Islam Watch - "Kabaa Rage and Old Scores"

Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims

Kabaa Rage and Old Scores

by Andrew G. Bostom

13 Oct, 2007

One year ago, on October 10, 2006 an Islamic website alerted Muslims to yet another of the seemingly endless litany of "insults to Islam." The message claimed a cube-shaped building under construction in New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 58^th and 59^th Streets in midtown Manhattan, bore a deliberate resemblance to the sacred Meccan "Kabaa", and as such was meant to provoke Muslims.

After taking liberties to contrive a resemblance between Apple's (as in Macintosh computers) "Mecca," and the actual Meccan Kabaa (see here), the Islamic website maintained the New York structure intended to be open 24 hours a day (alas, like the Kabaa), and moreover, contained bars selling alcoholic beverages-both blatant "insults to Islam." The message further urged Muslims to disseminate this "alarming" information, in the hope that "Muslims will be able to stop the project."

As Robert Spencer observed aptly, at the time,

"The only problem is that the project is finished, and the actual building doesn't look like the Kabaa at all, unless all cube-shaped structures are forbidden to infidels."

Fast forward almost exactly one year, and a strangely delayed outpouring of "Kabaa outrage" was expressed on October 6, 2007 -- in Kashmir. As reported by the Iranian (Islamic Republic) News Agency, hundreds of Muslim college students in the Northern Kashmir city of Baramulla took to the streets in demonstrations, "to decry a bar built in the shape of the holy Kaaba in New York." Proclaiming anti-American and pro-Islamic slogans, the students insisted that the putative construction of a wine-shop or a bar like the Kaaba was tantamount to the desecration of the holy sites of Islam. "Muslims all over the world should protest at this," they stated. They also demanded that the "bar" be closed down immediately, accompanied by a "US apology" to the Muslim world for creating the Kaaba replica.

Ignoring the final constructed appearance of Apple's New York City cube, and the fact that alcohol was never served there, what is the Kabaa, and why might any perceived insult to this Meccan structure arouse the ire, once again, of pious votaries of Islam?

What is the Kabaa?

The Kabaa is a black-gray, cube-like building located in the center of the mosque at Mecca which contains the black stone (the Hajaru 'l-Aswad). The bizarre and fantastic Muslim narrative -- a melding of traditions from the core Islamic texts (including the Koran), and the inventiveness of Muslim writers -- maintains that the Kabaa was originally constructed in heaven some 2000 years before the world's creation (indeed, this heavenly model of it persists eternally, named the Baitu'l-Ma‘mūr). Adam purportedly erected the earthly Kabaa directly below the location its perfect model occupies in heaven.

Although 10,000 angels were assigned to guard the Kabaa, the Orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt observed that more often than not they appear to have been remiss in their duty. Destroyed during the great flood, Abraham, assisted by his son Ishmael (who was then in Mecca with his mother Hagar) is said to have been instructed by Allah to rebuild the Kabaa. During this reconstruction, Ishmael, seeking a stone to mark the corner of the rebuilt structure, was given the famous black stone by the angel Gabriel.

Following Ishmael's death, the Kabaa passed into the possession of successive Arabian tribes, becoming a Pantheon for idols, even including figures of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus sculpted upon one of its six pillars nearest the entrance. At the outset of Muhammad's prophetic career, the initial direction for prayer was Jerusalem, implying he was disinclined to the Kabaa as an ancient "superstitious" idol temple. Had the Jews not rejected Muhammad’s claim to teach the true monotheism of Abraham, abrogating that of Moses, Jerusalem, not the Meccan Kabaa would have been the object of Muslim reverence. When Muhammad finally vanquished the idolatrous Quraysh of Mecca, occupying the city by force of arms (in 630), the idols in the Kabaa were destroyed (excepting an icon of Jesus and Mary), and the divine rites of Islam enacted.

A History of Rage

Might contemporary "Kabaa rage," -- directed, curiously, at a New York structure -- be related to the Muslim world's obsession with Jewish conspiracies against Islam? They date back to Islam's foundational texts, and history.

Koran 5:64, for example ("They [the Jews] hasten about the earth, to do corruption there") reads like an ancient antecedent to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and was cited in this context during a January 2007 speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

After Muhammad's conquest of the Jewish farming oasis at Khaybar, the hadith and sira (early pious Muslim biographies of Muhammad) refer to an event which updates with impeccable logic the Koranic curse upon the Jews (2:61 /3:112) for having wrongfully slain Allah's earlier prophets -- a Khaybar Jewess is accused of serving the Muslim prophet poisoned mutton (or goat), leading ultimately to his protracted and painful death. Ibn Sa‘d's sira (Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir) focuses on the Jewish conspiracy behind this alleged poisoning of Islam's prophet.

