[P.300] The Present Door (Which, According To Azraky, Was Brought Hither From Constantinople In A.D. 1633), Is Wholly

Coated with silver, and has several gilt ornaments; upon its threshold are placed every night various small lighted wax candles,

And perfuming pans, filled with musk, aloe-wood, &c.[FN#18]”

“At the north-east[FN#19] corner of the Kaabah, near the door, is the famous ‘Black Stone’[FN#20]; it forms a part of the [for p.301, see footnote 20]

[p.302] sharp angle of the building,[FN#21] at four or five feet above the ground.[FN#22] 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 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 million touches and kisses it has received. It appeared to me like a lava, containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish 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

[p.303] of pitch and gravel of a similar, but not quite the same, brownish colour.[FN#23] 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,[FN#24] 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.” “In the south-east corner of the Kaabah,[FN#25] or, as the Arab call it, Rokn al-Yemany, there is another stone about five feet from the ground; it is one foot and a half in length, and two inches in breadth, placed upright, and of the common Meccah stone. This the people walking round the Kaabah touch only with the right hand; they do not kiss it.[FN#26]”

[p.304] “On the north side of the Kaabah, just by its door,[FN#27] and close to the wall, is a slight hollow in the ground, lined with marble, and sufficiently large to admit of three persons sitting. Here it is thought meritorious to pray: the spot is called El Maajan, and supposed to be where Abraham and his son Ismail kneaded the chalk and mud which they used in building the Kaabah; and near this Maajan the former is said to have placed the large stone upon which he stood while working at the masonry.

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