الكعبة

The Ka'bah in 3D

As it stood in the Prophet's ﷺ last years (630–632 CE): the Quraysh building of c. 605 CE

Artistic reconstruction
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About this reconstruction

Quraysh rebuilt the Ka'bah about five years before the first revelation. They raised it to 18 cubits (about 8.7 m) in alternating courses of stone and wood, under a flat roof on six pillars, and, short of lawfully earned money, left part of Ibrahim's foundation outside the walls as the Hijr. This is how it stood when the Prophet ﷺ entered it at the conquest of Makkah in 630 CE, and until Ibn al-Zubayr rebuilt it in 683. No wall surrounded the sanctuary yet: the houses of Makkah stood round it with lanes between them. The measurements follow al-Azraqi and the modern survey of the same Quraysh footprint. Where the sources are silent (the door's size, the exact shape of the Hijr, the colours of the cloth, the size of the open court), the model follows later descriptions or is an estimate, and the notes say so.

Sources: al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makkah (ed. Malhas) 1:157–174, 1:203–211, 1:250–256, 1:289, 1:345; 2:33–35, 2:58, 2:68–72 · al-Fakihi, Akhbar Makkah 1:134–135, 2:87–88 · Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari 3:458–459 (the covering) · Ibn Ishaq, Sirah (Ibn Hisham): the rebuilding of the Ka'bah · Sahih al-Bukhari 1583–1586 (the Hijr and the door), 505 (the six pillars) · Wall lengths: General Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques (via Saudipedia) · Position and orientation: the Ka'bah's outline in OpenStreetMap (way 103914569); Hawkins & King, Journal for the History of Astronomy 13 (1982) 102–109

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