st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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96 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
the stone in your Chabatha 1 with your
kisses as
devotees ?
MAH. And with good reason, when the sacred
associations of the spot are considered. That stone
witnessed the nuptials of Abraham and Agar ;
to it
Abraham bound his camel, when about to sacrifice
Isaac.
CHR. His camel !
why in Scripture (Gen. xxii. 5),
we do but read of an ass, which he left some distance
1
This refers to the famous stone in the Kaaba, or "Square,"
at Mecca, believed by Moslems to have been originally built by
Seth, and rebuilt after the deluge by Abraham and Ishmael.
"The black says Ockley, "which the Mohammedans
stone,"
hold in great reverence, and believe to be one of the stones of
paradise, which fell down with Adam from heaven, is a small
stone set in silver and fixed in the south-east corner of the
Kaaba, about four feet from the ground. It is said to be white
within, but to have been turned black on the outside by the
sins of the people, or more probably by the kisses of the
"Hist, of the pilgrims."
Saracens," 1847, p. 3. According
to another account the stone was brought to Ishmael by the
angel Gabriel. Tradition said that the guardianship of the
temple remained for many centuries in the hands of the Djorhomites,
a tribe of Yemenite extraction. These in time neglected
their charge, and about A.D. 206 the stone was dislodged from
its place in the wall and buried. A Khozaite woman had
witnessed its interment, and informed the chiefs of her tribe.
It thus came into their custody till about A.D. 440. Its sub
sequent history, when it
passed into the keeping of the
Modharites, is told at length by Major Osborn, Islam under
the Arabs," p. 76, sqq. See also the Vie de Mohammed."
translated from the Arabic text of Abou lfeda by A. N.
Des Vergers, 1837, p. 105. Mahomet s first impulse was to
abolish this stone-worship ;
and it is interesting to speculate
what might have ensued had he made Jerusalem his sacred
centre, instead of Mecca with its Kaaba.