The Symbols Woven Into the Rebuilding of the Kaʻbah

The rebuilding of the Kaʻbah, which took place five years before the coming of the revelation, is not only a historical incident. The scholars of the Seerah note in it a cluster of powerful symbols.

❧The religion of Ibrāhīm, damaged and renewed

The Kaʻbah is the first House of worship ever established for mankind, Allah says: أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ, "The first house set up for humanity is that at Bakkah" (Āl ʿImrān 3:96). It is the physical sign of the monotheism of Ibrāhīm, the worship of the One God. For centuries before the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, that religion had been corrupted, diluted, buried in idolatry. The damage to the Kaʻbah, first by fire, then by flood, is a physical image of what had happened to the religion it represented: the structure remained standing but had been weakened to the point of near-collapse.

The rebuilding then, in the very generation of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and in the five years immediately before his calling, carries an obvious meaning: just as the Kaʻbah is now being rebuilt on the foundations of Ibrāhīm, the same original ground, the same theology of tawḥīd, so the religion of Ibrāhīm is about to be rebuilt. The foundations never moved. The theology of lā ilāha illā Allāh was always there. It is the brickwork that needs renewal.

❧The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم as arbitrator and as unifier

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم entered and every tribe in Makkah was glad, each one certain that he would choose them, this was not only a personal reflection of his character. The tribes of Quraysh were, at that moment, on the edge of civil war. He saved them from bloodshed by making them lift together, each tribe sharing the honour. The symbolism is carried forward: just as he united the disparate clans of Quraysh under the cloth, he would later unite the Arabs, then the world, under the banner of Islam.

❧The Ḥaṭim: the blessing preserved for everyone

Because the Quraysh could not afford enough Roman marble for the original rectangular footprint of Ibrāhīm's Kaʻbah, they left out about forty percent of it, the section that is now enclosed by the low curved wall called the Ḥaṭim. This seems like a reduction in the building, but it turned out to be a mercy: the door of the Kaʻbah was raised high, making entry rare. Had the Kaʻbah been extended back to its original rectangle (with the door brought to ground level, as the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم wished), millions could have prayed inside. As it is, direct entry is reserved for officials and rare occasions. But Allah decreed that the Ḥaṭim, the portion left out, remains open to everyone. Those who pray in the Ḥaṭim are praying inside the original Kaʻbah of Ibrāhīm. The blessing is open to all, not to the few.

❧Even Abu Jahl's ḥukm was sound

When gathering funds for the rebuilding, Abū Jahl declared that no money from gambling, usury, cheating, or prostitution should be used. He knew, without any Sharīʿah telling him, what was pure and what was impure. This is the fiṭrah: the innate moral compass that Allah planted in every soul. Even the worst of men, when building the House of God, knew that filthy money had no place there.