An additional profoundly anti-Jewish motif occurring after the events recorded in the hadith and sira, put forth in early Muslim historiography (for example, by Tabari), is found in the story of Abd Allah b. Saba. An alleged renegade Yemenite Jew, and founder of the heterodox Shi'ite sect, he is held responsible -- identified as a Jew -- for promoting the Shi'ite heresy and fomenting the rebellion and internal strife associated with this primary breach in Islam's "political innocence," culminating in the assassination of the third Rightly Guided Caliph Uthman, and the bitter, lasting legacy of Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian strife.

Not surprisingly then, conspiratorial accusations against Jews in late 13^th century Baghdad included alleged plans to attack Mecca itself and convert the Kabaa to a heathen temple!

The Sad Case of Sa‘d ad-Daula

The brief rise and calamitous fall of Sa‘d ad-Daula, which mirrored the experience of his Jewish co-religionists, took place during this Mongol epoch. Sa‘d ad-Daula was a Jewish physician, who successfully reformed the Mongol revenue and taxation system for Iraq. In recognition of these services, he was appointed by the Mongol emperor Arghun (who reigned from 1284-1291) to the position of administrative Vizier (in 1289) over Arghun's Empire. Despite being a successful and responsible administrator (which even the Muslim sources confirm), the appointment of a Jew as the Vizier of a heathen ruler over a predominantly Muslim region, aroused the wrath, predictably, of the Muslim masses.

According to modern historian Walter Fischel, this reaction was expressed through (and exacerbated by) "...all kinds of [Muslim] diatribes, satirical poems, and libels". Ibn al-Fuwati (d. 1323), a contemporary Muslim historian from Baghdad, recorded this particularly revealing example which emphasized traditional anti-Jewish motifs from the Qur'an:

In the year 689/1291 a document was prepared which contained libels against Sa‘d ad-Daula, together with verses from the Qur'an and the history of the prophets, that stated the Jews to be a people whom Allah hath debased...

Another contemporary 13^th century Muslim source, notes Fischel, the chronicler and poet Wassaf,

"...empties the vials of hatred on the Jew Sa‘d ad-Daula and brings the most implausible accusations against him."

These accusations included the claims that Sa‘d had advised Arghun to cut down trees in Baghdad (dating from the days of the conquered Muslim Abbasid dynasty), and build a fleet to attack Mecca and convert the cuboidal Kabaa to a heathen temple. Wassaf's account also quotes satirical verses to demonstrate the extent of public dissatisfaction with what he terms "Jewish Domination."

Lead guitarist and lyricist for The Clash Joe Strummer composed a 1982 lyric that captures the situation. Protesting Ayatollah's Khomeini's ban on rock music, Strummer's words were "Sharif don't like it [he thinks it's not kosher]."

Kabaa rage has been manufactured by today's Islamic "Sharifs" (i.e., protectors of the Muslim super-tribe, and tribal assets), because the "Sharifs don't like it." Given the living legacy of conspiratorial anti-Jewish animus in Islam's foundational texts, and early history, these Sharifs of 2006/2007 may think Apple's New York City "Kabaa" is all too "kosher!

Source: American Thinker

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Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus, 2005) and the forthcoming The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism " (Prometheus, November, 2007)

Name: vbv
Date: Saturday October 13, 2007
Time: 20:49:45 -0700

Comment

Muslims mock others as 'idolaters' and decry rather vehemently any idol worship,yet they worship the shapeless black meteorite stone housed in a cubical building which they call kaaba. They are so paranoid and possessive about just a stone that they go round it as their ultimate worship in this world.In what way the muslims have risen above 'idol' worship that they mock others as kaffirs? They are plain stupid brainwashed zombies led like a goat with pea-sized brain!! So they have no right to impose their will on the rest of the world. Oil dependence has pampered these dumbos that they throw tantrums at the slightest pretext to comply with their irrational demands or get bombed or blown by suicide-bombers! They cannot claim patent on all cubical structures in this world. Cubical structures existed well before the advent of islam and the structure called kaaba by several millennia. Moreover the kaaba is no great architectural wonder ,just an ordinary buliding that any primitive man could have built. It is time to tell these madcaps that enough is enough and get lost!!! They can keep their barbaric cult to themselves and not impose their rotten idelogies on civilized people!!!

Name: Do Muslims really worship the Kaaba
Date: Sunday October 14, 2007
Time: 10:13:48 -0700

Comment

vbv again is showing his stupidity and ignorance about Islam and Muslims, although he claims to have read the Quran he still does not understand the basics of Islam. Especially when he says that Muslims worship the Kaaba. You can go and worship the stone gods of your pagan Hinduism before opening your lips again.

Name:
Date: Sunday October 14, 2007
Time: 10:18:22 -0700

Comment

Another lie about the 1000 angels guarding the Kaaba. Where do you people get your sources from?

