Shirk and the Kaaba

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, that not even Muhammad could pray for him after his death.¹ 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.²

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.³ 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.”⁴

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 do not believe that a 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. Is the only difference between the Black Stone and a statue that the Black Stone does not have a smiley face carved into it?

Furthermore, certain religions had baetylus, which were sacred stones, usually meteorites, that were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods. Consider the baetyl of Paphos, a large black stone with no human or animal shape⁵—how is this so different from the Black Stone, so that one is shirk, and one is not? Pre-Islamic Arabia worship also included stone reverence. Al-Lat, a highly venerated pre-Islamic Arabian goddess, was worshipped as a cubic stone.⁶

The Black Stone supposedly fell from the heavens as a white stone, only turning black once it absorbed others’ sins.⁷ Absolving sins is an attribute given to God across religions, yet the Black Stone is described in Islam as coming alive on Judgement Day to testify in favor of those who sincerely touched it.⁸

Why is it that Islam prohibits, even curses, men who imitate women⁹, or Muslims from imitating the kuffar (disbelievers),¹⁰ but its rituals imitate pagan ones?

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”.

The Kaaba and the Black Stone are variants of these influences, cloaked in Abrahamic tales linking Abraham and even Adam to it.¹¹ 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.¹² 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.”¹³

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):

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:

Of course this too has been explained away by linking the tradition to Abraham and his family.¹⁴ In the end, devoted believers must decide whether these explanations are likely, or whether they are merely addendums.

1. For more information on Abu Talib, see: http://www.thesunniway.com/articles/item/246-was-abu-talib-a-muslim.
2. For more information on how Muhammad’s parents are viewed in hadith, see: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/47170/are-the-parents-of-the-prophet-peace-and-blessings-of-allaah-be-upon-him-in-paradise-or-in-hell.
3. For common explanations given on the prohibition of the depiction of Muhammad, see: http://aboutislam.net/counseling/ask-about-islam/cant-muslims-depict-prophet-muhammad/.
4. See Sahih Muslim 2109 a. See also Sahih Muslim 2108 a.
5. For more information, see: https://www.livius.org/articles/religion/baetyl/
6. Ibn al-Kalbi. Book of Idols, p. 14. See also: https://www.britannica.com/topic/al-Lat
7. See al-Tirmidhi, 877. For more on the Black Stone’s portrayal, see: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/1902/the-black-stone.
8. See al-Tirmidhi, 961.
9. See al-Tirmhidi 2784
10. For a discussion on imitation, see: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/21694/guidelines-concerning-imitation-of-the-kuffaar
11. See Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Arabic) regarding Adam having originally built the Kaaba, according to Islamic folklore.
12. For more information about Abraham, generally, see this entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
13. Harran was a city in upper Mesopotamia, now in modern day Turkey.
14. For more information on why Muslims run between Safa and Marwa, from an Islamic perspective, see: http://www.islamicbulletin.org/newsletters/issue_4/women.aspx.