The building of the Ancient House by Ibrahim and Isma'il

"And when We assigned to Ibrahim the site of the House: do not associate anything with Me: and purify My House for those who circle around, for those who stand, for those who bow and prostrate. And proclaim among the people the pilgrimage: they will come to you on foot, and upon every lean camel, coming from every deep ravine."

Surat al-Hajj, 26-27

"Indeed, the first House established for mankind is the one at Bakka: blessed and guidance for the worlds. In it are clear signs: the maqam of Ibrahim: whoever enters it is safe: and upon the people is the pilgrimage of the House, whoever is able to make his way to it: whoever disbelieves, Allah is free of need of the worlds."

Surat Al 'Imran, 96-97

"And when his Lord tested Ibrahim with words which He fulfilled, He said: I make you an imam for the people. He said: and of my descendants? He said: My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers."

Surat al-Baqara, 124

"And when We made the House a place of return and security for the people: take the maqam of Ibrahim as a place of prayer: and We enjoined upon Ibrahim and Isma'il: purify My House for those who circle around, for those who dwell there, for those who bow and prostrate. And when Ibrahim said: Lord, make this a safe land: and provide its people with fruits, those who believe in Allah and the last day. He said: whoever disbelieves, I will let him enjoy briefly: then I will compel him to the punishment of the Fire: and an evil destination."

Surat al-Baqara, 125-126

"And when Ibrahim and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House: Lord, accept this from us: You are the Hearing, the Knowing. Lord, make us submitters to You: and of our descendants a community submitting to You: and show us our rites: and turn to us in forgiveness: You are the Ever-Relenting, the Merciful. Lord, raise up among them a messenger from among them, who recites to them Your verses, teaches them the Book and the wisdom, and purifies them: You are the Mighty, the Wise."

Surat al-Baqara, 127-129

The Most High mentions, concerning His servant and messenger, His chosen one and intimate friend, the imam of the hanifs and father of the prophets (upon him the finest of prayers and salutations), that he built the Ancient House, the first mosque established for the generality of people in which to worship Allah: Allah assigned to him the site of the House, that is: guided him to it and pointed it out to him: it has been reported to us from the commander of the believers 'Ali ibn Abi Talib and others that he was guided to it by a revelation from Allah (may His glory be proclaimed).

We have already mentioned, in the description of the creation of the heavens, that the Kaaba is opposite the Populated House, such that were it to fall, it would fall upon it: likewise the houses of worship of the seven heavens: in every heaven there is a House in which the people of that heaven worship Allah: and it is therein like the Kaaba for the people of the earth: Allah the Most High therefore commanded Ibrahim (peace be upon him) to build for Him a House that would be for the people of the earth like those houses of worship for the angels of heaven: Allah guided him to the site of the House prepared for that, designated since He created the heavens and the earth: as is established in the two Sahihs: Allah made this town forbidden on the day He created the heavens and the earth: it is therefore forbidden by the inviolability of Allah until the Day of Resurrection.

Whoever, in this, clings to his saying "the site of the House" is neither sound nor apparent: for what is meant is its site decreed in the knowledge of Allah, ordained in His decree, glorified among the prophets, its place from Adam to the time of Ibrahim.

We have mentioned that Adam pitched over it a dome: we circled before you around this House: and that the Ark circled it for forty days, or thereabouts: but all these reports are from the Banu Isra'il: we have established that they can be neither believed nor denied: they are therefore not used as proof: as for what the truth has rejected, it is rejected. "Indeed, the first House established for mankind is the one at Bakka: blessed and guidance for the worlds.

Mecca: the site of the Kaaba: "in it are clear signs", that is: the building of the Khalil, father of the prophets after him, and imam of the hanifs among his descendants, those who take him as model and cling to his sunna: "the maqam of Ibrahim", that is: the stone upon which he stood upright when the building rose to his height: his son therefore placed for him this famous stone, that he might rise upon it when the building rose and the structure became high: as passed in the long hadith of Ibn 'Abbas: and this stone was affixed to the wall of the Kaaba, as it had been since ancient times until the days of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him): he moved it away from the House a little, so that those praying near it would not hinder those circling the House: and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) was followed in this: his Lord confirmed him in some things thereof: "let us take from the maqam of Ibrahim a place of prayer": Allah sent down: "and take the maqam of Ibrahim as a place of prayer": and the traces of the two feet of the Khalil remained in the rock until the beginning of Islam:

Thawr, and the one who planted Thabir in its place; and Raqim who climbed in Hira and alighted; and the House, owed the right of the House, in the belly of Mecca: and by Allah, Allah is not heedless; and the Black Stone, when they wipe it with their hands, as they surround it in the morning and the evening; and the footprint of Ibrahim in the rock, moist, upon his two bare feet, unshod:

that is: his noble foot sank into the rock: it thus took the size of his foot, bare, without sandals. "And when Ibrahim and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House: Lord, accept this from us: You are the Hearing, the Knowing." The two were thus at the height of sincerity and obedience to Allah (may His glory be proclaimed): and the two were asking Allah, the Hearing, the Knowing, to accept from them what they were doing of great obedience and praiseworthy striving: "Lord, make us submitters to You: and of our descendants a community submitting to You: and show us our rites: and turn to us in forgiveness: You are the Ever-Relenting, the Merciful."

