The Kaaba (sometimes called ‘The Cube’ or al-ka`bah al-musharrafah, is a building at the centre of Islam’s most sacred mosque, that is, Al-Masjid Al-Ḥarām (The Sacred Mosque), in Mecca, Hejaz, Saudi Arabia.
It is the most sacred site in Islam, which is considered by Muslims to be Bayt Allāh (the House of God), and has a similar role to the Tabernacle and Holy of Holies in Judaism. Wherever they are in the world, Muslims are expected to face the Kaaba when performing salat (prayer). From any point in the world, the direction facing the Kaaba is called the qibla.
An Islamic scholar, Sheikh Semiu Alkilany, explained that the Kaaba is a meteorite that Muslims believe was placed by Abraham and Ishmael in a corner of the Kaaba, a symbol of God’s covenant with Abraham and Ishmael and, by extension, with the Muslim community itself. It is embedded in the eastern corner of the Kaaba.
The Muslim belief is that the black-cube shape house was first built by Adam when Allah sent him to the earth with his wife, Eve / Hawa. The house was then rebuilt by Abraham and his elder son, Ishmael, to worship Allah, the only God but over time, it became the most important and most sacred religious site of Arab pagans who worshipped 360 idols of gods and goddesses inside the house.
It became an annual pilgrimage site of all Arab Mushrik pagans and a business hub for them. Kaaba became the biggest trade hub of Arabian Peninsula. The chief caretaker of Kaaba was Abdul Muttalib. The grand father of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He belonged to the most powerful and richest tribe named Quraish. They were custodians of Kaaba.
“When Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) got revelation from Allah ,then Muhammad and his followers entered inside Kaaba and demolished all pagan idols and dedicated the house solely to worship only Allah. It then became an important ritual of Muslim to perform tawaf (circulation) seven times around the black house and sacrifice a domestic animal in the name of Allah. It became obligatory for all financially and physically capable Muslims to visit Kaaba at least once in lifetime, to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.”
He noted that every year, millions of Muslims travel to Mecca for the hajj, umrah, which is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims travel to Islam’s most sacred mosque, al-Masjid al-Haram, which houses the Kaaba during the six-day pilgrimage, which has some divine precincts around it. Mecca is thought to be the place where Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, were provided with a spring of water in the desert.
“One of the five pillars of Islam requires every Muslim who is able to do so to perform the hajj pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. Multiple parts of the hajj require pilgrims to make some rites around the Kaaba such as Maqama Ibrahim( the station of Ibrahim), Hajara-l-aswad (the Black stone), Safah wa-l-Marwah (the alternating point of Safa and Marwa) and Bi”r Zamzam (the well of Zamzam) which all have divine precincts.”
In summary, Sheikh Alkilany noted that the Kaaba is not just an ordinary cubic house as it has a spiritual capacity and power that Almighty Allah has endowned it, being the epicenter of the universe, the heartbeat of the whole world. Looking at the topology of the atlas of the world, it is in the middle curve of the entire world by north, west, south, east which has the highest number of assembly of people devotees that worship Allah.
