🧵A 9th-cent. historian of Mecca, Abū l-Walīd al-Azraqī, transmits several stories abt how the Prophet Muḥammad spared an icon (ṣūrah) of Mary and Jesus from destruction when he purged the Kaʿbah of the idols it contained. But if the icon wasn’t destroyed, what happened to it?
An early Meccan scholar, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ (c. 27–115/ 648–733), claimed to have seen it with his own own eyes. He was asked, “Did you see figural depictions (tamāthīl) in the Kaʿbah?” “Yes,” he said, “I saw the figures of Mary and her son Jesus in her lap finely adorned...
That was on the middle-most pillar adjacent to the door.” “When was it destroyed?” “In the fire,” he said.
Aṭāʾ was not alone; the Mecan ʿAmr ibn Dīnār (c. d.126/744) also said, “I saw the icon of Jesus ... and Mary in the Kaʿbah.”
But what is “the fire” ʿAṭāʾ references?
Aṭāʾ was not alone; the Mecan ʿAmr ibn Dīnār (c. d.126/744) also said, “I saw the icon of Jesus ... and Mary in the Kaʿbah.”
But what is “the fire” ʿAṭāʾ references?
One can infer the answer from another tradition transmitted by the Syrian scholar al-Walīd ibn Muslim (d. 810) in the Kitāb al-Maghāzī of his student Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh. The Damascene scholar Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz implicates Ibn al-Zubayr and his “destruction” of the Kaʿbah.
The implication seems to be that the icons were still visible until the damage suffered by the Kaʿbah during the Umayyads’ conflict with Ibn al-Zubayr.
*Most of the traditions cited in the thread can be found in Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī:
google.com
*Most of the traditions cited in the thread can be found in Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī:
google.com
**The most detailed account of the images known to me appears in Abū l-Walīd al-Azraqī’s Akhbār Makkah:
google.com
google.com
And modern study of these traditions may be found here:
jstor.org
jstor.org
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