Then they prepared to build. But Abraham knew nothing of architecture.
God sent a cloud of the size of the Kaaba, to show them, by its shadow on the ground, what were to be the dimensions of the house, and to give them shade in which to build.
But some say that the Serpent arrived and instructed Abraham in the proportions of the house. After that, Abraham and Ishmael began to dig the trenches which were to receive the foundations; and they gave them the depth of a man’s stature. Then they raised them to the level of the soil; after that, they cut stones out of the neighboring rocks for the walls of the edifice. Abraham built, and Ishmael handed the stones. Now, when the wall got above his reach, Abraham placed a stone on the ground, and stood upon that to build, and he left thereon the impression of his foot. The stone remains to this day, and is called Makam Ibrahîm.
And when the temple was built, God sent Gabriel to instruct Abraham in all the rights of pilgrimage, and how to visit Mina and Mount Arafat, and how to go processionally round the Kaaba, and to cast the stones, and to wear the pilgrim’s dress, and to make sacrifice, and to shave the head, to visit the holy places, and all that concerns the pilgrimage.
That same year Abraham made the pilgrimage, and he confided the care of the temple to Ishmael, his son, and he said to him, “This land belongs to thee and to thy children till the Judgment Day.”
Then Abraham, turning him about, went at God’s command to the top of a high mountain, and cried, “O men, God has built you a house, and He calls you to visit it.”
And all men and women, and the children yet unborn, answered from every quarter of the world, “We will visit it.”
Then Abraham returned into Syria.[356]
Now the well of Zemzem was formed when Hagar and Ishmael were in the desert. The angel Gabriel trod in the ground and the water bubbled up. At first it was sweet as honey, and as nourishing as milk. This well is one of the wonders of Mecca. We shall relate more of it presently.
And the stone that was white and shining, but now is black, that stone was an angel who wept over the sins of men till he has grown dark; that also is one of the wonders of Mecca.