Theodore Van Loan
Graduate Student/ Ph.D. Candidate
University of Pennsylvania
The title of this paper refers to a tradition in the Ṣaḥīḥ of Bukhārī which tells of a
bargain made between the caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and the Black Stone of the Ka’ba.
Addressing the stone directly, ‘Umar denies it supernatural powers, yet calls for his
followers to revere it. ‘Umar skirts the charge of litholatry by exorcising sacrality from the visible object and transferring it to the abstract act of prophetic veneration. These dictates demand a sacred gaze that denies the efficacy of contemplating the physical object before the viewer’s eyes. I contend that this denial is articulated by a repeated motif within in the Dome of the Rock’s mosaic program.
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