(Then our historian, after some other things, goes on thus:) But Astarte called the greatest, and Demaroon entitled Zeus, and Adodus named the king of gods, reigned over the country by the consent of Cronus: and Astarte put upon her head, as the mark of her sovereignty, a bull’s head: and travelling about the habitable world, she found a star falling through the air, which she took up, and consecrated in the holy island Tyre: and the Phoneicians say that Astarte is Aphrodite.
Muhammad is credited with setting the Black Stone in place in the wall of the Kaaba. A story found in Ibn Ishaq‘s Sirah Rasul Allah tells how the clans of Mecca renovated the Kaaba following a major fire which had partly destroyed the structure. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed to facilitate the rebuilding work. The clans could not agree on which one of them should have the honour of setting the Black Stone back in its place.[15]They decided to wait for the next man to come through the gate and ask him to make the decision. That individual happened to be the 35-year-old Muhammad, five years before his prophethood. He asked the elders of the clans to bring him a cloth and put the Black Stone in its centre. Each of the clan leaders held the corners of the cloth and carried the Black Stone to the right spot. Then Muhammad himself set the stone in place, satisfying the honour of all of the clans.[15]The Stone has suffered desecrations and significant damage over the centuries. It is said to have been struck and smashed to pieces by a stone fired from a catapult during the Umayyad siege of Mecca in 683. The fragments were rejoined by Abd Allah ibn Zubayr using a silver ligament.[15] In January 930 it was stolen by the Qarmatians, who carried the Black Stone away to their base in Hajar (modern Bahrain). According to Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, writing in 1857, Qarmatian leader Abu Tahir al-Qarmati set the Black Stone up in his own mosque, the Masjid al-Dirar, with the intention of redirecting the Hajj away from Mecca. However, this failed, and pilgrims continued to venerate the spot where the Black Stone had been.[16]
The Black Stone plays an important role in the central ritual of the Hajj, when pilgrims must walk seven times around the Kaaba in a counterclockwise direction. They attempt to kiss the Black Stone seven times, once for each circumambulation of the Kaaba, emulating the actions of Muhammad. In modern times, large crowds make it practically impossible for everyone to kiss the stone, so it is currently acceptable for pilgrims to simply point in the direction of the Stone on each of their circuits around the building.[The Black Stone, in Muslim belief, originated in the time of Adam. According to belief, an angel spoke to the prophet Abraham, and told him to institute the rite of the stone in the hajj at Mecca.[23]Islamic tradition holds that the stone fell from Heaven to showAdam and Eve where to build an altar, which became the first temple on Earth. Muslims believe that the stone was originally pure and dazzling white, but has since turned black because of the sins of the people.[24][25] According to a prophetic tradition, “Touching them both (the Black Stone and al-Rukn al-Yamani) is an expiation for sins.”[26] Adam’s altar and the stone were said to have been lost during Noah‘s Flood and forgotten.Ibrahim was said to have later found the Black Stone at the original site of Adam’s altar when the angel Jibrail revealed it to him.[10] Ibrahim ordered his son Ismael — who is an ancestor of Muhammad — to build a new temple, the Kaaba, in which to embed the Stone.The nature of the Black Stone has been much debated. It has been described variously as basalt stone, an agate, a piece of natural glass or — most popularly — a stony meteorite. Paul Partsch, the curator of the Austro-Hungarian imperial collection of minerals, published the first comprehensive history of the Black Stone in 1857 in which he favoured a meteoritic origin for the Stone. Robert Dietz and John McHone proposed in 1974 that the Black Stone was actually an agate, judging from its physical attributes and a report by an Arab geologist that the Stone contained clearly discernible diffusion banding characteristic of agates.[2]
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah (Arabic: جزية ǧizyah IPA: [dʒizja];Ottoman Turkish: cizye;) is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state‘s non-Muslim subjects, who meet certain criteria. The tax is and was to be levied on able-bodied adult males of military age (but with specific exemptions).[1][2] From the point of view of the Muslim rulers, jizya was a material proof of the non-Muslims’ acceptance of subjection to the state and its laws, In return, non-Muslim subjects are permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to the Muslim state’s protection from outside aggression, and to be exempted from military service and from the zakat tax levied upon Muslim citizens.[3][4]
History is written by the victors. Learn the hidden stories of the world that are not told... Map of independent Tartary (in yellow) and C...
