Bible Encyclopedias
Mecca

The Great Mosque and the Ka`ba

Long before Mahomet the chief sanctuary of Mecca was the Ka`ba, a rude stone building without windows, and having a door 7 ft. from the ground; and so named from its resemblance to a monstrous astragalus (die) of about 40 ft. cube, though the shapeless structure is not really an exact cube nor even exactly rectangular.' The Ka`ba has been rebuilt more than once since Mahomet purged it of idols and adopted it as the chief sanctuary of Islam, but the old form has been preserved, except in secondary details;2 so that the "Ancient House," as it is titled, is still essentially a heathen temple, adapted to the worship of Islam by the clumsy fiction that it was built by Abraham and Ishmael by divine revelation as a temple of pure monotheism, and that it was only temporarily perverted to idol worship from the time when `Amr ibn Lohai introduced the statue of Hobal from Syria' till the victory of Islam. This fiction has involved the superinduction of a new mythology over the old heathen ritual, which remains practically unchanged. Thus the chief object of veneration is the black stone, which is fixed in the external angle facing Said. The building is not exactly oriented, but itmay be called the south-east corner. Its technical name is the black corner, the others being named the Yemen (southwest), Syrian (north-west), and Irak (north-east) corners, from the lands to which they approximately point. The black stone is a small dark mass a span long, with an aspect suggesting volcanic or meteoric origin, fixed at such a height that it can be conveniently kissed by a person of middle size. It was broken by fire in the siege of A.D. 683 (not, as many authors relate, by the Carmathians), and the pieces are kept together by a silver setting. The history of this heavenly stone, given by Gabriel to Abraham, does not conceal the fact that it was originally a fetish, the most venerated of a multitude of idols and sacred stones which stood all round the sanctuary in the time of Mahomet. The Prophet destroyed the idols, but he left the characteristic form of worship - the tawdf, or sevenfold circuit of the sanctuary, the worshipper kissing or touching the objects of his veneration - and besides the black stone 1e recognized the so-called "southern" stone, the same presumably as that which is still touched in the tawaf at the Yemen corner (Muh. in Med. pp. 336, 425). The ceremony of the tawaf and the worship of stone fetishes was common to Mecca with other ancient Arabian sanctuaries.' It was, as it still is, a frequent religious exercise of the Meccans, and the first duty of one who returned to the city or arrived there under a vow of pilgrimage; and thus the outside of the Ka`ba was and is more important than the inside. Islam did away with the worship of idols; what was lost in interest by their suppression ' The exact measurements (which, however, vary according to different authorities) are stated to be: sides 37 ft. 2 in. and 38 ft. 4 in.; ends 31 ft. 7 in. and 29 ft.; height 35 ft.

The Ka`ba of Mahomet's time was the successor of an older building, said to have been destroyed by fire. It was constructed in the still usual rude style of Arabic masonry, with string courses of timber between the stones (like Solomon's Temple). The roof rested on six pillars; the door was raised above the ground and approached by a stair (probably on account of the floods which often swept the valley); and worshippers left their shoes under the stair before entering. During the first siege of Mecca (A.D. 683), the building was burned down, the Ibn Zubair reconstructed it on an enlarged scale and in better style of solid ashlar-work. After his death his most glaring innovations (the introduction of two doors on a level with the ground, and the extension of the building lengthwise to include the Hijr) were corrected by Hajjaj, under orders from the caliph, but the building retained its more solid structure. The roof now rested on three pillars, and the height was raised one-half. The Ka`ba was again entirely rebuilt after the flood of A.D. 1626, but since Hajjaj there seem to have been no structural changes.

3 Hobal was set up within the Temple over the pit that contained the sacred treasures. His chief function was connected with the sacred lot to which the Meccans were accustomed to betake themselves in all matters of difficulty.

