Do Muslims Worship The Black Stone of the Ka'abah?
Published on:
Saturday 15 Oct, 2005
“ExHindu” (in response to an explanation regarding the Black Stone) wrote:
- Give any explanation you want. I dont buy it. Arabs have been kissing that rock long before Mo[sic]. I call that IDOL Worshipping. You can label me as Islamophobe and I am proud that you give me that label. In the same manner, I anoint you a Hinduphobe.
I find it rather ironic to see someone who uses the moniker “ExHindu” accusing yours truly of being a “Hinduphobe”. After all, what does the use of the Internet username “ExHindu” really signifies? A case of the pot calling the kettle black, we cannot really say. Nevertheless, I believe that it is time that a response to this rather annoying polemic about the nature of the Black Stone (al-Hajar al-Aswad) and its significance in Islam by those who have an axe to grind about Islam (or otherwise known tenderly as the “Islamophobics”) is finally needed. We will look at the common allegations about the Black Stone and then seek to address the matters concerned, insha’allah.
First, we shall describe the physical nature of the Stone itself. The Black Stone (al-Hajar al-Aswad) is built into the Ka`abah wall, at the eastern corner of the Ka`abah, about 5 ft. about the ground level, not very far from the door of the Ka`abah. It (now) consists of 3 large pieces and several small fragments (in which it was formerly broken) stuck together and surrounded by a large ring of stone, which in turn is held together by a silver band.
The Black Stone (al-Hajr al-Aswad)
The material of the Black Stone has not been precisely determined. It is sometimes classified as lava and sometimes as basalt. The reason for this difficulty is that its visible surface is worn smooth by hand-touching, etc.1 Its estimated diameter is approximately 12″2. Its colour is reddish black with red and yellow particles.
It is reported that when the Prophet Muhammad (P) entered Mecca as a victorious leader, there were 360 idols around the Ka`abah3. The Prophet(P) then had the Forbidden Sanctuary (the precinct around the Ka`abah proper) cleansed of all these idols and proclaimed Monotheism in its true, most elevated and pristine form. Thus saying that “Muslims worship the Black Stone as an idol” is clearly the most absurd thing ever pronounced in the history of mankind.
From a physical perspective, therefore, the Black Stone does not have any special significance or importance. Umar(R), later to become the second Caliph of Islam, is reported to have said that he fully realized that the Black Stone was merely a stone and thus had no power of its own to harm or benefit anyone4.
As for the reasons as to why we have the Black Stone in the wall of the Ka`abah, we read about the following reasons, that
(a) it symbolizes the starting-point during the circumambulation of the Ka`abah, thus facilitating the remembrance of the number of circumambulations.
(b) at this point, the Muslims, who are close to the Ka`abah (during their circumambulation) touch the stone, while those who are away from it, raise their hands towards it, symbolizing the renewal of their pledge of allegiance with the Lord of the Ka`abah. In this symbolic expression, the Black Stone is taken as a symbol of an oath on the hand of God.5
And with this, it is clear that this baseless assertion of the Islamophobes is refuted.
And only God knows best! 
- Refer, for example, to the profile sketch of the Black Stone given by Ali Bey: Travels, Vol. ii (London 1816), p. 76, to note its surface hollowed out in undulations. [back]
- See al-Batanuni, al-Rihla al-Haziah, Cairo (1329 AH), p. 105 [back]
- See Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 59, Number 583 (Muhsin Khan’s tr.) [back]
- See this statement in various narratives, such as: Sahih Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 26, Numbers 667, 675 (Muhsin Khan’s tr.); Sahih Muslim, Book 007, Number 2914 (Abdul Hamid Siddiqui’s tr.); Sunan an-Nasa’i (Arabic version), Vol. ii, p. 38, etc. [back]
- See the details of this point in M. Hamidullah, Introduction to Islam, paragraph 181/a, Karachi 1969 [back]
22 Responses for"Do Muslims Worship The Black Stone of the Ka'abah?"
I want to understand a few things first.
1. Why do Muslims believe that Jesus’ mother, Mary, is more important than Mohamed’s mother whom you view as a profit. What exactly did Christ do in your beliefs that made his mother more important than that of Mohamed’s since he was your messenger of a god ?
2. You say god cannot have a son or a mother? Why not? Are you implying that God isn’t almighty? That he can’t do whatever he wills? If he can create something as complicated as a the universe and the planets why can’t he have a mother, a son, or have three personalities like the trinity?
3. In the Koran your prophet allowed the worship of the goddess Allat to gain the pagans as allies because your god said you can worship anything as long as you acknowledge Allah as supreme god. Later it was said that the angel Gabriel told him that it was not Allah who told him this but the devil. So then how do you know that it wasn’t Satan who told him what to do regarding other verses of your Koran, and how can he be sure that Gabriel wasn’t Satan as Satan has the power to make himself look like however he pleases?
