The Rock by Kanan Makiya

Author:Kanan Makiya [Makiya, Kanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77280-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

Abd al-Malik ordered the demolition of what remained of the Ka’ba. He flattened God’s most ancient house, and then he rebuilt it. But he did not rebuild the Ka’ba as it was when Abdallah was lord and master of Mecca. The Temple was rebuilt “according to the dimensions of Muhammad’s day,” the crafty Caliph ordered.

The construction took but two weeks. The Ka’ba was, after all, a simple building, four straight sides of a square. In Muhammad’s day, the walls had been built of loose stones and were low enough for nimble goats to jump over. There was no roof. Abd al-Malik used mortared stone for the walls and put on a timber roof. The Ka’ba was in accordance with its original dimensions in name only. In the southeastern corner, the one farthest from Jerusalem, he had the broken pieces of the Black Stone framed and fitted into the wall chest-high above ground, as first Abraham, and then Muhammad, had done before him.

The war of the holy cities had at last ended. The Black Stone was in Syrian hands. The son of Zubayr was dead. But it was the new Ka’ba that marked the real end of Abd al-Malik’s struggle against Abdallah. Old memories had been erased by the new construction, and like a grave that men have abandoned and ceased to cherish, Abdallah’s spirit was lost in the rubble.

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