Kaaba, also spelled Kaʿbah, small shrine located near the centre of the Great Mosque in Mecca and considered by Muslims everywhere to be the most sacred spot on Earth.
After the ninth century the veneration of tombs of pious men became popular, especially in eastern Iran, and the memorial tomb with religious or secular connotations assumed a leading place among the types of monumental buildings in Islamic architecture. Pilgrims to Mecca walk around the Kaʿbah seven times.To share with more than one person, separate addresses with a commaImmediately to the east and north of the courtyard are two small hills, between which pilgrims must run or walk. Book now & save with no cancellation fee. Legend tells that the stone (Hajarul Aswad, the ‘Black Stone’) was originally white but became gradually darkened by the kisses of sinful mortals (some traditions say by the sins of 'offsprings of Adam').The grave of a saint (awliya) is a point of psychic contact with the saint for the tomb is conceived as the dwelling place of the saint. Other explorers were neither so lucky nor divinely guided; many of them disappeared or were caught and sold into slavery.
Mecca is also the birthplace of Muhammad. Must for recharing spiritual batteries.The mixture of races and etnicities are extremely varied though more yellows and browns and less whites. This way the believer has the same physical relationship with Mecca in both life and death.Nowadays about 2,000,000 persons perform the Hajj each year, and the pilgrimage serves as a unifying force in Islam by bringing together followers from diverse countries and language groups. Much crowded at times and moderately at times. The cubical (the word Ka’ba means “cube”), flat-roofed building rises fifty feet from a narrow marble base on mortared bases of a local blue-gray stone. Mecca is also the birthplace of Muhammad. The Great Mosque of Mecca, also called Al-Haram Mosque (al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, "the Forbidden Mosque" or "the Sacred Mosque") or Grand Mosque of Makkah, is the largest mosque in the world, and surrounds the Islamic Qiblah (قِـبْـلَـة, Direction of Prayer), that is the Kaaba in the Hejazi city of Mecca (مَـكَّـة, Makkah), Saudi Arabia. The structure’s corners, rather than the walls, are oriented toward the compass points. As the religion of Islam rapidly spread across the world from Indonesia and China in the Far East to Spain, Morocco and West Africa in the west, ever increasing numbers of pilgrims made the long, and often dangerous, journey to Mecca.
The Great Mosque of Mecca was modernized and enlarged several times in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The most important of all these deities, and chief of the Meccan pantheon, was known as Allah (meaning “the god”). When El-Karineh was driven out of Paradise, god created Eve out of one of Adam's ribs, which had been extracted while he slept. God gave Abraham precise instructions concerning how to rebuild the shrine and Gabriel showed him the location. Adam's prayers were answered and a shrine was built. Muhammad did not, however, destroy the Ka’ba and the sacred stone it housed. Wherever the place of prayer - be it an established mosque, a remote place in the wilderness or the interior of a home - Muslims face towards Mecca and are united to the Ka’ba by an invisible line of direction called the qibla.Copyright ©1982-2020 Martin Gray, ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDThe city of Mecca achieved its major religious significance following the birth and life of the Prophet Muhammed (570-632AD). The Ka’ba they had constructed was destined to become the most important sacred site of the nomadic tribes that inhabited the great Arabian deserts. The interior contains nothing but three pillars, which support the roof, and a number of hanging silver and gold lamps.