This ihrám of the shrine consists of a soft white material manufactured in Yemen, and is hung on the outer walls to the height of seven feet from the ground. One of the most interesting sights is the selling of this stuff to the richer pilgrims by the keepers of the Ka’bah. A square inch of it will often fetch as much as £3. The purchaser considers it his most cherished possession. The mere touch of it is held to cure every sickness. The sight of it is enough to protect its owner from the evil eye. So long as he has it about him Satan will practise his snares on him in vain. Thousands of miracles are believed to be wrought by its use. “So-and-So is a lucky man,” one devout will say to another, “he has obtained through God’s grace a strip of the ihrám of the Blessed Ka’bah.” The chief door-keeper of the present day goes by the name of Sheykh Shaban. The post is a coveted one, and has become hereditary of recent years. On the Hájj-day the ihrám is taken down, and is replaced by the kesveh, which is composed of eight pieces of black silk, embroidered round the margins with Kurán texts in letters of gold, and of a curtain of the same design and colour. Two of these pieces of silk go to cover each one of the outer walls. They are hung from the corners on long silver loops. The curtain is used to drape the silver-plated door, and falls to the ground from a rod of solid silver beautifully chased.
The “Square House,” or Ka’bah, stands almost in the centre of the Harem, rather nearer to the west than to the east. The ground whereon it lies is accounted holy, since it was here that Adam, after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden, first worshipped his Creator, a tent being sent down from heaven for the purpose. This act of grace on the part of the heavenly hosts was the compassionate result of a conference over which the Archangel Gabriel had presided. There was substituted for the tent by Adam’s son Seth a structure of clay and stone which was rebuilt at a later period, under the superintendence of Abraham and Ishmael his son. So much for the legendary history of the house. The task of restoring the sacred edifice, in the time of Ignorance, fell to the lot of the four chief tribes of Arabia. It was rebuilt by the Kuraish, a few years after Muhammad’s birth, and was destroyed by the torrents thirty-five years after its completion. Then ensued an intertribal war, each of the clans claiming for itself a complete side of the house which should face its tents, till the cause of strife was settled by an agreement among the contending tribes to accept the arbitration of Abú-Amid, the chief of the Kuraish. The decision of Abú-Amid was that the tribes should abide by the determination of the man who, on the following Friday afternoon, should be the first to leave the temple. So haphazard an arrangement was bound to appeal to the sportsmanlike instinct of a race that has been ever wont to test the wisdom of its actions by the arbitrament of chance. The warriors sheathed their swords, and when the fateful day arrived not a single murmur was raised against the man who, being the first to reach the open air, set about planning the building as it now appears. This man, it is said, was Muhammad. The Ka’bah, which was certainly reconstructed in the year 1627—the successive Sherífs and Sultans adding to its interior decoration—is said to have been destroyed and restored twelve times since the death of the Prophet.
In shape the Ka’bah is an almost solid square, having from outside a length of fourteen yards, and being eleven yards broad and sixteen yards high. From afar it has the look of an immense block of dark-coloured granite. The double roof is supported from within by pillars of aloe-wood, and is held in so great reverence by the devout that it is declared by them never to have been polluted by the Harem pigeons until recently, the present misbehaviour on the part of the birds being taken as a sign of the approaching end of the world. The gateway, which fills a considerable portion of the eastern wall, is raised about six feet from the ground, and measures in height some four yards, as far as I could gauge. The door itself is made of aloe-wood, and is covered over with plates of solid silver, and studded with heavy silver nails. The precious metal was presented to the house, in 959 of the Hegira, by the generous Sultan Suleymán. Inlaid in the eastern end of the southern wall of the Ka’bah is the famous Black Stone which might be said to be the centre of the pilgrims’ circling aspirations, and the pivot of their circumambulations round the sacred precincts. Another stone, marking the Sepulchre of Ishmael, lies at the base of the northern wall, and from the roof above there projects a horizontal semicircular rainspout, which, including the end fixed in the wall, is five yards long, measures twenty-four inches in width, and is made of massive gold. The water flows from the lip of the split pipe to the floor of the Harem below. The tomb of Abraham, the legendary builder of the temple, is situated close by, to the east, not far from the Gate of Beni Shaibeh.
