Ibn al-Zubayr Rebuilds the Kaaba

The Kaaba stands wrapped in timber scaffolding, its kiswa removed and its bare grey Makkan stone exposed in fresh courses, a cube under reconstruction rather than the cloth-draped, finished building, set in an open court and not the arcaded mosque of later centuries.

The rebuilt structure takes in the semicircular Hijr to the north, lengthening the rectangle to enclose ground the older building had left outside, the restoration of the wider footprint attributed to the foundations of Ibrahim (peace be upon him).

Two low doorways are being set at the level of the ground, one in the eastern wall and one in the western, the twin ground-level doors of this rebuilding, so that people might enter by one and leave by the other, unlike the single raised door of the building before and after it.

Workmen reset the Black Stone in the eastern corner, its broken pieces reassembled and bound with a band of silver, the stone had been cracked when the sanctuary was damaged by fire during the recent siege of the city.

Bare granite hills hem in a narrow dry valley with no greenery and no river, the basin of Makkah, with the slope of Abu Qubays rising close above the sanctuary; an arid Hijazi setting, not a riverine or fertile one.

Around the Kaaba is only a low enclosure wall and the close-packed flat-roofed stone houses of the town, no minarets, no domes, no arcaded galleries, none of the great Masjid al-Haram that Abbasid, Ottoman, and modern builders would later raise.

Scorch and fire damage still mark stone near the sanctuary from the siege just lifted, the rebuilding is a repair of war damage as much as a return to an older plan, undertaken in the years of the second civil strife.

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, hadith of A'isha (RA) on the Kaaba: The sound reports in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) tells A'isha (RA) he would have rebuilt the Kaaba on Ibrahim's (a.s.) foundations, taking in the Hijr and setting two ground-level doors, but for the newness of the Quraysh in Islam. The textual basis for Ibn al-Zubayr's (RA) plan. Confidence high.

al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Principal Sunni narrative history. Supports the dating to the second fitna: the siege of Makkah, the fire damage to the Kaaba, Ibn al-Zubayr's (RA) caliphate and rebuilding, and the later reversal. Confidence high for sequence.

Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya (14th c.): Sunni historical synthesis. Consolidates the accounts of the rebuilding and gathers the hadith material that justified it. Confidence high.