece of the Black Stone, stole a piece of the Kaaba’s curtain, and a piece of silver from the Kaaba’s step, which is between the Zamzam Well and the Bani Shaybah Gate. The mosque guards sensed him and arrested him, then he executed him. Punishment for him.”
Scientific characteristics

A close-up photo of the black stone, which looks like metal due to the wax layer placed on it
There have been many discussions about the nature of the Black Stone. She described it as various stones consisting of basalt, agate, a piece of natural glass, and a stony meteorite. Paul Patrich, who was responsible for gems in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, published the first comprehensive report on the Black Stone in 1857, which said that the origin of these stones was meteoric. Robert Dietz and John McCahon suggested in 1974 that the Black Stone was actually agate, judging from its physical characteristics and a report by Arab geologists that the stones were actually composed of agate.

According to historical monuments, when the Qarmatians stole the stone in 951 AD and recovered it 21 years later; According to a historian, the stone was confirmed by testing its ability to move in water. If this calculation is accurate, it would rule out the black stone being agate, basalt lava, or meteorites, although it would not be consistent with it being glass or pumice.

In 1980, Elsbeth Thomsen of the University of Copenhagen presented a different hypothesis. She indicated that the Black Stone may be a fragment of glass or a transformed stone from the effects of a fragmented meteorite that fell about 6,000 years ago in the Al-Wabar region in the Rub’ al-Khali desert, which is 1,100 km east of Mecca. Excavations in the Al-Wabar area are noteworthy for the presence of blocks of silica glass fused under the influence of heat and impregnated with grains of the nickel-iron alloy from the meteorite (most of which were destroyed in the impact). Experiments are carried out on some blocks and pieces of shiny black glass that are internally hollow and filled with white or yellow gas, which allows them to float on the surface of the water.

It seems that scientists did not confirm the hypothesis of Hafriyat and Bar until 1932. It was located near the caravan route from Oman and which was very likely known to the inhabitants of the desert. As it was a very large area and known in ancient Arabic poetry, Bar or Ubar (also known as “Iram of the Pillars”) was the site of the wonderful city that was destroyed by fire falling from the sky due to the evil of its king. Assuming that these excavations are accurate, this is possible because some people settled this area later. However, recent scientific analyzes conducted in 2004 from the Barr website indicate that this event is considered much more recent than was thought, and may have only occurred within the past 200-300 years, so the meteorite hypothesis is currently considered doubtful and the British Museum of Natural History assumes that it may have occurred. It is an earth rock that has been erroneously attributed to meteoric origin.

Its advantages and provisions related to it

Some cultists trying to touch the stone.

A picture of the Holy Kaaba, showing the Black Stone to the left of the Kaaba door
According to Islamic doctrine, it is Sunnah for the one who is circumambulating to receive the Black Stone (i.e., touch it with his hand) and kiss it as he passes by it. If he is unable, he should receive it with his hand and kiss it. If he is unable, he should receive it with something with him (such as a stick or the like) and kiss that thing. If he is unable, he points to it with his hand and says “Allahu Akbar” and “Allahu Akbar.” (In the name of God and God is great) and he does not kiss his hand. It was narrated on the authority of Omar ibn al-Khattab that he used to kiss the Black Stone and say: “I know that you are a stone that does no harm or benefit. Had I not seen the Messenger of God kissing you, I would not have kissed you.” Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar narrated on the authority of Al-Tabari that he said: “Omar only said that, because the people were new to worshiping idols, so Omar feared that the ignorant people would think that touching the stone was glorifying some stones, as the Arabs used to do in pre-Islamic times, so Omar wanted the people to know that touching it was following… For the action of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, not because the stone is harmful and beneficial in and of itself, as was believed in idols.

It was mentioned in the virtue of wiping it and receiving it that it removes sins and sins. On the authority of Abdullah bin Omar, on the authority of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace: “wiping the Black Stone and the Yemeni Corner removes sins completely.” And on the Day of Resurrection, he will be resurrected, and he will have two eyes and a tongue that will speak the name of the one who received him. Abdullah bin Abbas narrated on the authority of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “By God, God will resurrect him on the Day of Resurrection, having two eyes with which he will see, and a tongue with which he will speak, bearing witness to the one who received him in truth.”