THEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Every man living in Mecca before and during Muhammad's life had some relationship with the Kaba. If the Kaba was the house of God, why did Muhammad order his followers to face Jerusalem? Muhammad's 'revelation' in the Quran says that when Allah had Muhammad change prayer directions, it was a test of the Muslims. This sounds like a lame excuse on Muhammad's part. What's the test? Face another direction? That does not appear to be such an incredible challenge!
Probably the real answer is that through his early contacts with Christians and Jews, Muhammad knew that their faiths, centered in Jerusalem, where monotheistic. Muhammad abhorred polytheistic worship, consequently he aligned himself with faiths that he believed were from the true God. He selected Jerusalem as the direction of prayer. He hoped that the Jews would receive him as a prophet.
About a year and a half after the migration to Medina, after the Jews had thoroughly rejected him, he turned the direction of prayer to Mecca - the center of pagan worship in the Arabian peninsula (Q. 2:144). Just as he had compromised with the pagan idol worshippers in Mecca, by sanctioning and worshipping the pagan goddesses Lat, Uzza, and Manat, so now he hoped to gain favor with the pagan Arab tribes that worshipped at the Kaba in Mecca.
He authenticated the pagan focus of attention.After Muhammad took Mecca, he cleansed the Kaba. Inside the Kaba were many representations of the prophets. When his men began to cleanse the Kaba, and wash out the representations, Muhammad placed his hands on the pictures of Jesus and Mary, and said "Wash out all except what is below my hands". Again, Muhammad went against his own principles, and sanctioned his definition of idolatry.
Muhammad then sanctioned the pagan rituals concerning the Kaba, i.e. kissing the black stone, touching the Kaba, circling the structure, running between the two hills, etc. Later, Umar said to the black stone "I know that you are a stone, that neither helps nor hurts, and if the messenger of god had not kissed you, I would not kiss you". (Sahih al-Bukhari, volume 2, #667). But then he kissed the stone. Like Umar, many other Muslims follow the prophet in their practice of veneration of a pagan idol.
Before Muhammad, there was a group of people in Arabia who also abhorred idolatry. They were known as the Hanifites. Even the Hanifites saw that kissing the black stone was pagan idolatry. During one of the pre-Islamic Eids, the Qurayshi were worshipping their idols, slaying sacrifices, praying, and making circuits around the Kaba. Just as they did each year for this festival. Some Hanifites saw them, and stood apart from them, and said:
"By the Lord!, our people have nothing left of the faith of Abraham. What is this stone that we should encircle it? It can neither hear nor speak, neither hurt nor help. O our people, look out for your souls, for by the Lord are you altogether wanting."One of the Hanifites was Obeidallah... later he embraced Islam. He immigrated to Abyssinia with other Muslims. Later he became a Christian. After his conversion, he said to his Muslim friends
'We (Christians) see, but you are only blinking' - that is, cannot see plainly.So, why then does Muhammad kiss the black stone? Why did he incorporate paganism into his faith. There is even the Quranic story of Abraham - how he chided those who worshipped idols sura 6, 21, etc., and said it was sinful in God's sight. Yet here we have Muhammad walking around the Kaba, just like the pagans, kissing the stone, just like the pagans. Even Umar knew it was empty and false, yet he followed Muhammad in kissing the stone.
It cannot be denied that an entire pagan theology and ritual, was adopted by Islam, after Muhammad had one of his convenient 'revelations' and made it 'religiously' correct.
Another Muslim myth, concerning the Kaba, is that 'anyone who prays under the Kaba's water-pipe becomes as pure as on the day when his mother bore him'. Muslims have a hard time accepting Christ's atonement, but will allow for total forgiveness of sins by uttering a prayer under a spout!
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