Name:
Date: Sunday October 14, 2007
Time: 10:23:29 -0700

Comment

The author is all over the place just like most on the site. The reference to Sa‘d ad-Daula is just another example. Why do not the readers do simple web search on the Jews and the Christians in Muslim Spain and during the Abbas dynasty to discover how they were appointed to high ranking positions in government and military by the Muslims rulers of that time. .

Name: muslims shud destroy idolatory kaba
Date: Sunday October 14, 2007
Time: 22:48:06 -0700

Comment

muslims claim they bow only to allah but here we see them bow to stone in kaba. they dont know which directing is jannat with wine-alcoholic and sexy houries. we hv telescopes powerful enuf to see anwhere [ hubble ] so,we need to ask muslims and get some pics of jannat. anyway now the main part : muslims claim abraham built the kaba there's no proof. kafir hindus bow to stone in temple,and muslims follow it and do same and bow to stone in kaba. muslims claim islam is tolerant so let them allow hindus to build temples with stone in saudi arabia. also...allah created man in jannat and sent him to earth. but fact is man evolved by nature from 1 celled organisms and moved out of africa to the world. thus no need to worship imaginary deity allah,better to worship truth.

Name: vbv
Date: Monday October 15, 2007
Time: 00:40:03 -0700

Comment

Well,if muslims don't worship the kabaa,why so much of reverence to a stupid black stone which they circumambulate some seven times ? Why is it that a so-called 'pilgrimage' to Meccan mosque and the kabaa imperative for all the muslims? Many in the third world countries spend a lot of their savings just to pay a visit to the kabaa,the stupid black stone of no consequence,heh? Just for the heck of it,heh? Why do they go chanting some inane arabic plosch in a frenzy while going to the kabaa ? If all this is not idol worship,I don't know what else can be called idol worship. So the stupidity and contrdiction lies with islam and muslims and not others.

Name: vbv
Date: Monday October 15, 2007
Time: 00:47:06 -0700

Comment

You say that we are pagans worshiping 'stone gods'. We are not hypocrites like muslims who worship stones ,graves of their so-called 'peeers',one whose tomb in Ajmer was bombed by one of your compatriots killing and injuring a few innocent people.Atleast we pagans don't worship or bomb graveyards. we pagans have that much decency atleast. So much for your hypocrisy and inanities!!!

Name: Godot
Date: Monday October 15, 2007
Time: 12:23:46 -0700

Comment

There is a clinical term for this Islamic pathological hypersensibility, it's called paranoia. Muslims assume and eventually believe that they are the subject of every imaginary plot on the globe.

Name: Re: Do Muslims Really Worship the Kaaba.
Date: Monday October 15, 2007
Time: 12:45:18 -0700

Comment

In the Quran, after Muhammed managed to convert the Arab Pagans to his religion, he turned the Kaaba, a pagan temple, into the first temple where Muslims could worship Allah. I also understand that after the Muslims conquered the Middle East, many Churches were converted into Mosque's.

Name: victor
Date: Saturday October 20, 2007
Time: 06:26:04 -0700

Comment

Please Mr. islamist schizophrenic can I play with my rubic cube or is that also an affront to islam? can my baby son play with his blocks or does that offend you?!

Name: abc
Date: Saturday November 24, 2007
Time: 10:41:29 -0700

Comment

its a misconception that muslim worship kabaa , kabaa is the direction at which they perform prayers (namaaz). if they whoship kabaa , then why they stand above the kabaa and say azaan ( a call for prayer ) at the time of prophet mohammad ( peace br upon him) no religion says that to worship by standing on it.

Name: Jesus
Date: Monday December 10, 2007
Time: 23:01:32 -0700

Comment

:-) The writter do not know the story of Kabaa and Islam. He/she just picked up some unreliable sources, twisted and published it. He/she needs to learn more the writing methodology and use his/her brain to figure it out what the right words to expressing his/her thought peace

Name: Vipin Sharma
Date: Monday December 10, 2007
Time: 23:07:51 -0700

Comment

I have carefully read the article and it reinforces my opinion that history of religion is nothing but a misinterpretation of divine truth. The 'Holy Koran' is indeed a divine revelation but has been sadly misinterpreted by the vested interests. One thing is for sure, who ever reads and mugs up the 'Holy Koran' or any other relgious scripture will never gain anything out of it spiritually. One has to understand the scriptures including the 'Holy Koran' to benefit from the divine essence contained in it. I am a Hindu who has read 'The Holy Bible', 'The Holy Koran' 'Teachings of Buddha', 'The Bhagvad Gita' and in essence their teachings are sourced from the divine truth. The day we can understand these scriptures and learn to respect other religious beliefs rather than challenging and ridiculing them would be the time when God itself will come down on earth to congratulate humanity, until such tiemwe all shall keep groping in the darkness of ignorance and greed.