Pagan Roots

From the remotest time Mecca had been a place of pagan pilgrimage.  Arabs came to bow down in the temple of Kaaba (“cube”) before a certain black stone, probably a meteorite said to have been brought down from heaven.  The use of meteorites was a perennial pagan favorite; Acts:19:35And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
See All... mentions “that which was sent down from Zeus,” probably a meteorite.  As part of the pagan ritual, they were required to run around it seven times and to kiss it, before running a mile to the nearby dry well of Wadi Mina “to throw stones at the devil.”  [These pre-Islamic pagan rituals are a major part of Islam today!] 

             The Sword of the Prophet: Islam history, theology, impact on the world.  p.21