The Ka'aba of Islam

Chapters

1. Introduction
2. The Temple of Judaism
3. The Original Temple of Solomon
4. The Temple at the Time of Christ
5. The Ka'aba of Islam
6. The Ka'aba’s Relevance to Solomon's Temple
7. The Christ of God
8. Jesus and the Temple
9. The One Mediator Between God and Men

« The Temple at the Time of Christ

Anyone who has studied comparative religion cannot fail to be struck by the similarities between the Temple of Judaism and the Ka'aba of Islam. The photographs in this booklet show very clearly the resemblances between them. Just as the Temple had a large courtyard which was surrounded by porticoes, so the Haram in Mecca has the same features. And in each case we find a cubic structure in the centre (the very word "Ka'aba" means cube) which in both religions appears as the holiest place on earth. Furthermore, just as Jews came from all over the world to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, so Muslims come on pilgrimage to Mecca to pray and worship in the Great Mosque in the centre of the city.

Likewise, as Jews turned towards Jerusalem when they prayed (1 Kings 8:30) to unite in worship of the one true God, so all Muslims face the Ka'aba in Mecca when they pray in accordance with the teaching of the Qur'an (Quran 2.150). The function and design of the Ka'aba in Mecca is so remarkably similar to the Temple in Jerusalem that one cannot help but conclude that this is not a coincidental phenomenon. Clearly there is a link between them. Furthermore the forms of prayer and the fact of pilgrimage in Islam today are practically a perpetuation of the Jewish forms in pro-Christian times (though the actual rituals of the pilgrimage resemble the pro-Islamic rites of the pagan Meccans rather than the forms of worship at the Temple in Jerusalem) .

The Ka'aba’s Relevance to Solomon's Temple »