Who Owns the Kaaba? Saudi Regime Allows Only Select Saudis to Hajj 2021

The Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam, is that tiny black cube—can you spot the not?—dwarfed by the imposing 2-billion-dollar clock tower built as a commercial complex, making the holiness of the Kaaba, which was built by the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) eons ago, seem rather paltry in capitalistic terms. This monstrosity was built at a cost that could have fed—forget about the rest of the world—those non-royal Saudi citizens who have neither sufficient food nor appropriate shelter, estimated at about 20% of the Saudi population.

Ramadan Mubarak – and under Siege

Ramadan, the focal point or heart of the year for Muslims around the world —— for although the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Makkah is the high point of the year, the heart of the Islamic year is Ramadan —— is a month of sacrifice, atonement, restraint, forgiveness and asking for mercy, of compassion and consideration for others, of spending more time in worship and prayer, of fasting of course, of thinking about eternity, the Hereafter, and taking time away from this world and its demands. At the same time, Muslims must work to survive, live in societies that may not be Muslim or even friendly or accepting of Muslims. They must make accommodations for unfriendly or even hostile societies.

Quranic Architecture in Islam, Nature, and Ourselves

One need only to see an aerial view of the Ka’aba in Makkah with Muslim pilgrims circling the central shrine in tawaf to recall how central the circle is in Islam. This is in effect the center of the Islamic world, and in a form of worship, the pilgrims or Hojjaj must circle it, thus also participating in the making of a circle. Now we recall that the architecture of the Quran is also circle-based, one could even say in three dimensions as in the shell of a chambered nautilus. But the scope of this discussion is so far reaching, the symbolism contained in Quranic architecture so profound, it may be more enlightening to include more graphics to do justice to the idea of dynamic symmetry in relationship to cycles, returning (to our Creator Allah), the creation, the divine Message itself, and last but not least (as you shall see in the Quran), us.