Kaaba

          The Kaaba, meaning cube in Arabic, is a square building elegantly draped in a silk and cotton veil. Located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, it is the holiest shrine in Islam. Followers of Islam (Muslims) pray five times a day and these prayers were directed towards Mecca and the Kaaba rather than Jerusalem; this direction or qibla in Arabic-is making in all mosques and enables the faithful to know in which direction they should pray. Muslims from all around the world make a pilgrimage to Madina to perform hajj at least once in their life time, the number of pilgrims can get to million people during hajj.

         The Kaaba was a sanctuary in pre-Islamic times Muslin believe that Abraham and his son, Ismail, constructed the Kaaba. Originally Kaaba was a simple unroofed rectangular structure. The Quraysh tribe, who ruled Kaaba, rebuild the pre-Islamic Kaaba in c. 608 CE with alternating causes of masonry and wood, a door was raised above ground level to protect shrine from intruders and flood waters.

          Muhammad (peace be upon him) was driven out of Mecca in 620 CE to Yathrib, which is known as Madina. Upon his return to Mecca 629/30 CE, the shrine became the focal point for Muslims worship and pilgrimage.

          The Kaaba has been modified extensively throughout it's history. The area around the Kaaba was expanded in order to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims by the second Caliph Umar who ruled 634-44 CE. The Caliph Uthman, who ruled 644-56 CE, build the colonnades around the open plaza where the Kaaba stands and incorporated other important monuments into the sanctuary.
       
          During the civil war between the Caliph Abdul Malik and Ibn Zubayr, who controlled Mecca,
the Kaaba was set on fire in 683 CE. The Kaaba was set on fire in 683 CE. Ibn Zubayr, resembled it with silver. He rebuild the Kaaba in wood and stone, following Abraham's original dimensions and also paved the space around the Kaaba.

          Under the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid, who ruled 705-15 CE, the mosque that encloses the Kaaba was decorated with mosaics like those of the Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Damascus, by the seventh century the Kaaba was covered with Kiswa, a black cloth that is replaced annually during the hajj.

          Abbasid Caliphs, who ruled from 50-1250 CE, the mosque around the KAABA was expanded and modified several times. From 1269-1517 CE, the Mamluks of Egypt controlled the Hajiz, the highlands in western Arbia where Mecca is located.

          The last major modifications were carried out in the 1950s by the government of Saudi Arabia to accommodate the increasingly large number of pilgrims who come on the hajj. Today the mosque cover almost 40 acres.

          Today, Kaaba is fifteen meters tall and ten and half meters on each side; its corners roughly align with the cardinal directions. the door of the Kaaba is now made of solid gold; it was added in 1982. The kiswa-the large cloth that covers the Kaaba-used to be sent from Egypt with the hajj caravan but today is made in Saudi Arabia.

           The numerous changes to the Kaaba and its associated mosque serve as good reminder of how often buildings, even sacred ones, are renovated and remodeled either due to damage or to the changing needs of the community.

Source The Art and Architecture in the Islamic Tradition, by Mohammad Hamdouni Alami
            :https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/.../the-kaaba