Why is a meteor worshipped at Mecca? What's it's significance?

M

Medicine*Woman

Jesus: Mythstory--Not History!
Valued Senior Member
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M*W: Just read a post from another thread about a meteor being worshipped at Mecca. What's this about? What's the history of the meteor? Why is it significant to Muslims? I'd like to know more about it.

Thanks for all your replies.

~ M*W
 
From the Wikipedia article on the Black Stone.

According to Islamic tradition, the Stone fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve where to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God. The Altar 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 it has absorbed over the years. Islamic tradition holds that Adam's altar and the stone were lost in the process of Noah's Flood and forgotten. It was Abraham who found the Black Stone at the original site of Adam's altar when the Archangel Gabriel revealed it to him. Abraham ordered his son--and the ancestor of Prophet Muhammad--Ishmael to build a new temple in which to imbed the Stone. This new temple is the Kaaba in Mecca.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone
 
Now that makes allot of sense, start a religion and base it on a meteorite! Strange the Inuits didn't think of that near the North Pole.
 
Meteorites were worshiped by cultures all over the world as gifts from the Gods. Everyone from Tibetans to Inuits!

The meteorite in Mecca is pre Islamic-myth traditions.
 
I posted at the end of this page. The inscribed shape from the square on those numbers is like a 'G', the symbol of 'the builders' but also used in some sufi traditions. A member knowing the symbol would know to place the symbol on the magic square, deciphering it's meaning.

The significance of a cornerstone in society (wikipedia). The 'charcoal' also inspired the naming of another secret society, the Carbonari
 
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Syzygys said:
Shininess
Click to expand...

Actually it is very dull as are all meterorites.

The most wellknown - and probably most talked about- example of meteorite worship in newer time is in the Islamic tradition. In spite of the banning of any making a picture of God and the ban of worship and adoration of any objects, in the central sanctuary of all Muslimes, the Kaaba in Mecca,there is a black stone, which each Mecca-pilgrim kisses after his tour around the sanctuary. This stone, by the Muslims called "Hadschar al Aswad" (black stone) or according to the Prophet "Yamin Allah" (the right hand of God), is supposedly a Bethel-stone from the times of Abraham and is taken by numerous modern scientists for a meteorite. Many muslim scholars however deny this in order to put out of question each suspicion of a possible idol worship in Islam. Unfortunately by this religious reservedness until today it is not clarified unambiguously whether the Hadschar is now of cosmic origin or not.

http://www.haberer-meteorite.de/english/Culture and religion.htm


az-kaaba-bkstone.jpg
 
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One thing I can say for MW is that she despises all religions equally. I don't know if that's inherently good or bad...but there it is.
 
Sounds like worship to me:

"When pilgrims circle the Kaaba as part of the Tawaf ritual of the Hajj, many of them try, if possible, to stop and kiss the Black Stone, emulating the kiss that it received from the Islamic prophet Muhammad."

It is also shiny now, due to lots of kisses:

180px-Blackstone.JPG
 
Its Sunnah to kiss the stone, like its Sunnah to keep a beard, thats not worship.

Anyway, its all gibberish if you ask me.
 
The actual meteorite is located inside of that shinny container. If you look hard through the glass on the very front of the container you can just make it out, a dark dull mass.
 
I don't see glass, or at least it is hard to tell. it is a silver bedding for the rock and I would say it is shiny for centuries of kissing. You bet it wasn't behind glass in the last 1000+ years....
 
Captain Kremmen said:
Aren't they a bit embarrassed kissing that in public?
Click to expand...

No. It has quite a history.

Muhammad is credited with playing a key part in the history of the Black Stone. In 602, before the first of his prophetic revelations, he was present in Mecca during the rebuilding of the Kaaba. The Black Stone had been temporarily removed while a new structure was being constructed. A story found in Ibn Ishaq's Sirah Rasul Allah (as reconstructed and translated by Guillaume) shows Muhammad settling a quarrel between Meccan clans as to which clan should set the Black Stone in place. His solution was to have all the clan elders raise the cornerstone on a cloak, and then Muhammad set the Stone into its final place with his own hands
Click to expand...

Its a symbol of diplomacy and unity.

Kaaba.jpg
 
cosmictraveler said:
"Glass has been used for various kinds of
Click to expand...

Thanks prof for the history of glass, but that wasn't the issue. When did we start to put objects behind glass for protection???

Also, I am still not sure there is a glass to protect it....
 
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