4 See Ibn Hisham i. 54, Azraki p. 80 ('Uzza in Batn Marr); Yal ut iii. 705 (Otheyda); Bar Hebraeus on Psalm xii. 9. Stones worshipped by circling round them bore the name dawar or duwar (Krehl, Rel. d. Araber, p. 69). The later Arabs not unnaturally viewed such cultus as imitated from that of Mecca (Yaqut iv. 622, cf. Dozy, Israeliten to Mekka, p. 125, who draws very perverse inferences).

has been supplied by the invention of spots consecrated by recollections of Abraham, Ishmael and Hagar, or held to be acceptable places of prayer. Thus the space of ten spans between the black stone and the door, which is on the east side, between the black and Irak corners, and a man's height from the ground, is called the Multazam, and here prayer should be offered after the tawaf with outstretched arms and breast pressed against the house. On the other side of the door, against the same wall, is a shallow trough, which is said to mark the original site of the stone on which Abraham stood to build the Ka`ba. Here the growth of the legend can be traced, for the place is now called the "kneading-place" (Ma`jan), where the cement for the Ka`ba was prepared. This name and story do not appear in the older accounts. Once more, on the north side of the Ka`ba, there projects a low semicircular wall of marble, with an opening at each end between it and the walls of the house. The space within is paved with mosaic, and is called the I;Iijr. It is included in the tawaf, and two slabs of verde antico within it are called the graves of Ishmael and Hagar, and are places of acceptable prayer. Even the golden or gilded mizab (water-spout) that projects into the IIijr marks a place where prayer is heard, and another such place is the part of the west wall close to the Yemen corner.

The feeling of religious conservatism which has preserved the structural rudeness of the Ka`ba did not prohibit costly surface decoration. In Mahomet's time the outer walls were covered by a veil (or kiswa) of striped Yemen cloth. The caliphs substituted a covering of figured brocade, and the Egyptian government still sends with each pilgrim caravan from Cairo a new kiswa of black brocade, adorned with a broad band embroidered with golden inscriptions from the Koran, as well as a richer curtain for the door.' The door of two leaves, with its posts and lintel, is of silver gilt.

The interior of the Ka`ba is now opened but a few times every year for the general public, which ascends by the portable staircase brought forward for the purpose. Foreigners can obtain admission at any time for a special fee. The modern descriptions, from observations made under difficulties, are not very complete. Little change, however, seems to have been made since the time of Ibn Jubair, who describes the floor and walls as overlaid with richly variegated marbles, and the upper half of the walls as plated with silver thickly gilt, while the roof was veiled with coloured silk. Modern writers describe the place as windowless, but Ibn Jubair mentions five windows of rich stained glass from Irak. Between the three pillars of teak hung thirteen silver lamps. A chest in the corner to the left of one entering contained Korans, and at the Irak corner a space was cut off enclosing the stair that leads to the roof. The door to this stair (called the door of mercy - Bab el-Rahma) was plated with silver by the caliph Motawakkil. Here, in the time of Ibn Jubair, the Maqam or standing stone of Abraham was usually placed for better security, but brought out on great occasions.2 The houses of ancient Mecca pressed close upon the Ka`ba, the noblest families, who traced their descent from Iosai, the reputed founder of the city, having their dwellings immediately round the sanctuary. To the north of the Ka`ba was the Dar el-Nadwa, or place of assembly of the Koreish. The multiplication of pilgrims after Islam soon made it necessary to clear away the nearest dwellings and enlarge the place of prayer around the Ancient House. Omar, Othman and Ibn Jubair had all a share in this work, but the great founder of the mosque in its present form, with its spacious area and deep ' The old kiswa is removed on the 25th day of the month before the pilgrimage, and fragments of it are bought by the pilgrims as charms. Till the 10th day of the pilgrimage month the Ka`ba is bare.

z Before Islam the Ka`ba was opened every Monday and Thursday; in the time of Ibn Jubair it was opened with considerable ceremony every Monday and Friday, and daily in the month Rajab. But, though prayer within the building is favoured by the example of the Prophet, it is not compulsory on the Moslem, and even in the time of Ibn Batuta the opportunities of entrance were reduced to Friday and the birthday of the Prophet.

colonnades, was the caliph Mandi, who spent enormous sums in bringing costly pillars from Egypt and Syria. The work was still incomplete at his death in A.D. 7 8 5, and was finished in less sumptuous style by his successor. Subsequent repairs and additions, extending down to Turkish times, have left little of Mandi's work untouched, though a few of the pillars probably date from his days. There are more than five hundred pillars in all, of very various style and workmanship, and the enclosure-250 paces in length and 200 in breadth, according to Burckhardt's measurement - is entered by nineteen archways irregularly disposed.

