Kaaba

Kaaba

The Kaaba (Arabic: ٱلْكَعْبَة‎, romanized: al-Kaʿbah, lit. 'The Cube', Arabic pronunciation: [kaʕ.bah]), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah, is a building at the center of Islam's most important mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered by Muslims to be the Bayt Allah and is the qibla for Muslims around the world when performing salah.

Quotes

• "Regarding the K'bta (Kaaba) of Ibrahim, we have been unable to discover what it is except that, because the blessed Abraham grew rich in property and wanted to get away from the envy of the Canaanites, he chose to live in the distant and spacious parts of the desert. Since he lived in tents, he built that place for the worship of God and for the offering of sacrifices. It took its present name from what it had been, since the memory of the place was preserved with the generations of their race. Indeed, it was no new thing for the Arabs to worship there, but goes back to antiquity, to their early days, in that they show honor to the father of the head of their people."
  • Robert G., Hoyland (1997). Seeing Islam as others saw it. THE DARWIN PRESS. p. 187.

• Narrated Abdullah: When the Prophet entered Mecca on the day of the conquest, there were 360 idols around the Kaaba. The Prophet started striking them with a stick he had in his hand and was saying, "Truth has come and Falsehood has vanished..." (Qur'an 17:81)"
  • — Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 59, Hadith 583

• Shihab (said) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) entered the Kaaba on the day of the conquest, and in it was a picture of the angels (mala'ika), among others, and he saw a picture of Ibrahim and he said: "May Allah kill those representing him as a venerable old man casting arrows in divination (shaykhan yastaqsim bil-azlam)." Then he saw the picture of Maryam, so he put his hands on it and he said: "Erase what is in it [the Kaaba] in the way of pictures except the picture of Maryam."
  • — al-Azraqi, Akhbar Mecca: History of Mecca

• “The other stones which were worshipped as idols were actually used as cornerstones of the Ka‘ba and as such we must consider also the Maqãm Ibrahîm.”
  • First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936, Leiden, 1987. (also quoted in in Goel, S. R. (1993). Hindu temples: What happened to them. Vol. II)

• The Mohammedan, who thinks that every ritual, every form, image or ceremony used by a non-Mohammedan is sinful does not think so when he comes to his own shrine, the Caaba. Every religious Mohammedan, wherever he prays, must imagine that he is standing before the Caaba. When he makes a pilgrimage there, he must kiss the black stone in the wall of the shrine. All the kisses that have been imprinted on that stone, by millions and millions of pilgrims, will stand up as witnesses for the benefit of the faithful on the last day of judgement. Then, there is the well of Zimzim. Mohammedans believe that whoever draws a little water out of that well will have his sins pardoned, and he will, after the day of resurrection, have a fresh body, and live forever.
  • Swami Vivekananda, Complete works, 11.39