Page 60 - Demo

56eligible, and the safest material for a religious and sacred monument could be none other than the stone.The molten bronze statue of the Jupiter worshipped by the heathen Roman Pontifex Maximus, was taken away from the Pantheon and recast into the image of St. Peter by order of a Christian Sovereign Pontiff; and indeed, the wisdom embodied in the Sapha is admirable and worthy of all those who worship no other object besidesGod.It should also be remembered that not only is the erected Sapha a sacred monument, but the very spot and the circuit in which it is situated as well. And it is for this reason that the Muslimhajj, like the Hebrewhigga, is performed round the building where the Sacred Stone is fixed. It is known fact that the Karamatians who carried the Black Stone from the Ka’ba and kept it in their own country for some twenty years, were obliged to bring and put it back in its former place because they could not draw the pilgrims from Makkah. If it had been gold or other precious object, it could not have existed, at least, for some five thousand years; or even if it had had on it some carvings or images of art, it would have been destroyed by the Prophet Muhammad himself.As to the meaning -or rather meanings- of the Sapha, I have already referred to them as qualities of the stone.The word consists of the consonants “sādi” and “pi” ending with the vowel “hi” both as a verb and noun. It means, in its qal form, “to purify, to watch, to gaze from distance, and to choose.” It also has the meanings of “to be firm and sound”; in its pi’el paradigm, which is causative, it simply means “to make a choice, to cause to elect,” and so on.A man who watched from a tower was called Sophi (2 Kings ix. 17, etc.). In ancient times -that is, before the building of the Temple of Solomon (pbuh) - the Prophet or the “Man of God” was called Roï or Hozi, which