The Prophet’s faithful followers, when they say their prayers, must turn their faces in the direction of the Ka’bah, no matter where they may be. This ascertaining of the exact position of the House of God, which is the centre of the Holy City, is called “taking the Kiblah or Outlook.” Thus the Muhammadans of Syria, and those beyond it to the north, having fixed the Kiblah, are face to face with the northern wall, sacred to the Stone of Ishmael and the gold rainspout: their prayers are therefore sure to be heard. Those of Persia, Turkistan, Northern India, Sind, and a part of China, look in the direction of the north-eastern angle, called the Rokné-Araghi, which is an equally blessed outlook, since the door of the house is on the eastern side and rather more to the north than the south thereof. The faces of the Muslims of Aden, of Southern India, of Madagascar, and of Australia, are turned to the eastern wall or the south-eastern corner of it, while those of the faithful of Constantinople, as well as those of the Muhammadans of some parts of Russia, are opposite to the western wall of the sacred building. The Boers believed themselves to be the “chosen people.” It is a pity they are not Muhammadans. For, if they were, they would be considered now the chosen people of Islám for the simple reason that they would face the southern wall of the Ka’bah, wherein is laid the Black Stone of immemorial sanctity. But the prayers the most acceptable to God, when all is said and done, are the prayers raised from any quarter within the Harem of the House of Allah on earth.
The interior of the Ka’bah is far more impressive than the exterior. The silver threshold is reached by means of a staircase running on wheels. There the pilgrim must prostrate himself, asking God to grant him his heart’s desire. He must be careful to maintain the correct demeanour, closing his eyes and lifting up his hands, inasmuch as the angels, who are believed to keep watch over the entrance, are quick to resent the slightest breach in the prescribed ceremony. The guide who accompanied me assured me of the fact. He was good enough to see that I had forgotten neither my rosary of ninety-nine beads corresponding with the wondrous names of God used in prayer, nor yet the lump of clay (called mohre) whereon are stamped the selfsame names, together with those of the twelve Imáms and the Prophet. It was on the clay that I bowed my head in contrition when I fell on my knees. My guide, who had also prostrated himself, expressed the conviction, on rising, that the angels were on his side. I was also about to declare myself to be on the side of the angels when a couple of sturdy pilgrims, in their impatience to behold the Light of their eyes, wedged me tight between their bulky forms and then hustled me to the ground, adding insult to injury by being obviously unconscious of the presence of my humble body. They were “absent-minded beggars” with a vengeance. I can only say that, on regaining my feet, I hoped the silent prayer I said, on the spur of my annoyance, would be answered ere long; but when I crossed the doorsill I was overcome by a sense of my own unworthiness, so that I pardoned the men who had offended me. I raised my eyes. The ceiling was flat, and supported on three columns of aloe-wood, and from it hung vases of great beauty on delicate gold chains. The walls were covered with red velvet, save where, in white squares, were written, in Arabic characters, the words “Allah-Jal-Jelalah! (Praise to God the Almighty!)” The velvet is said to have been a gift from Sultan Abdul Aziz. In the corner formed by the northern and eastern walls there is a door leading to the roof. This door, which is called the Door of Repentance, is closed to the public; but a prayer said on the hither side of the threshold meets with a gracious response, and the pilgrim is clean-washed of his sins if he but touch the wood with his hand. The floor is now flagged with marble—the work of some twenty years ago.
While I was admiring the unpretentious grace of the holy shrine, and meditating from its threshold on the golden age of Islám, my guide broke in on my thoughts, saying: “You are allowed to make two prostrations at the base of any one of the pillars. Let me advise you, in the welfare of your immortal soul, to choose the one facing the Black Stone outside, which is the most sacred spot under the canopy of heaven.” The difficulty was to force my way thither. The whole house was packed with pilgrims. Some were praying, some were weeping, others were groaning or beating their chests, and all—except the Bedouins—were clad in their sacred habits. A great awe fell on me. It was as though the graves had yielded up their dead at the blast of Israfil’s trumpet. All eyes were blind, all ears deaf. The thought of home, of country, of wife and child seemed drowned as in a sea of passionate devotion to the Creator of those human blessings. And from outside, in the Harem, there arose the chant of the Talbih, which every pilgrim must sing on sighting Mecca, on donning the Ihrám, on entering the Harem, on starting for the Valley of Desire and the Mountain of Compassion, and on performing the little pilgrimage of Omreh. I paused in the effort to reach the southern pillar, and listened to the singing from without.
Labbaik, Allahomma, Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, enal-hamda, Vanahmeta lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!