<P> According to the historian al - Juwayni, the Stone was returned twenty - three years later, in 952 . The Qarmatians held the Black Stone for ransom, and forced the Abbasids to pay a huge sum for its return . It was wrapped in a sack and thrown into the Friday Mosque of Kufa, accompanied by a note saying "By command we took it, and by command we have brought it back ." Its abduction and removal caused further damage, breaking the stone into seven pieces . Its abductor, Abu Tahir, is said to have met a terrible fate; according to Qutb al - Din, "the filthy Abu Tahir was afflicted with a gangrenous sore, his flesh was eaten away by worms, and he died a most terrible death". To protect the shattered stone, the custodians of the Kaaba commissioned a pair of Meccan goldsmiths to build a silver frame to surround it, and it has been housed within a similar frame ever since . </P> <P> In the 11th century, a man allegedly sent by the Fatimid caliph al - Hakim bi-Amr Allah attempted to smash the Black Stone but was killed on the spot, having caused only slight damage . In 1674, according to Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, someone smeared the Black Stone with excrement so that "every one who kissed it retired with a sullied beard". Twelvers from Safavid Iran were suspected of being responsible and were the target of curses from other Muslims for centuries afterwards, though the explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton doubted that they were the culprits; he attributed the act to "some Jew or Greek, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry". </P> <P> The Black Stone plays a central role in the ritual of istilam, when pilgrims kiss the Black Stone, touch it with their hands or raise their hands towards it while repeating the takbir, "God is Greatest". They perform this in the course of walking seven times around the Kaaba in a counterclockwise direction (tawaf), emulating the actions of Muhammad . At the end of each circuit, they perform istilam and may approach the Black Stone to kiss it at the end of tawaf . In modern times, large crowds make it practically impossible for everyone to kiss the stone, so it is currently acceptable to point in the direction of the Stone on each of their seven circuits around the Kaaba . Some even say that the Stone is best considered simply as a marker, useful in keeping count of the ritual circumambulations that one has performed . </P> <P> Writing in Dawn in Madinah: A Pilgrim's Progress, Muzaffar Iqbal described his experience of venerating the Black Stone during a pilgrimage to Mecca: </P>

What is the history of black stone in mecca