Guest Author: GotReason Growing up in the US and born a Muslim, GotReason believed in Islam. She started to read and understand the Quran in her late teens in an attempt to become a better Muslim. Once finished, she read the hadith in an attempt to salvage some verses of the Quran which she found troubling. However, this only made matters worse; GotReason realized that Islam was not the perfect and tolerant religion she had believed it to be. Despite significant doubts, she couldn’t bring herself to leave Islam until many years later.

In this article, GotReason makes the case that the role of the Kaaba and the Black Stone lodged within, flirt dangerously close to shirk; ironically, the biggest sin in Islam. GotReason is also co-author of the article A Brief Look at Islam and Sharia.

Shirk is the greatest crime in Islam. It is an unforgivable, damnable offense. In Islam, those who commit shirk are destined to hellfire, forever. I remember being told that if Muhammad’s uncle, Abu Talib, who took care of Muhammad after he became an orphan, had died as a pagan and did not convert to Islam, then not even Muhammad could pray for him after his death. There are even hadith on how Muhammad could not pray for forgiveness for his own mother because she was a pagan when she died, having died when Muhammad was a child, well before Islam had been founded.

Shirk is practicing idolatry or polytheism. Muslims are not to worship idols, or believe in multiple gods. It is a common belief amongst Muslims that Islam is more monotheistic than Christianity, in which Jesus is generally believed to be the son of God. An oft-given reason as to why Muslims do not traditionally draw Muhammad is because it would provide a temptation to worship him. In fact, there are hadith prohibiting drawing people or animals, in part because of shirk. Consider this excerpt from Sahih Muslim, “Verity the most grievously tormented people on the Day of Resurrection would be the painters of pictures.”

It is quite ironic, despite the promotion of Islam as the one true, monotheistic religion, that praying towards the Kaaba, and the Black Stone that is housed on a corner of the Kaaba, isn’t considered shirk by Muslims. A common defense when this point is brought up is that Muslims do not worship the Kaaba, or the Black Stone, but that they are present simply for direction, to help Muslims focus their worship towards Allah. What this argument fails to recognize is that other religions claim that their physical objects of focus provide the very same abstraction—that the worshiper is not really praying to a statue, but that the statue helps the worshiper to focus in on the thing it is depicting. Nowadays, few worshipers, regardless of which religion they practice, believe that a statue or painting is itself an actual god.

Worshipers from many traditions, including Islam, do not believe that the stone they are worshipping has agency, or is a god. Rather, they believe that the artifact they are worshiping helps take them closer to God, more than perhaps any other method of worship. In that way, these artifacts are similar in that they are used to worship a being greater than the artifact.

One distinction is that while a statue allows a worshiper to visualize God, the Black Stone does not allow you to visualize Allah. But this is where the dissimilarities end since both worshipers are trying to beseech their gods—and not the artifacts. Yet both direct their worship and emotions towards these artifacts. When Muslims perform Hajj, and try their hardest to touch and kiss the stone, it can be just as emotional as a someone worshiping a statue.

In short, the only difference between the Black Stone and a statue is that the Black Stone does not have a smiley face carved into it.

A Muslim worshipper facing the Kaaba. Be honest with yourself. What does this look like to you?

If one deliberates over the situation, it is actually more alarming that all Muslims have to bow down to the one Kaaba, and the one black rock, to pray to a god. Compare this with bowing down to multiple rocks to pray to that same god. In doing the former, the one rock is placed in a much higher position than if a worshiper could just pick any rock to help them pray. As many claim with gods, the sacredness of a thing is heightened when there is one, as opposed to many. Thus, the Kaaba and the Black Stone are bigger rivals to Allah than if Muslims were allowed to pray to any old rock. Better yet, why does one need a rock to pray to God? Why are so many Muslims taught that when they sleep, their feet should not be facing the Kaaba? Why must hajj be performed, in one holy location in Saudi Arabia, and only once a year, despite the significant safety challenges this presents?

Islam is a mishmash of the religions and beliefs of its time. While influences from Judaism and Christianity are often discussed, less mentioned are the polytheistic influences on Islam. Worshipping towards a rock is a relic of pagan traditions, and one that was done in other parts of Arabia, providing economic benefits for the tribes in charge of these places of worship well before Islam.

In fact, there were other places of worship similar to the Kaaba in Arabia. The following excerpt is from Sahih al-Bukhari, which along with Sahih Muslim, are viewed as the two most trusted collections of hadith in Sunni Islam. It explains how Muhammad ordered an attack on those who prayed towards the “Kaaba of Yemen”.

Jarir bin ‘Abdullah narrated: There was a house called Dhul-Khalasa in the Pre-lslamic Period and it was also called Al-Ka’ba Al-Yamaniya or Al-Ka’ba Ash-Shamiya. Allah’s Messenger said to me, “Will you relieve me from Dhul-Khalasa?” So I left for it with 150 cavalrymen from the tribe of Ahmas and then we destroyed it and killed whoever we found there. Then we came to the Prophet and informed him about it. He invoked good upon us and upon the tribe of Ahmas. Sahih Bukhari 3823

The Kaaba and the Black Stone are variants of these influences, cloaked in Abrahamic tales linking Abraham and even Adam to it. Of course, Islam’s conception of Abraham rebuilding the Kaaba contradicts the Old Testament, in which Abraham is never reported to have set foot in Mecca. Instead, the Old Testament tells of Abraham traveling from Mesopotamia to Canaan, and then to Egypt. According to Genesis 12:5, “He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.”

It makes little sense if the Islamic narrative regarding Abraham and the Kaaba were true, as to why the Kaaba is not even referenced in Judaism, let alone cited as a place of importance. But as with all peculiarities of faith, this has been explained away with for the devoted believer, through post-hoc rationalizations.

That connotations of shirk that follow the Black Stone and its place in Islam is an irony that was not lost on the companions of Muhammad. Umar felt the need to justify why he kissed the Black Stone. Consider this narration that reveals just how inconsistent this practice and reverence for the Black Stone appeared to Umar (the second caliph of Islam):

Narrated `Abis bin Rabi`a: No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither benefit anyone nor harm anyone. Had I not seen Allah’s Messenger kissing you I would not have kissed you. Sahih Bukhari 1597

It is not just the artifacts, but also the rituals performed during Hajj that have been influenced by pagan rituals of the past. Consider Qur’an 2:158, as referenced in the following Hadith:

Narrated `Asim bin Sulaiman: I asked Anas bin Malik about Safa and Marwa. Anas replied, “We used to consider (i.e. going around) them a custom of the Pre-islamic period of Ignorance, so when Islam came, we gave up going around them. Then Allah revealed: “Verily, Safa and Marwa (i.e. two mountains at Mecca) are among the Symbols of Allah. So it is not harmful of those who perform the Hajj of the House (of Allah) or perform the Umra to ambulate (Tawaf) between them.” (2.158) Sahih Bukhari 4496 . See also 4495

Of course this too has been explained away by linking the tradition to Abraham and his family. In the end, devoted believers must decide whether these explanations are likely, or whether they are merely addendums.