Israel together to renew their special relationship with God, he set up a stone and called upon it to witness in its mute integrity that the people had reaffirmed the covenant (Joshua 24). Popular Muslim tradition has it that the Ka‘ba’s black stone has likewise been taking note of momentous events—the rise and fall of the powerful and the making and breaking of oaths—since the very dawn of creation. At the appropriate moment, it will reveal all. In Muhammad’s time the Meccan cult revolved around