In the interior, the dry well, called Byr Ahsef, still
remained, wherein the treasures were deposited, particularly the golden
vessels that had been presented to the Kaaba. It was at this period
that the structure took the name of Kaaba, which is said to be derived
from kaab, a die or cube, the form which the building now assumed. Its
former title was the House of God, (Beitullah) or the Old House, a name
still often applied to it.
Twenty years after the last-mentioned date, El Hadjadj Ibn Yousef el
Thakafy, then governor of Mekka, disliking the enlarged size of the
Kaaba, reduced it to the proportions it had in the time of the Koreysh,
cutting off six pikes from its length; he also restored the wall called
Hedjer, which Ibn Zebeyr had included within the building. The size then
given to the edifice is the same as that of the present structure, it
having been scrupulously adhered to in all the repairs or re-erections
which subsequently took place.
Towards the end of the first century of the Hedjra, Wolyd Ibn Abd el
Melek was the first who reared columns in the mosque. He
[p.166] caused their capitals to be covered with thin plates of gold,
and incurred a great expense for decorations: it is related that all the
golden ornaments which he gave to the building were sent from Toledo in
Spain, and carried upon mules through Africa and Arabia.
Abou Djafar el Mansour, one of the Abassides, in A.H. 139, enlarged the
north and south sides of the mosque, and made it twice as large as it
had been before, so that it now occupied a space of forty-seven pikes
and a half in length. He also paved the ground adjoining the well of
Zemzem with marble.
The Khalife El Mohdy added to the size of the mosque at two different
periods; the last time, in A.H. 163, he bought the ground required for
these additions from the Mekkawys, paying to them twenty-five dinars for
every square pike. It was this Khalife who brought the columns from
Egypt, as I have already observed. The improvements which he had begun,
were completed by his son El Hady. The roof of the colonnade was then
built of sadj, a precious Indian wood. The columns brought from Egypt by
El Mohdy, were landed at one day's journey north of Djidda; but some
obstacles arising, they were not all transported to Mekka, some of them
having been abandoned on the sands near the shore. I mention this for
the sake of future travellers, who, on discovering them, might perhaps
consider them as the vestiges of some powerful Greek or Egyptian colony.