After the Ka`ba the principal points of interest in the mosque are the well Zamzam and the Maqam Ibrahim. The former is a deep shaft enclosed in a massive vaulted building paved with marble, and, according to Mahommedan tradition, is the source (corresponding to the Beer-lahai-roi of Gen. xvi. 14) from which Hagar drew water for her son Ishmael. The legend tells that the well was long covered up and rediscovered by `Abd al-Mottalib, the grandfather of the Prophet. Sacred wells are familiar features of Semitic sanctuaries, and Islam, retaining the well, made a quasi-biblical story for it, and endowed its tepid waters with miraculous curative virtues. They are eagerly drunk by the pilgrims, or when poured over the body are held to give a miraculous refreshment after the fatigues of religious exercise; and the manufacture of bottles or jars for carrying the water to distant countries is quite a trade. Ibn Jubair mentions a curious superstition of the Meccans, who believed that the water rose in the shaft at the full moon of the month Shaban. On this occasion a great crowd, especially of young people, thronged round the well with shouts of religious enthusiasm, while the servants of the well dashed buckets of water over their heads. The Maqam of Abraham is also connected with a relic of heathenism, the ancient holy stone which once stood on the Ma`jan, and is said to bear the prints of the patriarch's feet. The whole legend of this stone, which is full of miraculous incidents, seems to have arisen from a misconception, the Maqam Ibrahim in the Koran meaning the sanctuary itself; but the stone, which is a block about 3 spans in height and 2 in breadth, and in shape "like a potter's furnace" (Ibn Jubair), is certainly very ancient. No one is now allowed to see it, though the box in which it lies can be seen or touched through a grating in the little chapel that surrounds it. In the middle ages it was sometimes shown, and Ibn Jubair describes the pious enthusiasm with which he drank Zamzam water poured on the footprints. It was covered with inscriptions in an unknown character, one of which was copied by Fakihi in his history of Mecca. To judge by the facsimile in Dozy's Israeliten to Mekka, the character is probably essentially one with that of the Syrian Sala inscriptions, which extended through the Nejd and into the Hejaz.3 Safa and Merwa. - In religious importance these two points or "hills," connected by the A /lab-a, stand second only to the Ka`ba. Sala is an elevated platform surmounted by a triple arch, and approached by a flight of steps. 4 It lies south-east of the Ka`ba, facing the black corner, and 76 paces from the "Gate of Sala," which is architecturally the chief gate of the mosque. Merwa is a similar platform, formerly covered with a single arch, on the opposite side of the valley. It stands on a spur of the Red Mountain called Jebel Kuaylian. The course between these two sacred points is 493 paces long, and the religious ceremony called the "sa`y" consists in traversing it seven times, beginning and ending at Sala. The lowest part of the course, between the socalled green milestones, is done at a run. This ceremony, which, as we shall presently see, is part of the omra, is generally said to be performed in memory of Hagar, who ran to and fro between the two eminences vainly seeking water for her son. The observance, however, is certainly of pagan origin; and at one time there were idols on both the so-called hills (see especially Azraqi, pp. 74, 78).

The Ceremonies and the Pilgrimage

Before Islam the Ka`ba was the local sanctuary of the Meccans, where they prayed and did See De Vogue, Syrie centrale: inscr. sem.; Lady Anne Blunt Pilgrimage of Nejd, ii., and W. R. Smith, in the Athenaeum, March 20, i 880.

4 Ibn Jubair speaks of fourteen steps, Ali Bey of four, Burckhardt of three. The surrounding ground no doubt has risen so that the old name "hill of Said" is now inapplicable.

