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.
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