Scholars
the Kaaba
The Kaaba, the sacred House in Mecca''s mosque: the building of Abraham and Ishmael in Islamic memory, and the Muslims'' qibla in their five prayers from everywhere on earth. Around it pilgrims circle seven times in every Hajj and Umrah, and it carries its black gold-embroidered covering each year. It was a house of idols before Islam until the conquest purified it in 630, and it was built and expanded over the centuries: Abraham, Quraysh, Ibn al-Zubayr, Abd al-Malik, the Ottomans. The Kaaba stayed the centre of the Islamic earth: toward it turn the prayers of a billion Muslims each day. It is the heart the ummah's whole worship turns on: in every prayer the Muslim faces it, in every season the pilgrims circle it, in every night those who came from earth's ends pray around it. Across the centuries it stayed the House tribes united over and kings contended for, until its name became the name of unity itself.