[ Originally written and posted on MySpace on April 5, 2009 ]
One of the more curious volumes in the Universal Classics Library, a set published in 1901 by M. W. Dunne, is The Dabistan, or School of Manners, a one-volume abridgement of a translation in three volumes published in 1843 by David Shea and Anthony Troyer. Originally written in Persian by Mohan Fani in the years immediately before 1670 A.D., the Dabistan is not a book of etiquette but rather a survey of the religious beliefs current among the peoples of Iran, Arabia and India. The first third of the Universal Classics Library volume is occupied with the beliefs and teachings of the Parsees, the followers of Zoroaster who left Persia and moved to India. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are also described in the Dabistan.
The description of the seven temples which the Parsees devoted to the seven planets begins with the temple of Saturn wherein " the image of the regent Saturn was cut out of black stone, in a human shape, with an ape-like head; his body like a man's, with a hog's tail, and a crown on his head; in the right hand a sieve; in the left a serpent. His temple was also black stone, and his officiating ministers were negroes, Abyssinians, and persons of black complexions: they wore blue garments, and on their fingers rings of iron: . . . . " (p. 22).
According to the Dabistan, one Mahabad built a fire temple in Persia beside which he built a house " which at present is called the Kabah . . . . among the images of the Kabah was one of the moon, exceedingly beautiful, wherefore the temple was called Mahgah (Moon's place) which the Arabs generally changed into Mekka " (p. 29). Furthermore, according to the Dabistan, the black stone left in the Kabah is a representation of Saturn (p. 30).
As a matter of transscriptural conjecture, has anyone compared/contrasted the black stone of the Kabah or Kaaba with the white stone in Revelation 2:17 ? In Revelation 2:17, it is prophesied that " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. " Albert Barnes in his commentary on Revelation conjectures that the name on the white stone is the name of the Redeemer or even the name Christian. William Biederwolf, in his compilation of commentaries on the second advent, The Millennium Bible, makes no mention of the white stone in Revelation.
The Kabah or Kaaba is a cube-shaped structure as is the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:16 ( " The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. " ) In what way, transscripturally considered, might the black stone be said to be counterbalanced by the white stone?
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