sacrifice, where oaths were administered and hard cases submitted to divine sentence according to the immemorial custom of Semitic shrines. But, besides this, Mecca was already a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage with the ancient Arabs was the fulfilment of a vow, which appears to have generally terminated - at least on the part of the well-to-do - in a sacrificial feast. A vow of pilgrimage might be directed to other sanctuaries than Mecca - the technical word for it (ihlal) is applied, for example, to the pilgrimage to Manat (Bakri, p. 519). He who was under such a vow was bound by ceremonial observances of abstinence from certain acts (e.g. hunting) and sensual pleasures, and in particular was forbidden to shear or comb his hair till the fulfilment of the vow. This old Semitic usage has its close parallel in the vow of the Nazarite. It was not peculiarly connected with Mecca; at Taff, for example, it was customary on return to the city after an absence to present oneself at the sanctuary, and there shear the hair (Muh. in Med., p. 381). Pilgrimages to Mecca were not tied to a single time, but they were naturally associated with festive occasions, and especially with the great annual feast and market. The pilgrimage was so intimately connected with the wellbeing of Mecca, and had already such a hold on the Arabs round about, that Mahomet could not afford to sacrifice it to an abstract purity of religion, and thus the old usages were transplanted into Islam in the double form of the omra or vow of pilgrimage to Mecca, which can be discharged at any time, and the hajj or pilgrimage at the great annual feast. The latter closes with a visit to the Ka`ba, but its essential ceremonies lie outside Mecca, at the neighbouring shrines where the old Arabs gathered before the Meccan fair.

The omra begins at some point outside the Haram (or holy territory), generally at Tanim, both for convenience sake and because Ayesha began the omra there in the year 10 of the Hegira. The pilgrim enters the Haram in the antique and scanty pilgrimage dress (ihram), consisting of two cloths wound round his person in a way prescribed by ritual. His devotion is expressed in shouts of "Labbeyka" (a word of obscure origin and meaning; he enters the great mosque, performs the tawaf and the sa'y 1 and then has his head shaved and resumes his common dress. This ceremony is now generally combined with the hajj, or is performed by every stranger or traveller when he enters Mecca, and the ihram (which involves the acts of abstinence already referred to) is assumed at a considerable distance from the city. But it is also proper during one's residence in the holy city to perform at least one omra from Tanim in connexion with a visit to the mosque of Ayesha there. The triviality of these rites is ill concealed by the legends of the sa'y of Hagar and of the tawaf being first performed by Adam in imitation of the circuit of the angels about the throne of God; the meaning of their ceremonies seems to have been almost a blank to the Arabs before Islam, whose religion had become a mere formal tradition. We do not even know to what deity the worship expressed in the tawaf was properly addressed. There is a tradition that the Ka`ba was a temple of Saturn (Shahrastani, p. 431); perhaps the most distinctive feature of the shrine may be sought in the sacred doves which still enjoy the protection of the sanctuary. These recall the sacred doves of Ascalon (Philo vi. 200 of Richter's ed.), and suggests Venusworship as at least one element (cf. Herod i. 131, iii. 8; Ephr. Syr., Op. Syr. ii. 457).

To the ordinary pilgrim the omra has become so much an episode of the hajj that it is described by some European pilgrims as a mere visit to the mosque of Ayesha; a better conception of its original significance is got from the Meccan feast of the seventh month (Rajab), graphically described by Ibn Jubair from his observations in A.D. 1184. Rajab was one of the ancient sacred months, and the feast, which extended through the whole month and was a joyful season of hospitality and thanksgiving, no doubt represents the ancient feasts of Mecca more exactly than the ceremonies of the bajj, in which old usage has been overlaid by traditions and glosses of Islam. The omra was performed by crowds from day to day, especially at new and full moon. 2 The new moon celebration was nocturnal; the road to Tanim, the Mas`a, and the mosque were brilliantly illuminated; and the appearing of the moon was greeted with noisy music. A genuine old Arab market was held, for the wild Bedouins of the Yemen mountains came in thousands to barter their cattle and fruits for clothing, and deemed that to absent themselves would bring drought and cattle plague in their homes. Though ignorant of the legal ritual and prayers, they performed the tawaf with enthusiasm, throwing themselves against the Ka`ba and clinging to its curtains as a child clings to its mother. They also made a point of entering the Ka'ba. The 29th of the month was the feast day of the Meccan women, when they and their little ones had the Ka'ba to themselves without the presence even of the Sheybas.

