[49] This famous structure (in the Arabic, Kef'bah—a square building) for over twelve hundred years has been the cynosure of the Moslem peoples. It is undoubtedly of great antiquity, being mentioned by Diodorus the historian in the latter part of the first century, at which time its sanctity was acknowledged and its idols venerated by the Arabians and kindred tribes who paid yearly visits to the shrine to offer their devotions.
According to the Arabian legend Adam, after his expulsion from the Garden, worshipped Allah on this spot. A tent was then sent down from heaven, but Seth substituted a hut for the tent. After the Flood, Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the Kaaba.
At present it is a cube-shaped, flat-roofed building of stone in the Great Mosque at Mecca. In its southeast corner next to the silver door is the famous black stone "hajar al aswud," dropped from paradise. It was said to have been originally a white stone (by other accounts a ruby), but the tears—or more probably the kisses—of pilgrims have turned it quite black.
[50] Palmer has it: "In the mean time Mahomet and Abu-Bekr escaped by a back window in the house of the latter."
[51] Zem-sem, the name of this well, is said by the Moslems to be the spring which Hagar had revealed to her when driven into the wilderness with her son, Ishmael.
[52] Friday remains the Sabbath of the Moslems.
[53] His nephew and son-in-law, surnamed "the Lion-hearted."
[54] The Persians add these words, "and Ali is the friend of God." Kouli Khan, having a mind to unite the two different sects, ordered them to be omitted.—Fraser's Life of Kouli Khan, p. 124.
[55] An Arab of Kossay, named Ammer Ibn Lahay, is said to have first introduced idolatry among his countrymen; he brought the idol called Hobal, from Hyt in Mesopotamia, and set it up in the Kaaba. It was the Jupiter of the Arabians, and was made of red agate in the form of a man holding in his hand seven arrows without heads or feathers, such as the Arabs use in divination. At a subsequent period the Kaaba was adorned with three hundred and sixty idols, corresponding probably to the days of the Arabian year.—Burckhardt's Arabia, pp. 163, 164.
[56] An opinion as ancient as Homer.—Iliad, vi. 487.