The stone was venerated in Mecca before Islam and is bound up with the traditions of the Kaaba's founding by Abraham and Ishmael. A famous account preserved in the early biographies tells how, around 605 CE, the Quraysh rebuilt the Kaaba and fell into dispute over which clan should have the honour of returning the Black Stone to its place; the young Muhammad, asked to arbitrate, laid the stone on a cloak whose corners the clan leaders raised together, and then set it in the wall himself, satisfying all parties.
In 930 CE the Qarmatians, a radical sect, attacked Mecca during the pilgrimage, massacred pilgrims and carried the Black Stone away to their stronghold in Bahrayn (eastern Arabia). It was held for around two decades before being returned, and by then it had been broken; ever since, its pieces have been secured within a band of silver. Successive rulers, Abbasid, Ottoman and, today, the Saudi state through the General Authority for the Care and Management of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque, have maintained the setting and, periodically, renewed the silver casing.
The Black Stone remains a fixed point of the pilgrimage. To reach and kiss it is prized but not required, and Islamic teaching, expressed in a well-known statement attributed to the Caliph Umar, holds that the stone is honoured in obedience to the Prophet's example and can neither harm nor benefit of itself, a caution against treating the veneration as worship of the stone.