The Holy Kaaba is held by Muslims to be the Bayt Allāh, the House of God, marking the site of the sacred center of the world. Pilgrimage to the Bayt Allāh is one of the fundamental rites of Islam, and the location of the Holy Kaaba determines the qibla, the sacred direction of salāt (Muslim prayers).

After the Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael established the foundations of the Holy Kaaba, God commanded

On 20 Ramadan, 8 AH/630 CE, the Prophet Muhammad {pbuh} returned to Mecca and entered victorious. The conquest of Mecca was a new beginning for the religion of Islam, as…

In the centuries before the Prophet Muhammad’s mission , the Holy Kaaba was a trapezoidal structure, with walls no higher than 4.5 meters. As it had no ceiling at that…

The Kaaba has a special status in the hearts of Muslims, as they believe that it is the first house of worship on Earth, and represents the lineage of God’s prophets…

From the late 15th century onwards, changes in Western European thought and culture and the rise of humanism led to a shift in Western Europe’s vision of the rest of the world.

The Holy Mosque in Mecca has been widely written about and depicted by both Muslim and non-Muslim travelers. The invention of photography in the mid-19th century offered a new way…