It Was Entirely Rebuilt As It Now Stands In A.D. 1627:
The Torrent, In The Preceding Year, Had Thrown Down Three Of Its Sides;
And Preparatory To Its Re-Erection, The Fourth
[P.137] side was, according to Asamy, pulled down, after the olemas, or
learned divines, had been consulted on the question, whether mortals
might be permitted to destroy any part of the holy edifice without
incurring the charge of sacrilege and infidelity.
The Kaaba stands upon a base two feet in height, which presents a sharp
inclined plane; its roof being flat, it has at a distance the appearance
of a perfect cube. The only door which affords entrance, and which is
opened but two or three times in the year, is on the north side, and
about seven feet above the ground. In entering it, therefore, wooden
steps are used - of them I shall speak hereafter. In the first periods of
Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in A.H. 64, by Ibn Zebeyr, chief of
Mekka, the nephew of Aysha, it had two doors even with the ground-floor
of the mosque. The present door (which, according to Azraky, was brought
hither from Constantinople in 1633) is wholly coated with silver, and
has several gilt ornaments. Upon its threshold are placed every night
various small lighted wax candles, and perfuming-pans, filled with musk,
aloe-wood, &c.
At the North-east corner of the Kaaba, near the door, is the famous
"Black Stone;" it forms a part of the sharp angle of the building, at
four or five feet above the ground.
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