4. If you say your God is merciful and forgiving then why do you kill those who oppose Islam and have cleric’s issue fatwa’s against them if God is forgiving? Is it perhaps that your prophet preferred the way of the sword over words, because he could not convince people and was illiterate? Christ and his Apostle’s converted millions by words, not by swords and blood. If Mohamed was a prophet of a God why did he not simply ask this god to give him the power of converting people by the masses with words. Why could he not perform any miracles? Why did he have sex with a 9 year old girl and had many wives whereas Christ had no wife and told his apostle’s to leave them if you are to truly follow him? Why did Mohamed have wives, if he was a prophet then he would’ve understood the meaning of controlling carnal desires like lust like Christ did.
5. When St. Francis of Assisi went to Egypt during the crusade and nearly converted the sultan to Catholicism because of his knowledge of Christ, true god and true man, not prophet, why did the imams prevent the sultan’s conversion and issued that St. Francis needs to be killed because of what he is doing. It would seem to appear that after an infidel proves that there is something wrong in the Koran and that Christ is god, you want to kill them? Why is that? Is it because you cannot find anything in your holy book to contradict that person? It seems that Muslims can only spread the faith by fear, war, killing, and raping. Perhaps you are still pagans, may you realize that Christ is god and may you be saved from God’s wrath. May Christ have mercy on your poor souls.
First of all i would like to say that i’m not what you would called a religious man.but i do have something that can help straightening the right and wrong.so i will try to answer the questions that i know and perhaps someone else would reply the rest or correcting any of my mistakes.
1. Muslims do not compare Mariam and Aminah, our prophet’s mother.Muhammad (SAW) IS WITHOUT A DOUBT the most important human in the hearts of muslims.and because of that we also treasure his family and friends even in our prayers.I don’t really know much about the story of Mariam, the only thing that i know is that she was the mother of the prophet Isa(AS) and yet she remains a virgin.The story of Mariam was told in the holy Quran, in my opinion, is as to show to us, God’s humble slaves, that the ultimate supremacy of the ALMIGHTY can make anything happen and changing anything that is to our norms even to the point that we couldn’t understand as God pleases.
2. GOD IS THE ALMIGHTY.try to think, if God does have a mother and child, then what difference does it makes between the existence of God and all the living creatures roaming this universe?The existence of God such as how does God exist is not something that humans can understand and because of that the prophet Muhammad (SAW) once reminded us not to think so much about the origin of God because fearing that we might end up in the wrong, confused path.All that we know is that God exist and will never die.If you said that God has a mother, than who was the one created her?if she was born from another, who created the one before?and the one before?and the one before?we couldn’t think of this logic because we are stuck in the realm of ‘time’.But God does not, because ‘time’ itself is a creature of God.The reason is not because God cannot have a family, but it is because God doesn’t need one.We the creatures, need a family because we cannot live in this world alone.because we are weak, we need someone to support and to lay our back against.God doesn’t need any help from us or anyone.we need help from God.everyone needs help from God.
3. As for the third question, i’m sorry but i never recall anything from my learning that such stories were told in the Quran.As a muslim, we are not and never have been allowed to worship anything other than Allah S.W.T.If we did, than we risk to be sinned as syirik and may lead to being among the kafir.The ‘kallammullah’ or the words of Allah, were send to Muhammad (SAW) through various means.Some were sent through Jibril (A.S), some were sent in the form of a painful ringing, dreams and some were sent directly from God.If it was satan disguising himself to trick Muhammad (SAW), do you think satan himself would dare to imitate the voice of God?and during the Israk Mikraj, (the journey of Muhammad (SAW) to retrieve the order for solah) Muhammad (SAW) saw the heaven and hell, met with the previous prophets, and went straight up to meet the one and only Allah S.W.T..do you really think that satan is powerful enough as to create those situations.do you really think that satan would be able to get away by imposing himself as God?and have you ever wonder why satan is always trying his best to disturbed the development of Islam and not the development of the other religion?(note that i used the phrased ‘development’)
