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Updated: May 10, 2025
Real as the coronation-stone of the Scottish kings now in Westminster Abbey, as the Caaba at Mecca, as the loadstone mountain against which dear old Sinbad was wrecked, as the meteor which fell into the State of Connecticut and the volcanic island which rose out of the Straits of Messina, as the rock of Plymouth, or the philosopher's stone, yet we have sought in vain for it, and only know of it as of the Great Carbuncle, by the light it sheds.
"Now, by the corner-stone of the Caaba!" said the Saracen, "I will accept thy invitation as freely as it is given, if thou wilt postpone thy present intent; and, credit me, brave Nazarene, it were better for thyself to turn back thy horse's head towards the camp of thy people, for to travel towards Jerusalem without a passport is but a wilful casting-away of thy life."
Then shall the Caaba be the home and temple of one God only who brooks no rival on earth or in heaven. "The man's followers had gathered round him, their spears in their hands, their ardent eyes fixed upon his face, and their dark features convulsed with such fanatic enthusiasm as showed the hold which he had upon their love and respect.
Kneeling before her, I kissed, with more studied reverence than the sacred stone of the Caaba, the tiny foot on which I replaced its covering.
The Druids kissed the High Priest's toe a thousand years B.C. The Mussulmans, who, like you, profess to abhor Heathenism, kiss the stone of the Caaba: a Pagan practice. "The Priests of Baal kissed their idols so. "Tully tells us of a fair image of Hercules at Agrigentum, whose chin was worn by kissing. The lower parts of the statue we call Peter are Jupiter.
Every Ghazi who fell fighting should sit above the Caaba at the very footstool of the throne, and in that exalted situation and august presence should be solaced for his sufferings by the charms of a double allowance of celestial beauty. Mullah Hadda used even more concrete inducements. The muzzles of the guns should be stopped for those who charged home. No bullet should harm them.
I was shown a captured scroll, upon which the tomb of the Ghazi he who has killed an infidel is depicted in heaven, no fewer than seven degrees above the Caaba itself. Even after the fighting when the tribesmen reeled back from the terrible army they had assailed, leaving a quarter of their number on the field the faith of the survivors was unshaken.
Its step from the idolatry of the Caaba to the monotheism of Mohammed prepared it to expatiate in the wide and pleasing fields of literature and philosophy. There were two influences to which it was continually exposed. They conspired in determining its path. These were 1. That of the Nestorians in Syria; 2. That of the Jews in Egypt.
Each tribe either found or introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was adorned, or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven arrows, without heads or feathers, the instruments and symbols of profane divination.
The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of injuries and insults.
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