After Thus Reaching The Stone, Despite Popular Indignation
Testified By Impatient Shouts, We Monopolised The Use Of It For At
Least Ten Minutes.
Whilst kissing it and rubbing hands and forehead
upon it I narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is an
aerolite.
It is curious that almost all travellers agree upon one
point, namely, that the stone is volcanic. Ali Bey calls it
“mineralogically” a “block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is
sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and straw-like, with rhombs of
tile-red feldspath upon a dark background, like velvet or charcoal,
except one of its protuberances, which is reddish.” Burckhardt thought it
was “a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish
and of a yellowish substance.”
Having kissed the stone we fought our way through the crowd to the
place called Al-Multazem. Here we pressed our stomachs, chests, and
right cheeks to the Ka’abah, raising our arms high above our heads and
exclaiming, “O Allah! O Lord of the Ancient House, free my Neck from
Hell-fire, and preserve me from every ill Deed, and make me contented
with that daily bread which Thou hast given to me, and bless me in all
Thou hast granted!” Then came the Istighfar, or begging of pardon; “I beg
Pardon of Allah the most high, who, there is no other God but He, the
Living, the Eternal, and unto Him I repent myself!” After which we
blessed the Prophet, and then asked for ourselves all that our souls
most desired.[FN#9]
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