Rabāḥ, while I was listening, “Did you ever find inside the House a statue of Mary and Jesus?” He answered, “Yes. I saw a richly painted image of Mary with Jesus seated in her lap. The House had six supporting columns, and the statue of Jesus and Mary was affixed to the column next to the door.”
I asked ʿAṭāʾ, “When did it disappear?”
He replied, “In the fire that broke out during the time of Ibn al-Zubayr.”
I said, “Do you mean it was still there in the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?”
He said, “I do not know, though I am inclined to think it was indeed there in his time.”
Dāwūd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, said: I returned to ʿAṭāʾ some time later and he told me, “The statue of Jesus and his mother was on the middle column.”
Al-Azraqī relates: Dāwūd al-ʿAṭṭār narrated to us, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, who said: I found in the Kaʿbah, before it was demolished, a statue of Jesus and his mother. Dāwūd added: Certain custodians informed me, on the authority of Masāfiʿ ibn Shaybah, that the Prophet ﷺ said, “O Shaybah, erase every image except what lies beneath my hand,” whereupon he lifted his hand from the depiction of Jesus son of Mary and his mother.
Al-Azraqī also reports, through Saʿīd ibn Sālim: Yazīd ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn Jaʿdabah narrated to me, from Ibn Shihāb, that the Prophet ﷺ entered the Kaʿbah while it contained images of the angels. When he saw an image of Abraham he said, “May Allah curse them! They have portrayed him as an old man casting lots with divining arrows.” Then he saw an image of Mary, placed his hand upon it, and said, “Erase everything on it except the image of Mary.” Al-Azraqī transmitted this with another chain in similar wording; it is mursal. Even so, the statements of ʿAṭāʾ and ʿAmr are reliable, and this is something none of us has heard of until today.
Sulaymān ibn Ḥamzah informed us, saying: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid informed us; he said: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad informed us that Fāṭimah bint ʿAbd Allāh informed them; she said: Ibn Buraydah informed us; he said: al-Ṭabarānī informed us; he said: Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us, from