Meteorite worship was relatively common in ancient Phoenicia. A “holy city” such as Tyre or Paphos was expected to have a shrine with a “betyl”, which was the word used for a meteorite. Interestingly, there seems to be a correlation between ancient reverence for meteorites and temple prostitution. (There has been some scholarly speculation about whether the shrine of Bethel also referred to a “betyl”.) So, any meteorite worship in an Islamic context ironically exhibits its cultural authenticity (as well as a certain level of rank idolatry). There is reason to believe that the Shi’a are correct about the authenticity of a mu’ta, or a “marriage of pleasure”; for the “sacred marriage” rite was integral to ancient Semitic religious practice.

Josiah’s reforms and the Deuteronomist priests of Israel went out of their way to eradicate the ancient folkways of stone worship and temple prostitution, and both Judaism and Christianity show the effects of these reforms. Given that Muslims claim that Judaism and Christianity were corruptions of an ancient religion that it claims to restore, it makes one wonder if Islam regards the reforms of Josiah (against stone worship, child sacrifice, temple prostitution, et cetera) as the “corruptions” in Judaism and Christianity that they rail against.

Contemporaneous with Semitic reverence for meteorites was the Greek custom of revering fossil bones as relics and regarding them as the bones of giants who were regarded as the founding ancestors of the various city states. For that matter, the ancient rites of temple prostitution can be found to this day among the Ouled Nail tribe in Algeria; this tribe may be accurate in regarding its ancient customs to be an authentic expression of Islamic faith.

So, is Islam authentic, as it claims to be? I think that is the wrong question to ask, for one should not equate authenticity with theological merit or illiteracy with wisdom.