expelled from paradise, in order to perform the
first pilgrimage rites. Other accounts credit Adam
with being the first to actually build the Kaaba.
According to this tradition, in the time of Noah,
God raised it up to heaven when the great flood
came. Abraham then later built a second Kaaba
with his son at God’s command and inaugurated
the hajj rituals for all people to perform.
Muslim historical sources, such as Ibn Ishaq’s
Life of the Prophet (mid-eighth century), indicate
that the Quraysh tribe rebuilt the Kaaba around
the year 605, some five years before Muhammad
began his career as a prophet. Muhammad was
credited with having resolved a dispute among
the qUraysh clans over who would install the
Black Stone, signaling his close association with
the sanctuary and growing reputation as a leader.
This building was destroyed during a civil war,
then rebuilt and enlarged by Abd Allah ibn al-
Zubayr (r. 683–692), an opponent of the Umayyad
caliphate who had gained control of Mecca.
When the Umayyads took back control of the city,
they restored it as it had been in Muhammad’s
time. In the ensuing centuries it has undergone
numerous restorations and repairs, the latest by
the government of Saudi Arabia near the end of
the 20th century.
A cover (kiswa) of black cloth made in Saudi
Arabia is placed over the Kaaba annually. It is
embroidered in gold and silver thread with verses
from the Quran. When the cover is replaced each
year, the Saudi government places sections of the
old one in its embassies, or gives them to foreign
governments, international organizations, and
important people. Also, many Muslims hang pic-
tures of the Kaaba in their homes and businesses.
In Egypt it is one of the motifs used in murals that
people paint on the homes of hajjis, pilgrims who
have gone to Mecca.
See also adam and eve; arabian religions, pre-
islamic; mosqUe.
Further reading: Juan Eduardo Campo, The Other Sides
of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of
Domestic Space in Islam (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1991); G. R. Hawting, “The Origins of
the Muslim Sanctuary in Mecca.” In Studies in the First
Century of Islamic Society, edited by G. H. A. Juynboll,
23–47 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1982); F. E. Peters, The Hajj: The Mus-
lim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 3–19; Ahmad
ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi qisas al-
anbiya, or “Lives of the Prophets.” Translated by William
M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002), 145–154.kafir (Arabic: unbeliever, disbeliever;
infidel; ungrateful)
Religions often provide maps for differentiat-
ing insiders from outsiders. In the monotheistic
confessional religions of Christianity and islam
important distinctions are made between people
on the basis of what they believe and do not
believe. Moreover, these distinctions have a bear-
ing on notions of salvation and a person’s fate in
the aFterliFe.
In Islam the word kafir and related words
based on the Arabic root k-f-r are usually used to
designate disbelievers or “infidels” (a Latin term
originally used by medieval Christians), or those
who fall outside the community of true people of
faith (muminin and muslimin). This distinction is
one of the essential ones used in the qUran, where
kafir or the plural kafirun/kafirin is used 134
times (its verbal cognates occur about 250 times;
the verbal noun kufr [unbelief, infidelity] occurs
37 times). In many cases “disbeliever” is used
polemically against the idolaters of Mecca who
were opponents of mUhammad (d. 632) and the
early Muslim community (umma). It is a word that
polarizes groups of people (distinguishing “us”
versus “them”), helps create unity in the com-
munity against outsiders, and mobilizes insiders
to take action accordingly. The kinds of action
such polarization induces are diverse, including
promoting adherence to quranic commandments
and prohibitions, avoiding unbelievers, and tak-K 420 kafir