ARAB. A stone, any stone :— Hajar-ul-Akab, eagle - stones of the ancients. One of them was probably the bonduc nut of the Guilandina bonduc. The Greeks believed that the eagle-stones or tiles were only found in the nests of eagles ; and the Arabs describe them as resembling tamarind stones, but hollow, and'found in eagles' nests, and they believed that the eagles bring them from India.—King.
Hajar-ul-Musa, asphalte.
Hajar- Siah, also Hajr-ul-Aswad, a cele brated black stone which is built into the Kaba at Mecca, an object of the greatest veneration.
This stone is set in silver, and fixed in the south-east corner of the temple. It is deemed by Mahomedans one of the precious stones of paradise that fell to the earth with Adam, and, being preserved at the deluge, the angel Gabriel brought it to Abraham when he was building the Kaba. It ,'was, they say, at first white, but its surface has become black from coming in contact with those who are impure and sinful. It is semi circular, about six inches in height, and eight inches in breadth. It is in the wall of the Kaba in the
east outer corner, about four feet from the ground, its surface undulating and polished. Burton, on reaching the stone, despite popular indignation, testified by impatient shouts, monopolized the use of it for at least ten minutes. Whilst kissing it, and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, he narrowly observed it, and came away persuaded that it is a big Orolite. Ali Bey calls it, mineralogicaily,' a black volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, pointed and strawlike, with rhombs of tile-red feldspath upon a dark background, like velvet or charcoal, except one of its protuberances, which is reddish. Burckhardt (p. 137) thought it was ' a lava containing several small extraneous par ticles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance.' Hajar-ul-Yahudi is encrinite, sold in Peshawur at Rs. 10 the maund.—Burton's Mecca, iii. p. 210 ; Malcolm's Persia, ii. p. 336.