Kissing the Black Stone is a beautiful Sunnah and an honour indeed for the one who is able to do so. However, due to the immense crowd, majority of the people cannot reach it. So many people try to “kiss” it from far away. When they are in line with the Black Stone, they stop in their tracks during Tawaf, face the Black Stone, put up both hands on the side of their head and ‘kiss’ the Black Stone in air, as if the Black Stone were right in front of them. Or they throw ‘flying kisses’ at the Black Stone. Besides being a wrong practice, stopping the flow of Tawaf causes disruption and unnecessary crowding in that area, thereby creating a lot of inconvenience to fellow pilgrims.
Chapter 2.3 ??? c. 1 million BCE: Homo erectus Masters Fire
Let’s jump forward a couple of million years to around 1 million years before the common era, and let’s talk about fire. When hominins…