The Kaaba or Ka’aba (Arabic: الكعبة‎‎ al-Kaʿbah IPA: [ælˈkæʕbɐ], “The Cube”), is a cuboid building at the centre of Islam’s most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 

It is the most sacred point within this most sacred mosque, making it the most sacred location in Islam.

Wherever they are in the world, Muslims are expected to face the Kaaba – i.e. when outside Mecca, to face toward Mecca – when performing salat (prayers).

The Arabic word Kaaba comes from the Arabic ka’bah meaning “square house,” which in turn comes from ka’b meaning “cube.

The Kaaba was thought to be at the center of the world, with the Gate of Heaven directly above it. 

The Kaaba marked the location where the sacred world intersected with the profane or fall of Lucifer; the embedded Black Stone in the Kaaba was a further symbol of this as a meteorite that had fallen from the sky and linked heaven and earth.

The fall of Lucifer Hasatan who was thrown out of heaven on the earth, it is said that; the location where this falling took place is where the Kaaba was built.. 

In her book, Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong asserts that the Kaaba was at some point dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity.

(The Kaaba being a house of idolatry or harlotry and divination, designed to bring to mecca wealth and trade), and contained 360 idols that probably represented the days of the year. 

In Guillaume’s translation of Ibn Ishaq, an early biographer of Muhammad, the Ka’aba itself was addressed as female, where the divination of bringing trade and wealth to Mecca was done.

But also the divination of deception practiced through trading, the spreading of terror and the fear that goes with it was also divined in the Kaaba.

During the ancient times of the Kaaba before the raising of Muhammad, Circumambulation was often performed naked by men and almost naked by women, and linked to ancient fertility rites of sexual immorality which were performed by the pagan Arabs.

The pagans performed Hajj even before the advent of Islam

By Muhammad’s day, the Kaaba was venerated as the shrine of Allah, the High God.

Prophet Muhammad got rid of all the idols in the Kaaba, but he preserved the black stone.