Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

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the rebuilding of the Kaaba in his own day, sometime about 605
c.e., a project in which he cooperated but did not approve, since it
distorted Abraham’s original building. The reason the Quraysh
closed one door and lifted the other well above ground level was,
according to the same tradition from Muhammad, “to make sure
that no one but whom they [that is, the Quraysh] wished would
enter it.” The clear implication was that the Kaaba was intended
to be open to all but that access was, in Muhammad’s time, controlled,
not by any notions of purity or holiness, but by the will of
the Quraysh, who had “guardianship” of the building.
The Rituals of the Kaaba
In most ancient temples, and the Kaaba seems to be just that, in
obvious contrast to later synagogues, churches, and mosques,
whatever ritual was required was practiced outside the building,
generally in the form of sacrifice on an altar. The inner parts of the
building might be entered, but since they were regarded as the domicile
of the god, entry was denied to the profane, those who
stood “before the shrine.” Indeed, at that other Semitic temple in
Jerusalem, access to the cube-shaped Holy of Holies was severely
limited to the high priest, and then under strictly controlled circumstances.
Although it is true that the primary liturgy connected
with the Mecca building, the ritual circumambulation, was performed
outside, there is almost no trace, either before or under
Islam, of the notion that the interior of the Kaaba was in any way
more sacred than the surrounding Haram. Indeed, the most primitive
cult traditions associated with the building have the Meccans
and their pilgrim guests behaving much like the perfidious biblical
Ephraimites who “mumbled their prayers” and kissed their calfidols,
as other idolaters kissed the image of Baal (Hos. 13:2; 1
Kings 19:18). Before Islam, and even after, the devotees at Mecca
were not kept away from the Kaaba, as the Israelites were from
Sinai or the inner temple precincts; rather they attempted to establish
as close contact as possible. They clung to the building’s
drapes pressed themselves against its walls, and touched and