The central and essential ceremonies of the hajj or greater pilgrimage are those of the day of Arafa, the 9th of the "pilgrimage month" (Dhu'l Hijja), the last of the Arab year; and every Moslem who is his own master, and can command the necessary means, is bound to join in these once in his life, or to have them fulfilled by a substitute 1 The latter perhaps was no part of the ancient omra; see SnouckHurgronje, Het Mekkaansche Feest (1880) p. 115 sqq.

2 The 27th was also a great day, but this day was in commemoration of the rebuilding of the Ka'ba by Ibn Jubair.

on his behalf and at his expense. By them the pilgrim becomes as pure from sin as when he was born, and gains for the rest of his life the honourable title of bajj. Neglect of many other parts of the pilgrim ceremonial may be compensated by offerings, but to miss the "stand" (woquf) at Arafa is to miss the pilgrimage. Arafa or Arafat is a space, artificially limited, round a small isolated hill called the Hill of Mercy, a little way outside the holy territory, on the road from Mecca to Taif. One leaving Mecca after midday can easily reach the place on foot the same evening. The road is first northwards along the Mecca valley and then turns eastward. It leads through the straggling village of Mina, occupying a long narrow valley (Wadi Mina), two to three hours from Mecca, and thence by the mosque of Mozdalifa over a narrow pass opening out into the plain of Arafa,which is an expansion of the great Wadi Naman,through which the Taif road descends from Mount Kara. The lofty and rugged mountains of the Hodheyl tower over the plain on the north side and overshadow the little Hill of Mercy, which is one of those bosses of weathered granite so common in the Hejaz. Arafa lay quite near Dhul-Majaz, where, according to Arabian tradition, a great fair was held from the 1st to the 8th of the pilgrimage month; and the ceremonies from which the bajj was derived were originally an appendix to this fair. Now, on the contrary, the pilgrim is expected to follow as closely as may be the movements of the prophet at his "farewell pilgrimage" in the year io of the Hegira (A.D. 632). He therefore leaves Mecca in pilgrim garb on the 8th of Dhu'l Hijja, called the day of tarwiya (an obscure and pre-Islamic name), and, strictly speaking, should spend the night at Mina. It is now, however, customary to go right on and encamp at once at Arafa. The night should be spent in devotion, but the coffee booths do a lively trade, and songs are as common as prayers. Next forenoon the pilgrim is free to move about, and towards midday he may if he please hear a sermon. In the afternoon the essential ceremony begins; it consists simply in "standing" on Arafa shouting "Labbeyka" and reciting prayers and texts till sunset. After the sun is down the vast assemblage breaks up, and a rush (technically ifada, daf`,nafr is made in the utmost confusion to Mozdalifa, where the night prayer is said and the night spent. Before sunrise next morning (the loth) a second "stand" like that on Arafa is made for a short time by torchlight round the mosque of Mozdalifa, but before the sun is fairly up all must be in motion in the second ifada towards Mina. The day thus begun is the "day of sacrifice," and has four ceremonies - (I) to pelt with seven stones a cairn (jamrat al `agaba) at the eastern end of W. Mina, (2) to slay a victim at Mina and hold a sacrificial meal, part of the flesh being also dried and so preserved, or given to the poor, 3 (3) to be shaved and so terminate the ihram, (4) to make the third ifada, i.e. go to Mecca and perform the tawaf and sa'y (`omrat al-ifada), returning thereafter to Mina. The sacrifice and visit to Mecca may, however, be delayed till the 11th, 12th or 13th. These are the days of Mina, a fair and joyous feast, with no special ceremony except that each day the pilgrim is expected to throw seven stones at the jamrat al `agaba, and also at each of two similar cairns in the valley. The stones are thrown in the name of Allah, and are generally thought to be directed at the devil. This is, however, a custom older than Islam, and a tradition in Azraqi, p. 412, represents it as an act of worship to idols at Mina. As the stones are thrown on the days of the fair, it is not unlikely that they have something to do with the old Arab mode of closing a sale by the purchaser throwing a stone (Biruni, p. 328). 4 The pilgrims leave Mina on the 12th or 13th, and the hajj is then over. (See further Mahommedan Religion.) The colourless character of these ceremonies is plainly due to the fact that they are nothing more than expurgated heathen rites. In Islam proper they have no raison d'etre; the legends about Adam and Eve on Arafa, about Abraham's sacrifice of the ram at Thabii by Mina, imitated in the sacrifices of the pilgrimage, are clumsy afterthoughts, as appears from their variations and only partial acceptance. It is not so easy to get at the nature of the original rites, which Islam was careful to suppress. But we find mention of practices condemned by the orthodox, or forming no part of the Moslem ritual, which may be regarded as traces of an older ceremonial. Such are nocturnal illuminations at Mina (Ibn Batuta i. 396), Arafa and Mozdalifa (Ibn Jubair, 179), and tawafs performed by the ignorant at holy spots at Arafa not recognized by law (SnouckHurgronje p. 149 sqq.). We know that the rites at Mozdalifa were originally connected with a holy hill bearing the name of the god Quzah (the Edomite Koze) whose bow is the rainbow, and there is reason to think that the ifadas from Arafa and Quzah, which were not made as now after sunset and before sunrise, but when the sun rested on the tops of the mountains, were ceremonies of farewell and salutation to the sun-god.

