Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн

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Captain Burton remarks, “The colour appeared to me black and metallic, and the centre of the stone was sunk about two inches below the metallic circle. Round the sides was a reddish brown cement, almost level with the metal, and sloping down to the middle of the stone. The band is now a massive arch of gold or silver gilt. I found the aperture in which the stone is, one span and three fingers broad.”

According to Ibn ʿAbbās, Muḥammad said the black stone came down from Paradise, and at the time of its descent it was whiter than milk, but that the sins of the children of Adam have caused it to be black, by their touching it. That on the Day of Resurrection, when it will have two eyes, by which it will see and know all those who touched it and kissed it, and when it will have a tongue to speak, it will give evidence in favour of those who touched and kissed it.

Maximus Tyrius, who wrote in the second century, says, “The Arabians pay homage to I know not what god, which they represent by a quadrangular stone,” alluding to the Kaʿbah or temple which contains the black stone. The Guebars or Ancient Persians, assert that the Black Stone was amongst the images and relics left by Mahabad and his successors in the Kaʿbah, and that it was an emblem of Saturn. It is probably an aërolite, and owes its reputation, like many others, to its fall from the sky. Its existence as an object of adoration in an iconoclastic religious system, can only be accounted for by Muḥammad’s attempt to conciliate the idolaters of Arabia.