4. If you read the Quran, and any other Islamic books regarding the early age of Islam, you would know that the prophet Muhammad (SAW) spreads Islam in two stages.one is through stealth (towards family members and close friends) because considering it was a time when the Arabs were drowned in the faith of their ancestors and the joy of the world, bringing a new religion would bring quite an upstir.Even then the musyrikin manage to get the info about the spreading and thus the tortures and painful resentment were directed towards the muslims.but did the muslim gave up or sharpen their swords?no, they did not.instead, when the time is right, Muhammad (SAW) went for the second stage and begin spreading Islam openly.This of course took the tortures and hatred from the Arab musyrikin to a whole bunch of levels.But all through those time, our prophet Muhammad (SAW) have shown the true meaning of patience and determination.even when there was a time when Muhammad (SAW) was seriously injured doing his dakwah, and came an angel who look at him, angered he offered to throw a whole mountain upside down on the entire village if Muhammad (SAW) was willing to say so.but he did not.and you know why?because he said that among those people in the village, they might be some who will in the future be given hidayah by Allah and willingly accept Islam or perhaps they may gave birth to a might be muslim even when they are not.In Islam, there exist several reasons that allowed muslim to start or join a war.To protect and uphold the religion, to protect family and country, to uphold what is right and to prevent what is wrong, to give aid to those who are desperately in need, and a few others.but none of the reasons signifies that it is allowed to forced the non-muslim into accepting Islam through the eye of the sword.If they are anyone who wants to know or misunderstand Islam, it is the duty of muslim to teach them by ways such has been done by the prophet; patience, istiqamah, forgiving and so on.Please do not compare the current situation that happens throughout the world nowadays with the true idealistic of Islam.Human beings are fragile creatures.most of the time, we let our heart decide what should have been decide by the brain.and because of that we tend to make decision and assumption based on what we feel is right but unfortunately, it might not be so right if we took the time to think long about it.Even in ‘dakwah’ or spreading the religion, we are teach to spread the benefit of what we would get when we died and that is the unimaginable pleasure of heaven, not scaring them by constantly talking about the unthinkable tortures that lies in hell.
God did not gave Muhammad(SAW) the power to convert people as simple as 123 because God wanted to set an example for us all, that even the one closest to God have to give something in return for another.and by that he gave his life of a world of pain, humiliations and sadness in exchange for us, his followers to live a life of endless pleasure in the afterlife.but Muhammad(SAW) as like the other messengers of Allah, were indeed given a ‘power’ or what we called a ‘mukjizat’.Sulaiman(AS) were able to talk and ordered animals, genies and elementals; Ismail(AS) were able to sent water (zam-zam water) flowing out from beneath the hot dessert sands when he was a baby; Musa(AS) was able to turn his stick into a mighty snake, and split the ocean into two; Isa(AS) were born without a father and was able to speak when he was a baby; and Muhammad(SAW) were able to let out waters from between his fingers and even give the moon a permanent scar when he was asked by the Arab musyrikin to prove he is the messenger of God.All of these examples are only a few of the mukjizat given by Allah SWT to the prophet and rasuls.
The nine year old girl was he’s legal wife, Saidatina Aishah.and never has anyone mention anywhere that he and Aishah had any sexual encounters when she was at that age.Muhammad(SAW) had many wives, that is indeed true.but except from Saidatina Aishah, all of the others are widows.except from Saidatina Khatijah, his first wife, most of the others had lost their husbands in wars, killed by the kafirs, and so on.because it was a time of turmoil and because the muslim were in a hard time, they were a lot of muslim women that lost their place to hang on, their husbands, and because fearing that they might not be able to live through such pressure, and perhaps endangering their lives, the muslim men back then married several women.
Nowadays, muslim men are allowed to married at max 4 women.but in order to do these, they must be really fair, in terms of wealth, relationships, needs and many more.unfortunately, muslim nowadays misunderstand that the reason for which men are allowed to married more than one is not because of lust.
Isa(AS) never told his followers to not get married.if you do not get married, how can you produced children?if the priest and priestess did not get married, or the faithfull did not get married, don’t you think that this world would be less inhabitants?God will not order and never told the messengers to spread words that are not relevant.Please understand, that marriage IS NOT SIMPLY A FREE PASS TO FULFILL YOUR LUST!
5. As for the fifth question, i’m sorry but i don’t think i have the sufficient knowledge to answer the question.perhaps you could search for a more religious person (Islamic of course) if you really need to know the reason why.
But if before anything, i would like to advice that you get the real story of what really happened.don’t listen to only half the opinion.perhaps even try going to Egypt to listen about the stories from there.
The thing about histories that are passed down through human writings and lips, are that they are often being over-exagerated and sometimes detours from the original line.That also implies to human made laws and overwritten human religious guides.
Even in Islam, there are several misunderstandings about the bidaah and hadith because of the ignorance of men.Only the Holy Quran and the true hadith are never changed.This is becaused both are guidances that are suitable to anyone, anyplace, anywhere and anytime ever since the passing of our beloved Muhammad(SAW).If you do not believe me, try look for the earlier copies of the holy Quran even back to about 1400 years ago and it still remains the same.Wallahualam.