The statistics of the pilgrimage cannot be given with certainty and vary much from year to year. The quarantine office keeps a record of arrivals by sea at Jidda (66,000 for 1904); but to these must be added those travelling by land from Cairo, Damascus The sacrifice is not indispensable except for those who can afford it and are combining the hajj with the omra.

4 On the similar pelting of the supposed graves of Abu Lahab and his wife (Ibn Jubair, p. I io) and of Abu Righal at Mughammas, see Noldeke's translation of Tabari, p. 208.

and Irak, the pilgrims who reach Medina from Yanbu and go on to Mecca, and those from all parts of the peninsula. Burckhardt in 1814 estimated the crowd at Arafa at 70,000, Burton in 1853 at 50,000, `Abd el-Razzak in 1858 at 60,000. This great assemblage is always a dangerous centre of infection, and the days of Mina especially, spent under circumstances originally adapted only for a Bedouin fair, with no provisions for proper cleanliness, and with the air full of the smell of putrefying offal and flesh drying in the sun, produce much sickness.

Literature. - Besides the Arabic geographers and cosmographers, we have Ibn `Abd Rabbih's description of the mosque, early in the 10th century (`Led Farid, Cairo ed., iii. 362 sqq.), but above all the admirable record of Ibn Jubair (A.D. 1184), by far the best account extant of Mecca and the pilgrimage. It has been much pillaged by Ibn Batuta. The Arabic historians are largely occupied with fabulous matter as to Mecca before Islam; for these legends the reader may refer to C. de Perceval's Essai. How little confidence can be placed in the pre-Islamic history appears very clearly from the distorted accounts of Abraha's excursion against the Hejaz, which fell but a few years before the birth of the Prophet, and is the first event in Meccan history which has confirmation from other sources. See Nuldeke's version of Tabari, p. 204 sqq. For the period of the Prophet, Ibn Hisham and Wakidi are valuable sources in topography as well as history. Of the special histories and descriptions of Mecca published by Wi stenfeld (Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, 3 vols., 1857-1859, with an abstract in German, 1861), the most valuable is that of Azragi. It has passed through the hands of several editors, but the oldest part goes back to the beginning of the 9th Christian century. Kutbeddin's history (vol. iii. of the Chroniken) goes down with the additions of his nephew to A.D. 1592.

Of European descriptions of Mecca from personal observation the best is Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia (cited above from the 8vo ed., 1829). The Travels of Aly Bey (Badia, London, 1816) describe a visit in 1807; Burton's Pilgrimage (3rd ed., 1879) often supplements Burckhardt; Von Maltzan's Wallfahrt nach Mekka (1865) is lively but very slight. `Abd el-Razzaq's report to the government of India on the pilgrimage of 1858 is specially directed to sanitary questions; C. Snouck-Hurgronje, Mekka (2 vols., and a collection of photographs, The Hague, 1888-1889), gives a description of the Meccan sanctuary and of the public and private life of the Meccans as observed by the author during a sojourn in the holy city in1884-1885and a political history of Mecca from native sources from the Hegira till 1884. For the pilgrimage see particularly Snouck-Hurgronje, Het Mekkaansche Feest (Leiden, 1880). (W. R. S.)