The Kabaa:

“...usually answered, both in the traditional Muslim literature and in works of modern scholarship, produces an inadequate account of the origins and development of the Muslim sanctuary, and I wish to propose the outlines of an alternative way of envisaging the islamization of the Meccan sanctuary. ... The process of islamization is not seen to involve any radical changes in the organization of the sanctuary, nor in the ceremonies associated with it. ... the Muslim sanctuary at Mecca continues to be seen as basically a continuation of the sanctuary of pagan times in the same place, and the islamization of that sanctuary continues to be associated with the prophetic career of Muhammad.” [Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society Editor G.H.A. Juynboll, Chapter 2: The Origins of the Muslim Sanctuary at Mecca, G.R. Hawting]

How true. Muhammad simply appropriated the pagan cube at Mecca and pronounced it the home of the moon idol and his family deity, El-Lah or iLah, the 'one' [not to be confused with his majesty Obama]. I know of no Moslem who questions the cult, is querulous regarding the Hajj [pilgrimage], or disconcerted by the pagan rites, including sex orgies and animal sacrifice [still performed today], at the cube or Kabaa. Moslems don't inquire do they? They simply obey and demand that their paganism is a holy religion.

From the same book Hawting goes on to record:

It seems that the Muslim sanctuary at Mecca is the result of a sort of compromise between a pre-existing pagan sanctuary and sanctuary ideas which had developed first in a Jewish milieu. ... At a certain stage in the development of the new religion the need arose to assert its independence, and one of the most obvious ways in which this could be done was by establishing a specifically Muslim sanctuary.

The Kabaa is not merely the mark of independence but also of enforcing a dependence on the cult's acolytes. The cult members are required as a 'pillar' or 'law' of Islam, to journey to Mecca, make their rounds about the Kabaa, prostrate themselves to it, moan ritualized prayers and engage in stone throwing and animal sacrifice. I wonder if the big brains of the world would idly sit by and watch a Christian cult perform the same, without adding a caustic and abusive list of calumny and spiteful commentary.

The Kabaa was probably a millennia old when the great man Muhammad took it, rebranded it, and dedicated it to his monotheistic creation the Allah-thing. Not many really clever people call into question the Kabaa's antecedents, its paganism, or what pre-Muhammadan rites might mean for the cult of Islam as it developed into a warring-imperialist theology:

The Ka'ba itself is frequently said to have been demolished and rebuilt. The Black Stone is on a number of occasions removed from the Ka'ba and then restored to its place. The stone called Maqam Ibrahim is moved around by floods and by human actions. The well of Zamzam is "discovered" on two separate occasions. Al-Masjid al-Varam, explained as the mosque containing the Ka'ba at Mecca, is several times rebuilt and enlarged. [ibid]

The Moslems would like the Infidel to believe that the Al-Lah entity chose Mecca as the central point on earth. Here he demanded, would be built a shrine to his greatness. He then forced Abraham to trek down to Mecca with his servant-wife Hagar and their son Ishmael. Hagar and Ishmael discovered the divine white rock given to Adam by this god, now called Al-Lah. The rock had turned black due to human sin. [One such sin would be lying one assumes.] Thus rediscovered the black rock was then housed in a cube structure as ordained by the moon idol El-Lah. This is what Moslem liturgy tells us. How many gaping idiots believe it?

The Kabaa shrine was an ancient pagan center which served many functions, including political, social, spiritual and economic. It was no more created by the Allah-thing, then Abraham is connected to Muhammad or Judaism to Islam. In Moslem theology the divine white rock handed out to Adam by the Allah turned black over time from human sin. The sin of lying, the sin of distorting, the sin of conflation, the sin of revisionism, the sin of deceit – these sins would indeed make any white rock black. Moslems should know.