7 Wonders of Islamic
World
For Muslims, the mosque is a place of worship, law and assembly and also serves as an area for nurturing learning and fostering the community spirit.
Each mosque is unique in architecture and design, inspired by the various teachings of the Quran and the people of the land who have embraced the religion.
Interspersed with expert commentary on religion and Muslim architecture, 7 Wonders of the Muslim World explains the five pillars of Islam and how they link Muslims across the world to the centre of their faith.
7 Wonders of the Muslim World features seven of the world's most important and beautiful mosques:
The seven wonders include:
1- The Great Mosque, Mecca
Mecca (Makkah in Arabic) is the center of the Islamic world and the birthplace of both the Prophet Muhammad and the religion he founded. Located in the Sirat Mountains of central Saudi Arabia and 45 miles inland from the Red Sea port of Jidda (Jeddah), ancient Mecca was an oasis on the old caravan trade route that linked the Mediterranean world with South Arabia, East Africa, and South Asia. By Roman and Byzantine times it had developed into an important trade and religious center, and was known as Macoraba. The sacred land in which Mecca and Medina are located, known as the Hijaz, is the western region of the Arabian peninsula, a narrow tract of land about 875 miles long east of the Red Sea with the Tropic of Cancer running through its center. The land is called Hijaz, meaning barrier, because its backbone, the Sarat Mountains consist of volcanic peaks and natural depressions creating a stark and rugged environment dominated by intense sunlight and little rain fall.
The Great Mosque, Mecca (Order Fine Art Print)
According to ancient Arabian traditions, when Adam and Eve were cast from Paradise they fell to different parts of the earth; Adam on a mountain on the island of Serendip, or Sri Lanka, and Eve in Arabia, on the border of the Red Sea near the port of Jeddah. For two hundred years Adam and Eve wandered separate and lonely about the earth. Finally, in consideration of their penitence and wretchedness, God permitted them to come together again on Mt. Arafat, near the present city of Mecca (previously called Becca or Bakkah, meaning narrow valley). Adam then prayed to God that a shrine might be granted to him similar to that at which he had worshipped in Paradise. Adam's prayers were answered and a shrine was built. (This is a pre-Islamic legend and the Koran, the Islamic Holy Scripture, says nothing whatsoever of Adam’s connection with Mecca or of a shrine he prayed at). Adam is said to have died and been buried in Mecca and Eve in Jeddah by the sea which still bears her name, jiddah, meaning maternal ancestor in Arabic.
This shrine passed away during the era of the flood, at which time the body of Adam began to float on the water while the Ark of Noah circumambulated around it and the Ka’ba seven times before journeying north where it landed after the flood. A thousand years later, according to one Islamic tradition in 1892 BC, the great patriarch of monothesism, Abraham, or Ibrahim, came to Mecca with his Egyptian wife Hagar and their child Ishmael. Here Hagar lived with her son in a small house, at the site of the earlier shrine, and Abraham came to visit her on occasion.
Nearly all scholars trace the sanctity of Mecca to the Ka’ba edifice later rebuilt at God’s express command by Abraham and Ishmael. Mention must be made, however, of the Zamzan spring and the nearby holy hills of Safa and Marwa (these hills have since disappeared under the leveling topography of modern Mecca). These geographical formations certainly predated the mythical construction of the Ka’ba and could therefore have given birth to the original sanctity of the place. According to Islamic legend, Abraham had left Mecca on God’s command, leaving Hagar and Ishmael with only some water and dates. Hagar nursed her son and they drank the remaining water. Soon thereafter, faced with great thirst, Ishmael started to cry and Hagar began to run between the hills of Safa and Marwa looking for water. She repeated the journey seven times until an angel appeared to her, striking the ground with his wing, with the result that the Zamzam spring, which Muslims consider as a tributary of the waters of Paradise, sprang forth. Henceforth Mecca was graced with a source of water which has continued flowing to this day.
