What’s Black Stone?

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The Black Stone is a 30 cm (12 in) diameter stone set in a silver frame on a corner of the Kaaba (Arabic: cube) in Mecca. The Kaaba is the holiest site in Islam, located near the center of Mecca. Five times a day, Muslims all over the world pray in the direction of Mecca. During the Hajj, a religious pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims walk seven times around the Kaaba, starting and ending at the Black Stone, which they kiss if there is an opportunity. Muslims are careful to emphasize that they are not worshiping the Black Stone or the Kaaba, but merely using it as a focus of prayer to God and the memory of Muhammad.

There are several legends and stories surrounding the Black Stone. According to Islamic tradition, the Black Stone fell from Heaven, God’s way of showing Adam and Eve where to build a sanctuary to make sacrifices to Him. During Noah’s flood, the altar and stone were lost, until Abraham, one of the first prophets, rediscovered the stone with the help of the Archangel Gabriel and built a new altar on it. Originally dazzling white, the stone has turned black after millennia of absorbing the sins of pilgrims.

As the Blackstone has not been tested in a laboratory, its composition is unknown, although various visitors have proposed that it is an agate, basaltic lava, piece of natural glass or, more commonly, a stony meteorite. While often called a meteorite, this identification is inconsistent with the stone’s glassy appearance and with an account from AD 951 that said the stone could float on water. More likely, the stone is tektite (fused silica ejected from a meteorite) or desert glass, a type of mineral created when an asteroid explodes in a thermal explosion and fuses the underlying sand together. If it’s the latter, a possible discovery site may have been Wabar Crater in Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter, three craters capped with black glass, meteoritic iron, and chunks of white sandstone.

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