Kaaba

The Kaaba (also spelled Kaaba, Kabah, or Kabah, and sometimes called al-Kaaba al-Musharrafa) is a stone structure at the center of Masjid al-Haram, the holiest mosque in Islam, located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Muslims regard it as the Baytullah (House of God), and it sets the qibla—the direction of prayer—for Muslims worldwide.

According to Islamic tradition, the Kaaba has been rebuilt multiple times. The most famous reconstruction was by Ibrahim and his son Ismail, after Ibrahim returned to the valley of Mecca years after leaving his wife Hajar and Ismail there at Allah’s command. The current building dates to after a fire damaged the original during the Umayyad siege of Mecca in 683 CE. Circling the Kaaba seven times counterclockwise, known as Tawaf, is a required rite for completing the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages. The area where pilgrims walk is called the Mataaf.

In early Islam, Muslims prayed facing Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as the qibla, until a Quranic revelation to Muhammad changed the direction to the Kaaba. The Kaaba and Mataaf are surrounded by pilgrims every day of the Islamic year except the 9th of Dhu’l-Hijja (the Day of Arafah), when the Kiswah—the cloth covering the structure—is replaced. The largest crowds occur during Ramadan and Hajj, when millions gather for Tawaf. In a recent year, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah reported 6,791,100 external pilgrims for Umrah.

Today, Muslims of all sects—including Sunnis and Shias—pray facing the Kaaba, except for certain heterodox groups like the Druze, Alevis, Nusayris, and Ismailis, who hold that God cannot be assigned a place. Historically, the Qarmatians, a now-extinct syncretic Shia sect, rejected the Kaaba as the qibla; in 930, they sacked Mecca and took the Black Stone to al-Ahsa, intending to start a new era in Islam. The differing orientations of early mosque structures remain a subject of debate between revisionist historians and conservatives.

**Etymology and pre-Islamic usage**

In Arabic, *Ka'ba* literally means “cube,” so the most common etymology is that the building was named for its cubic shape. Some scholars question whether the cubic sense of *ka'b* existed before Islam and have sought other origins. One disputed hypothesis links “Kaaba” to the southern Arabian or Ethiopian word *mikrab*, meaning a temple. Another connects it to *Kʿbt*, related to the Kaaba of Najran.

In pre-Islamic Arabian religions—from the Levant to Yemen—many deities, such as Al-Lat, Dhu al-Khalasa, al-Uzza (also called Chaabou), Dushara, and Dhu Samawi, were represented by aniconic cubic stone carvings or cubic structures considered their abodes. Sacred zones (haram) surrounded these sanctuaries, and the name “Ka’b” was widely used to denote such sanctity. These structures are known mainly from the Arabian Peninsula, with exceptions like the Kaaba of Zoroaster. The Black Stone of the Kaaba has been compared to pre-Islamic baetyls—often black, thought to be meteorites, and venerated in homes or temples of a particular deity. There was a “Red Stone” in the Kaaba of Ghaiman in South Arabia, and a “White Stone” in the Kaaba of al-Abalat near modern Tabalah. Grunebaum, in *Classical Islam*, notes that divinity in that period was often experienced through fetishism of stones, mountains, rock formations, or unusual trees.

Although much pagan cultural heritage was erased during Islam’s establishment of monotheism, historical research has found traces of sanctuaries that rivaled the Meccan Kaaba. Yet the belief that there has always been only one Kaaba is deeply embedded in Muslim tradition. Today, the Kaaba and Masjid al-Haram in Mecca are identified as the prayer direction, but an archaeological inscription from the Taif region, dating the construction of Masjid al-Haram to 78 AH, suggests this view may be anachronistic. Additionally, a Quranic verse about Muhammad’s night journey to Masjid al-Aqsa offers clues that the *Masjid al-Haram* mentioned in the Quran might not be the one in Mecca.

**History: Mythologies**

According to mythological accounts, before the creation of the earth, the Divine Throne (Arsh) rested upon the waters. Allah sent a wind to form a dome at the site of the Kaaba; the earth was created beneath this dome and stabilized with mountains. Mount Abu Qubays was the first mountain placed on the earth, and all others spread from it. Another tradition says that a thousand years before the earth’s creation, the Kaaba was a white essence on the waters, supported by two angels glorifying Allah. The earth expanded beneath this essence, and the Kaaba became the center of the earth. Many of these myths—such as the primordial ocean and the dome—parallel other ancient narratives.