which were taken for gods by the pre-Islamic Arabs, the Ka‘bah and the Black Stone are the only two which are conspicuous by their absence, notwithstanding the reverence which the Arab mind had for them before Islām. The Ka‘bah was known by the name Bait Allāh or House of God, and there was belief prevalent among them that no enemy could destroy it. It was due to this belief that when Abrahah14 attacked Makkah, ‘its people took to the surrounding hills, offering no resistance, and when Abrahah asked ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib15 why he did not request him to spare the Ka‘bah, his reply was that the Ka‘bah was the House of God and He would take care of it. Yet, notwithstanding all this reverence, the Ka‘bah was never worshipped. It, no doubt, contained idols, yet it was the idols that were worshipped, and not the Ka‘bah; and the same is true of the Black Stone. It was kissed but it was never taken for a god, though the Arabs worshipped even unhewn stones, trees and heaps of sand. And the Muslims, to say nothing of the Holy Prophet, were so averse to idolatry that when they saw two idols, the Usāf and the Nā’ilah, on the hills of Ṣafā and the Marwah respectively, they refused to make the sa‘y between these two mountains, until a verse was revealed: “The Ṣafā and the Marwah are truly among the signs of Allāh, so whoever makes a pilgrimage to the House or pays a visit (to it), there is no blame on him if he goes round them both” (2:158). The words used here “there is no blame on him” clearly show that the Muslims thought that there was a sin in going round places wherein idols had been set. Evidently they had not the same scruples about the Ka‘bah as the idols in the Ka‘bah were shut up in the building, while those on the Ṣafā and the Marwah were not only exposed to view but even touched by the pilgrims. The Muslims so hated idolatry that they could not brook the thought of idols being connected in anyway with their religious practices. How could they think of worshipping the Ka‘bah and the Black Stone, which even the idolaters had never worshipped? Had the idea of idolatry been connected in the least with the circuits round the Ka‘bah and the kissing of the Black Stone, the Muslims would never have resorted to those practices. They had no hesitation in turning their backs to the Ka‘bah when on reaching Madīnah they were required to take Jerusalem for their qiblah of prayer. And it has just been shown that the Holy Prophet once made circuits of the Ka‘bah on
14 Governor of Yaman.
15 Grandfather of the Holy Prophet.