After the departure and return of Abraham to Mecca, and his discovery that Hagar had died, Abraham was then ordered by God to make Hagar’s house into a temple where people could pray. Therefore, he demolished the house and began construction of the Ka’ba. God gave Abraham precise instructions concerning how to rebuild the shrine and Gabriel showed him the location. It is said that by the grace of God the Divine Peace (al-sakinah) descended in the form of a wind which brought a cloud in the shape of a dragon that revealed to Abraham and Ishmael the site of the old temple. They were told to construct the shrine directly upon the shadow of the cloud, neither exceeding nor diminishing its dimensions. Legends say the shrine was built from the stones of five sacred mountains: Mt. Sinai, the Mount of Olives, Mt. Lebanon, Al-Judi, and nearby Mt. Hira. Upon the completion of the shrine, Gabriel brought a magic stone for the sanctuary. Different sources speculate that this stone was a meteorite or a great white sapphire from the Garden of Eden, that it had been concealed on the nearby sacred mountain of Abu Qubays during the period of the flood, and that it was later restored to Abraham for inclusion in his version of the Ka’ba. Whatever its ultimate origin, the stone was most probably a sacred object of the pre-Islamic Arabian nomads who had settled around the Zamzam spring that flows at the center of old Mecca. Upon completion of the Ka’ba, Abraham and Ishmael, accompanied by the archangel Gabriel, then performed all the elements which constitute the Hajj ritual of today. The Ka’ba they had constructed was destined to become the most important sacred site of the nomadic tribes that inhabited the great Arabian deserts. (Abraham was later to leave Mecca to die in Palestine in al-Khalil).
With the passage of centuries, the original Abrahamic observances at the Ka’ba were progressively diluted by the addition of various pagan elements (these arriving via the caravan routes that led to Mecca). The pilgrims of pre-Islamic times visited not only the house of Abraham and the sacred stone of Gabriel but also the collection of stone idols (representing different deities) housed in and around the Ka’ba. There were said to be 360 different deities including Awf, the great bird, Hubal the Nabatean god, the three celestial goddesses Manat, al-Uzza and al-Lat, and statues of Mary and Jesus. The most important of all these deities, and chief of the Meccan pantheon, was known as Allah (meaning “the god”). Worshipped throughout southern Syria and northern Arabia, and the only deity not represented by an idol in the Ka’ba, Allah would later become the sole god of the Muslims.
The city of Mecca achieved its major religious significance following the birth and life of the Prophet Muhammed (570-632AD). In 630 Muhammad took control of Mecca and destroyed the 360 pagan idols, with the notable exception of the statues of Mary and Jesus. The idol of Hubal, the largest in Mecca, was a giant stone situated atop the Ka’ba. Following the command of the Prophet, Ali (the cousin of Muhammad) stood on Muhammad’s shoulders, climbed to the top of the Ka’ba and toppled the idol.
Following his destruction of the pagan idols, Muhammad joined certain of the ancient Meccan rituals with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mt. Arafat (another pre-Islamic tradition), declared the city a center of Muslim pilgrimage and dedicated it to the worship of Allah alone. Muhammad did not, however, destroy the Ka’ba and the sacred stone it housed. Rather, he made them the centerpiece of the Muslim religion based on his belief that he was a prophetic reformer who had been sent by god to restore the rites first established by Abraham that had been corrupted over the centuries by the pagan influences. Thus, by gaining both religious and political control over Mecca, Muhammad was able to redefine the sacred territory and restore Abraham's original order to it.
According to the original words of Muhammad, the Hajj pilgrimage is the fifth of the fundamental Muslim practices known as the 'Five Pillars of Islam'. The Hajj is an obligation to be performed at least once by all male and female adults whose health and finances permit it. The pilgrimage takes place each year between the 8th and 13th days of Dhu al-Hijjah, the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Before setting out, a pilgrim should redress all wrongs, pay all debts, and plan to have enough money for their journey and the support of their family while away.
As pilgrims undertake the journey they follow in the footsteps of many millions before them. When the pilgrim is about 10 kilometers from Mecca he enters the state of holiness and purity known as Ihram, and dons special garments consisting of two white seamless sheets that are wrapped around the body. Entering the great Mosque in Mecca, the pilgrim first walks seven times around the Ka’ba shrine in a counterclockwise direction; this ritual is called turning, or tawaf. Next, entering into the shrine, the pilgrim kisses the sacred stone. The stone is mounted in a silver frame in the wall, four feet above the ground, in the southeast corner of the shrine. It is of an oval shape about twelve inches in diameter, composed of seven small stones (possibly basalt) of different sizes and shapes joined together with cement. Legend tells that the stone (Hajarul Aswad, the ‘Black Stone’) was originally white but became gradually darkened by the kisses of sinful mortals (some traditions say by the sins of 'offsprings of Adam').
