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And what Abraham had not done on those hillsides in the way of miracles and war would not be worth writing in a book; whatever cannot be otherwise explained is set down to the Ancestor, the Arabs ranking Abraham next after Mohammed, because the patriarch built the Kaaba, or Mosque, at Mecca, that Mohammed centuries later on adopted for his new religion.
It was at this period that the structure took the name of Kaaba, which is said to be derived from kaab, a die or cube, the form which the building now assumed.
Public prayer was offered upon the third day from the Kaaba itself, and with that the Pilgrimage came to an end. Mahomet tried earnestly to win over and conciliate the Meccans during this meagre three days' sojourn, but his task was beyond the power even of his magnificent energy. At the end of the third day the Meccans returned. "Thy time is outrun: depart thou out of our city."
When Othman was caliph he hung it with tapestry, and Moawiyah raised it six steps higher, that he might be heard when he sat down, as he was forced to do, being very fat and heavy; whereas his predecessors all used to stand. Mahomet had now a dream that he held in his hand the key of the Kaaba, and that he and his men made the circuits round it and performed all the ceremonies of the pilgrimage.
He had seen what few men are vouchsafed, the material fulfilment of his year-long dreams, and knew it was by his own tireless energy and overmastering faith that they had been wrought upon the soil of his native land. His first act was to worship at the Kaaba, but before completing the whole ancestral rites he destroyed the idols that polluted the sanctuary.
This tradition, although current among the Metowefs, is at variance with history, which declares that the Hedjer was built by the Beni Koreysh, who contracted the dimensions of the Kaaba; that it was united to the building by Hadjadj, and again separated from it by Ibn Zebeyr. It is asserted by Fasy, that a part of the Hedjer, as it now stands, was never comprehended within the Kaaba.
First there came to him a comparison in which the Kaaba was a relative. He recalled the day he fell dying at the corner under the Black Stone. He saw the draped heap funereally dismal in the midst of the cloisters. How bare and poor it seemed to him now!
The tribe of Kossay were the first who built houses round the Kaaba; in these they lived during the day, but in the evening they always returned to their tents, pitched upon the neighbouring mountains. The roof was supported within by six pillars; and the statue of Hobal, the Arabian Jupiter, was placed over a well, then existing within the Kaaba. This happened during the youth of Mohammed.
Ismayl considered the well as his property; but having intermarried with the Djorham tribe, they usurped, after his death, the possession both of the well and the Kaaba. During their abode in this valley, they rebuilt or thoroughly repaired the Kaaba; but the well was choked up by the violence of torrents, and remained so for nearly one thousand years.
Windows have, in consequence, been opened in many parts of the walls, on a level with the street, and above that of the floor of the colonnades: Hadjys living in these apartments are allowed to perform the Friday's prayers at home; because, having the Kaaba in view from the windows, they are supposed to be in the mosque itself, and to join in prayer those assembled within the temple.
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