The Kaaba

Over time the tribe of Ismail multiplied and devotees dotted the shrine with a pantheon of numerous pagan deities, the central idol being Hubal installed in the Kaaba by the nomadic ancestors of Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

By the time Muhammad was born, Mecca had become a sprawling centre of international trade and high finance. Pre-Islamic Arabia was a land of cut-throat capitalism. The religion of the day was money and spiritualism had become a practice of the past. He found that the relationship of man to his idol was reduced to seeking commercial success. As he pondered over the moral degeneration that surrounded him, he was more and more disenchanted with the mere rituals of pagan worship and very attracted to the idea of historical monotheism, that original Semitic idea of divine unity or the concept of non-duality. To him idol worship became a fragmentary act that encouraged individuals and tribes to try and outdo each other all the time.

He pragmatically decided one day to compromise on what he felt was less important. He decided to ignore all the glitter around him, including the glamorous idols, and to focus instead on beyond the temporal world.

He concentrated on a single idea and in asking Arabs to do the same he hoped to transport his people beyond all the differences that was ruining them. By cleansing the path of man to God of all that Muhammad thought was inessential like lesser gods and goddesses he tried to unite devotees into a single community with a common purpose in life.

If Muslims continue to prostrate before the Kaaba today it is only for the sake of cultural continuity from the time of Adam and in affirmation that the empty space enclosed within the cube remains as sacred and mysterious as the unknown.