During the next few days the pilgrim walks a ritualized route to other sacred places in the Mecca vicinity (Mina, Muzdalifah, Arafat, the Mount of Mercy and Mt. Namira) and returns to the Ka’ba on the final day (the word Hajj probably derives from an old Semitic root meaning 'to go around, to go in a circle'). The plain of Arafat where millions of pilgrims assemble in a vast congregation symbolizes the plain of Mahshar or Resurrection where everyone will stand before God on the Day of Judgement. In the middle of Arafat stands Jabal al-Rahmah or the Mount of Mercy where the last verses of the Koran were revealed and where one of the famous farewell addresses of the Prophet was delivered. It is here that the alchemy of union between various aspects of human nature takes place and where men and women regain their primordial spiritual wholeness, for it was here that Adam and Eve found each other again after their fall to earth from Paradise. At Mina, where the Prophet delivered his last words during his final pilgrimage, pilgrims cast stones against three large stone pillars representing Satan (al-Shaytan) as a symbol of the eternal battle that must be waged against the demons within. Finally there is the sacrifice of an animal, a sheep or a camel, in emulation of Abraham’s preparation to sacrifice his son Ishmael.
Once a believer has made the pilgrimage to Mecca men may add the title al-Hajji to their name, hajjiyah for females. In different Islamic countries returning pilgrims will use a variety of signs to indicate they have made the Hajj; these include painting pictures of the Ka’ba (and the pilgrim’s means of transportation to the shrine) upon the walls of their homes, painting the entrance doorway of the house bright green, and wearing hats or scarves of green color. A so-called Minor Pilgrimage, known as the Umra, contains some but not all of the rites of the Hajj and may be performed at any time of the year.
The Ka’ba, The Great Mosque, Mecca (Order Fine Art Print)
The Ka’ba, The Great Mosque, Mecca (Order Fine Art Print)
The area around the Ka’ba was enclosed by a wall in 638 to create a defined space for the tawaf ritual of circumambulation. In 684 the mosque was further enlarged and ornamented with numerous mosaic and marble decorations. In 709 the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid placed a wooden roof upon marble columns to protect the arcades of the mosque, and between 754 and 757 the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur carried out further enlargements, including the first minaret. During the next 700 years numerous modifications were carried out although no major alterations to the form of the building occurred until the Ottoman period in the 16th century (in the 10th century the Black Stone was actually stolen for a period of twenty-one years by the Carmathians). Large-scale renovations and remodeling was undertaken in 1564 during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent, who rebuilt the minarets and replaced the wooden roofs of the arcades with stone domes. The next major rebuilding of the mosque occurred in the 20th century under the direction of the Saudi royal family and resulted in the Mecca mosque becoming the largest in the world.
The Ka’ba today stands in the midst of an open courtyard known as the al-masjid al-haram, the ‘sanctuary’. The cubical (the word Ka’ba means “cube”), flat-roofed building rises fifty feet from a narrow marble base on mortared bases of a local blue-gray stone. Its dimensions are not exactly cubical: the northeastern and southwestern walls are forty feet long, while the other two walls are five feet shorter (12 meters long, 10 meters broad, 16 meters high). The structure’s corners, rather than the walls, are oriented toward the compass points. The east and west walls are aligned to the sunrise at the summer solstice and sunset at the winter solstice. The south wall is directed to the rising of the bright star Canopus. The northeastern wall has the only door of the building, about seven feet above the ground level. Inside is an empty room with a marble floor and three wooden pillars supporting the roof. There are some inscriptions on the walls, hanging votive lamps, and a ladder leading up to the roof. The entire Ka’ba structure is draped with a black silk covering, called a kiswa, upon which passages from the Koran are embroidered in gold. The kiswa is renewed every year and the old kiswah is cut up and distributed so as to allow the barakah of the ka’ba to emanate among those to whom the pieces of the cloth are given. During the early centuries of Islamic history the kiswah was made in Egypt and carried with great ceremony to Mecca but now it is fashioned near the holy city itself.