Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/180

168 established Mecca to be an inviolable sanctuary and asylum; in the time of Adam the spot was occupied by a tent sent down from heaven to serve as a place for man to render worship to his Creator, and to solicit the forgiveness of his sins, and the holy tent was often visited by Adam and Seth, till the latter built over it a temple of stone for the use of his posterity; this temple having been overthrown by the deluge, was rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ismael. The Arabians had been long famed among profane and ecclesiastical writers for the worship of a stone; it was this stone, placed in the most holy spot of the Kaaba, that attracted the homage of so many thousands; Muhammed encouraged the continuance of the same adoration, and declared that this holy stone came out of paradise, and was brought from heaven by Gabriel, who gave it to Abraham; the Christians, with more truth, declared it to be an