Black Stone

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Black Stone (al-ḥajar al-aswad). A stone said to be of meteoric origin, variously thought to be of lava or basalt, and reddish-black in colour, some 12 inches in diameter, embedded in the eastern corner of the Kaʿba in Mecca. As the Kaʿba is the focus of Muslim devotion, being the ‘house of Allāh’, so is the Black Stone the holiest object.