The Kaʿba must surely rank as one of the most iconic places on earth. In this paper I should like to explore less the physical, historical and social dimensions of this remarkable structure, or its continuing presence as a place of pilgrimage, or even the meaning of the Kaʿba and its rituals, but rather what the Kaʿba means for the mystic, for one who has penetrated beyond the surface appearance of things into the unfathomable depth of Being. All too often we tend to relegate religious forms to a particular community:
thus the Kaʿba represents something meaningful for a muslim, whereas for others it becomes more like some anthropological curiosity, with practices they do not understand or have access to. Here my focus will be more on the universal meaning of the Kaʿba, and the wisdom of the
heart that it can represent to each human being on a symbolic level – this is not the wisdom of the heart considered in some abstract intellectual fashion, devoid of particular forms, but as a mode of contemplation that views the world apparently ‘out there’ as a mirror that corresponds to and reveals the reality of our own self. In other words, we enter into a direct contemplation of the inner through the outer form.
Describing one of the five special privileges he had been granted, the Prophet of Islam related that ‘the earth was made a place of worship for me’ (juʿilat lī al-arḍ masjidan).That is to say, all places were given to him as places of prayer, such that wherever one is, praying to God is entirely acceptable. At the same time, from the very beginning of Islam, there were designated places of prayer (masājid, pl. of masjid, literally a place of prostration), i.e. mosques, with a particular orientation.