The point is that the Khalil built the noblest of mosques in the noblest of lands, in an uncultivated valley, and prayed for its people blessing, and that they be provided with fruits despite the scarcity of waters and the absence of trees, crops and fruits: and that He make it an inviolable sanctuary and guaranteed safety: Allah (to Him the praise) answered his request, responded to his call and granted his wish: "do they not see that We made a safe sanctuary, while people are snatched away around them? (al-'Ankabout, 67). "Have We not assigned them a safe sanctuary to which are brought the fruits of everything, as provision from Us? (al-Qassas, 57).

He asked Allah to raise up among them a messenger from among them, that is: of their kind and speaking their eloquent, penetrating, sincere tongue, so that the two favors, worldly and religious, might be completed upon them, with the happiness of the first and the last: Allah answered him by raising up among them a messenger: and what a messenger: He sealed by him His prophets and messengers, perfected through him the religion beyond what He had given anyone before him, and made his call universal to the people of the earth, despite the diversity of their kinds, tongues and characters, in all lands, cities and regions, until the Day of Resurrection: this was among his distinctions from the rest of the prophets, for his nobility in himself, the perfection of what he was sent with, the nobility of his land, the eloquence of his tongue, the perfection of his compassion for his umma, his gentleness and mercy, the nobility of his birth, the greatness of his coming, the purity of his origin and his source: for this reason Ibrahim al-Khalil (peace be upon him), builder of the Kaaba of the people of the earth, deserved that his rank, place and position be in the mansions of the heavens, at the high degrees, near the Populated House, which is the Kaaba of the people of the seventh heaven, blessed and made blessed, into which enter every day seventy thousand angels to worship therein:

they do not return to it until the day of resurrection and emergence: we have mentioned, in the tafsir of Surat al-Baqara, the description of the building of the House and what came thereof of reports and athar: therein is sufficiency: whoever wants it, let him consult it there: to Allah the praise.

When Allah commanded Ibrahim and Isma'il to build the House, and they did not know where its site was, Allah sent a wind called al-Khajuj, having two wings and a head in the form of a serpent: it swept away for them what surrounded the Kaaba, down to the foundation of the first House: they followed it with pickaxes, digging, until they laid the foundation: "and when We assigned to Ibrahim the site of the House. O my son, seek for me a fine stone that I may place here. He said: O my father, I am languid, weary. That is for you to do.

He set out: and Jibril came to him with the Black Stone from India: it had been a white gem like the chamomile flower: Adam brought it down from Paradise: it blackened from the sins of the people: Isma'il came with a stone: he found it at the corner: O my father, who brought you this? The one more active than you brought it. So they built: "Lord, accept this from us: You are the Hearing, the Knowing. Ibn Abi Hatim mentioned that he built it of five mounds: and that Dhul-Qarnayn, who was king of the earth at that time, passed by the two of them while they were building it: who commanded you this?

Allah commanded us it. And what do I know of what you say? Five rams bore witness that He commanded him that: so he believed and affirmed. And al-Azraqi mentioned that he circled the House with the Khalil.

The building of the Khalil remained for a long period: then Quraysh built it after that, and fell short of the foundations of Ibrahim on the north side, toward Syria, as it is today: in the two Sahihs, from the hadith of Malik: from Ibn Shihab: from Salim, that 'Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr informed Ibn 'Umar, who said: have you not seen that your people, when they built the Kaaba, limited themselves to the foundations of Ibrahim? O Messenger of Allah, will you not return it to the foundations of Ibrahim? Were it not for the recent conversion of your people, were it not that your people are newly out of the jahiliya, in disbelief, I would have spent the treasure of the Kaaba in the path of Allah, made its door at ground level, and included in it the Hijr.

Ibn az-Zubayr (may Allah be pleased with him) built it in his days according to what the Messenger of Allah (may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) had indicated, according to what his aunt 'A'isha, Mother of the Believers, had informed him: when al-Hajjaj killed him in the year 73, he wrote to 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the caliph of that time: they believed that Ibn az-Zubayr had done that only of his own initiative: he therefore ordered that it be returned to what it was: they demolished the Syrian wall, removed from it the Hijr, then blocked the wall and cast the stones into the interior of the Kaaba: its eastern door was raised: and they sealed the western one entirely, as is witnessed to this day: then when it reached them that Ibn az-Zubayr had done this only when 'A'isha, Mother of the Believers, informed him of it, they regretted what they had done and lamented that they had left it and not attended to that: then in the time of al-Mahdi ibn al-Mansur, he consulted the imam Malik ibn Anas about restoring it to the description for which Ibn az-Zubayr built it: I fear the kings would make it a plaything: that is: every time a king came, he would build it according to whatever description he wished: the matter thus settled upon what it is today.