THE KAʿBAH. (Burton.)
II. The History of the Kaʿbah, is embraced in the history of the Baitu ʾllāh or [MASJIDU ʾL-HARAM].
According to the Traditions and the inventive genius of Muslim writers, the Kaʿbah was first constructed in heaven (where a model of it still remains, called the Baitu ʾl-Maʿmūr) two thousand years before the creation of the world. Adam erected the Kaʿbah on earth exactly below the spot its perfect model occupies in heaven, and selected the stones from the five sacred mountains, Sinai, al-Jūdī, Ḥirāʾ, Olivet, and Lebanon. Ten thousand angels were appointed to guard the structure, but, as Burckhardt remarks, they appear to have been often most remiss in their duty! At the Deluge the Sacred House was destroyed. But the Almighty is said to have instructed Abraham to rebuild it. In its reconstruction Abraham was assisted by his son Ishmael, who with his mother Hagar were at the time residents of Makkah, Abraham having journeyed from Syria in order to obey the commands of God.
Upon digging they found the original foundations of the building. But wanting a stone to mark the corner of the building, Ishmael started in search of one, and as he was going in the direction of Jabal Qubais, the angel Gabriel met him, and gave him the famous black stone. Ibn ʿAbbās relates that the Prophet said, the black stone when it came down from Paradise was whiter than milk, but that it has become black from the sins of those who have touched it. (Mishkāt, book xi. ch. iv. pt. 2.)
Upon the death of Ishmael, the Kaʿbah fell into the possession of the Banū Jurhum, and remained in their hands for a thousand years. It then became the property of the Banū K͟huzāʿah, who held it for three hundred years. But being constantly exposed to torrents, it was destroyed, and was rebuilt by Quṣaiy ibn Kilāb, who put a top to it. Up to this time it is said to have been open at the roof.
It is said, by Muḥammadan historians, that ʿAmr ibn Luḥaiy was the first who introduced idolatry into Arabia, and that he brought the great idol Hubal from Hait in Mesopotamia and placed it in the sacred house. It then became a Pantheon common to all the tribes. [[IDOLS].] The tribe of Quṣaiy were the first who built dwelling-houses round the Kaʿbah. The successors of the Banū Quṣaiy were the Quraish. Soon after they came into possession, the Kaʿbah was destroyed by fire, and they rebuilt it of wood and of a smaller size, than it had been in the time of the Banū Quṣaiy. The roof was supported within by six pillars, and the statue of Hubal was placed over a wall then existing within the Kaʿbah. This took place during the youth of Muḥammad. Al-Azraqī, quoted by Burckhardt, says that the figure of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus was sculptured as a deity upon one of the six pillars nearest the gate.
The grandfather of Muḥammad, ʿAbdu ʾl-Mut̤t̤alib, the son of Hāshim, became the custodian of the Sacred House; and during his time, the Kaʿbah being considered too low in its structure, the Quraish wished to raise it; so they demolished it and then they rebuilt till the work reached the place of the black stone. Each tribe wishing to have the honour of raising the black stone into its place, they quarrelled amongst themselves. But they at last agreed that the first man who should enter the gate of the enclosure should be umpire. Muḥammad was the first to enter, and he was appointed umpire. He thereupon ordered them to place the stone upon a cloth and each tribe by its representative to take hold of the cloth and lift it into its place. The dispute was thus ended, and when the stone had reached its proper place, Muḥammad fixed it in its situation with his own hand.
At the commencement of Muḥammad’s mission, it is remarkable that there is scarcely an allusion to the Kaʿbah, and this fact, taken with the circumstance that the earliest Qiblah or direction for prayer, was Jerusalem, and not the Kaʿbah, seems to imply that Muḥammad’s strong iconoclastic tendencies did not incline his sympathies to this ancient idol temple with its superstitious ceremonies. Had the Jews favourably received the new prophet as one who taught the religion of Abraham, to the abrogation of that of Moses and Jesus, Jerusalem and not Makkah would have been the sacred city, and the ancient Rock [[SAKHRAH]] and not the Kaʿbah would have been the object of superstitious reverence.
Taking the Sūrahs chronologically, the earliest reference in the Qurʾān to the Kaʿbah occurs in [Sūrah lii. 4], where the Prophet swears by the frequented house (al-Baitu ʾl-Maʿmūr), but commentators are not agreed whether it refers to the Kaʿbah in Makkah, or its heavenly model above, which is said to be frequented by the angels. We then come to [Sūrah xvii. 1], where Muḥammad refers to his celebrated night dream of his journey from the Sacred Mosque (al-Masjidu ʾl-Ḥarām) at Makkah to the Remote Mosque (al-Masjidu ʾl-Aqṣā) at Jerusalem. And in this verse we find the Rock at Jerusalem spoken of as “the precinct of which We (God) have blessed, to show him (Muḥammad) of our signs,” proving that even then the Prophet of Arabia had his heart fixed on Mount Zion, and not on the Kaʿbah.
When Muḥammad found himself established in al-Madīnah, with a very good prospect of his obtaining possession of Makkah, and its historic associations, he seems to have withdrawn his thoughts from Jerusalem, and its Sacred Rock and to fix them on the house at Bakkah as the home founded for mankind,—Blessed, and a guidance to all creatures. ([Sūrah iii. 90]). The Jews proving obdurate, and there being little chance of his succeeding in establishing his claim as their prophet spoken of by Moses, he changes the Qiblah, or direction for prayer, from Jerusalem to Makkah. The house at Makkah is made “a place of resort unto men and a sanctuary” ([Sūrah ii. 119]).