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Historian Patricia Crone has cast doubt on the claim that Mecca was a major historical trading outpost.Other scholars such as Glen Bowersock disagree and assert that it was.Crone later on disregarded some of her theories.She argues that Meccan trade relied on skins, hides, manufactured leather goods, clarified butter, Hijazi woollens, and camels. She suggests that most of these goods were destined for the Roman army, which is known to have required colossal quantities of leather and hides for its equipment.
Prior to Islam, the Kaaba was a holy site for the various Bedouin tribes throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Once every lunar year, Bedouin people would make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Setting aside any tribal feuds, they would worship their gods in the Kaaba and trade with each other in the city.Various sculptures and paintings were held inside the Kaaba. A statue of Hubal (the principal idol of Mecca) and statues of other pagan deities are known to have been placed in or around the Kaaba.Apart from the paintings of pagan idols decorating the walls, which were destroyed at the behest of Muhammad after his conquest of Mecca,there were also paintings of angels, of Ibrahim holding divination arrows, and of Isa (Jesus) and his mother Maryam (Mary), which Muhammad spared.Undefined decorations, money and a pair of ram's horns were recorded to be inside the Kaaba.The pair of ram's horns were said to have belonged to the ram sacrificed by Ibrahim in place of his son Ismail as held by Islamic tradition.
During its history, the Black Stone at the Kaaba has been struck and smashed by a stone fired from a catapult,it has been smeared with excrement,stolen and ransomed by the Qarmatiansand smashed into several fragments.
al-Azraqi provides the following narrative on the authority of his grandfather
