and an idolater. And on the day of Bedr,[1] my father bore the standard of the Prophet, whilst the standard of the idolaters was borne by Muʾâwiyah! And the Most High is my witness before you, that Muʾâwiyah was scribe to my maternal grandfather,[2] who one day sent for him, but the messenger returnedand said, 'He is eating.' And he sent the messenger to him three times, and every time he said, He is eating.' Then cried the Prophet, 'May Allâh never appease the craving of thy belly! … Dost thou
might erect a building like what he had seen there, called Bait-el-Maʾmûr, or the Frequented House, towards which he might direct his prayers, and which he might compass as the angels do the celestial mansion. In compliance with this request, God exhibited a representation of that house in curtains of light, and set it in Mekkah perpendicularly under its original, ordering Adam to turn towards it when he prayed, and to compass it by way of devotion. After Adam's death, his son Seth built a house in the same form of stones and clay, which being destroyed by the deluge, was rebuilt by Abraham and Ishmael, at God's command, in the same place and after the same model, they being directed by revelation. Abu-Horeira affirms that this model¸ or the celestial building from whence it was taken, was a thousand years older than Adam, and that the angels began to form that heavenly edifice the same number of years before the creation of the world.
The Kuraish rebuilt the Kaʾabah after the birth of Muhammad; it was afterwards repaired by Abd ʾAllah-ibn-Zubair (See Note *, p. 55), Khalifah of Mekkah; and el-Hajjâj (see Notes, p. 126, and p. 151), in A.H. 74 (A.D. 694–5), put it in the form in which it now remains.
