But I Am Unable
To Account Satisfactorily For The Second Hollow Within The Temple, And
Immediately Around The House Of
Allah, where the door, according to all
historians, formerly on a level with the pavement, and now about seven
feet
Above it, shows the exact amount of depression, which cannot be
accounted for simply by calcation. Some chroniclers assert, that when
the Kuraysh rebuilt the house they raised the door to prevent devotees
entering without their permission. But seven feet would scarcely oppose
an entrance, and how will this account for the floor of the building
being also raised to that height above the pavement? It is curious to
observe the similarity between this inner hollow of the Meccan fane and
the artificial depression of the Hindu pagoda where it is intended to
be flooded. The Hindus would also revere the form of the Meccan fane,
exactly resembling their square temples, at whose corners are placed
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiwa and Ganesha, who adore the great Universal
Generator in the centre. The second door anciently stood on the side of
the temple opposite the present entrance; inside, its place can still
be traced. Ali Bey suspects its having existed in the modern building,
and declares that the exterior surface of the wall shows the tracery of
a blocked-up door, similar to that still open. Some historians declare
that it was closed by the Kuraysh when they rebuilt the house in
Mohammed’s day, and that subsequent erections have had only one. The
general opinion is, that Al-Hajjaj finally closed up the western
entrance. Doctors also differ as to its size; the popular measurement
is three cubits broad and a little more than five in length.
[FN#18] Pilgrims and ignorant devotees collect the drippings of wax,
the ashes of the aloe-wood, and the dust from the “Atabah,” or threshold of
the Ka’abah, either to rub upon their foreheads or to preserve as relics.
These superstitious practices are sternly rebuked by the Olema.
[FN#19] For North-East read South-East.
[FN#20] I will not enter into the fabulous origin of the Hajar
al-Aswad. Some of the traditions connected with it are truly absurd.
“When Allah,” says Ali, “made covenant with the Sons of Adam on the Day of
Fealty, he placed the paper inside the stone”; it will, therefore, appear
at the judgment, and bear witness to all who have touched it. Moslems
agree that it was originally white, and became black by reason of men’s
sins. It appeared to me a common aerolite covered with a thick slaggy
coating, glossy and pitch-like, worn and polished. Dr. Wilson, of
Bombay, showed me a specimen in his possession, which externally
appeared to be a black slag, with the inside of a bright and sparkling
greyish-white, the result of admixture of nickel [p.301] with the iron.
This might possibly, as the learned Orientalist then suggested, account
for the mythic change of colour, its appearance on earth after a
thunderstorm, and its being originally a material part of the heavens.
Kutb al-Din expressly declares that, when the Karamitah restored it
after twenty-two years to the Meccans, men kissed it and rubbed it upon
their brows; and remarked that the blackness was only superficial, the
inside being white. Some Greek philosophers, it will be remembered,
believed the heavens to be composed of stones (Cosmos, “Shooting Stars”):
and Sanconiathon, ascribing the aerolite-worship to the god Cœlus,
declares them to be living or animated stones. “The Arabians,” says Maximus
of Tyre (Dissert. 38, p. 455), “pay homage to I know not what god, which
they represent by a quadrangular stone.” The gross fetichism of the
Hindus, it is well known, introduced them to litholatry. At Jagannath
they worship a pyramidal black stone, fabled to have fallen from
heaven, or miraculously to have presented itself on the place where the
temple now stands. Moreover, they revere the Salagram, as the emblem of
Vishnu, the second person in their triad. The rudest emblem of the “Bonus
Deus” was a round stone. It was succeeded in India by the cone and
triangle; in Egypt by the pyramid; in Greece it was represented by
cones of terra-cotta about three inches and a half long. Without going
deep into theory, it may be said that the Ka’abah and the Hajar are the
only two idols which have survived the 360 composing the heavenly host
of the Arab pantheon. Thus the Hindu poet exclaims:—
“Behold the marvels of my idol-temple, O Moslem!
That when its idols are destroy’d, it becomes Allah’s House.”
Wilford (As. Soc. vols. iii. and iv.) makes the Hindus declare that the
Black Stone at Mokshesha, or Moksha-sthana (Meccah) was an incarnation
of Moksheshwara, an incarnation of Shiwa, who with his consort visited
Al-Hijaz. When the Ka’abah was rebuilt, this emblem was placed in the
outer wall for contempt, but the people still respected it. In the
Dabistan the Black Stone is said to be an image of Kaywan or Saturn;
and Al-Shahristani also declares the temple to have been dedicated to
the same planet Zuhal, whose genius is represented in the Puranas as
fierce, hideous, four-armed, and habited in a black cloak, with a dark
turband. Moslem historians are unanimous in asserting that Sasan, son
of Babegan, and other Persian monarchs, gave rich presents to the
Ka’abah; they especially mention two golden crescent moons, a significant
offering. The Guebers assert that, among the images and relics left by
Mahabad and his successors in the Ka’abah, was the Black Stone, an emblem
of Saturn. They also call the city Mahgah— moon’s place—from an exceedingly
beautiful image of the moon; whence they say the Arabs derived “Meccah.”
And the Sabaeans equally respect the Ka’abah and the pyramids, which they
assert to be the tombs of Seth, Enoch (or Hermes), and Sabi the son of
Enoch.
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