The Builders of Kaa'ba

The Builders of Kaa'ba

S. Qasim Hasany

 

About a few miles from Red Sea coast

Huge airliners from four corners of the globe,

Converge on Jeddah Hajj terminal,

Bringing pilgrims of all climes and races several.

They come by sea, buses, cars and on camels, on foot.

Thus the white clad throng at Mecca above two million shoot.

 

Within a month or two, throughout the globe

These million men and women prepare and probe,

And reach for pilgrimage to beseech pardon and seek

Their Lords pleasure, and bounties seek

Of here and hereafter. Circling round the House of God,

Singing His praises and chanting their arrival to their Lord.

 

God is everywhere, everyone knows the fact hard.

But what is the charisma of Kaa'ba and its courtyard,

That people tight their belts to reach it once in life

As a single prayer there is equal to prayers of life,

And a well performed Hajj wipes out your sins

And makes you chaste like a child without sins.

 

What event made this place the center of Lord's attention?

In barest words for you the event I mention.

Forty centuries back in the arid Meccan valley

A strange scene was seen by the hills and the sky.

A firm footed bright faced man of eighty,

To his young wife with his suckling son, said. "Goodbye"

 

The lady casted her woeful glance around

On the black rocks and inhospitable ground.

Clutching the suckling to bosom with love afire

Questioned the white clad aged sire.

"Without wherewithal on whom you are leaving us?"

The patriarch answered, "On Him who created us."

 

Thus Prophet Abraham left his Egyptian wife

In that waterless valley, without a tree or trace of life

This severest test of obedience of husband and wife

Involved the old man's love for both and their life.

The loving mother ran for water between hills,

Till a stream gushed out under thirsty infants heels.

 

The prennial stream caused the nomads to settle

Around it, with provisions, tents and their cattle.

That was the beginning of Mecca, Islam's center,

"Total submission to Divine Will," to all a reminder.

Yet that was not all for Lord's choosing a friend

A greater sacrifice from old Abraham was required.

 

At one of his occasional visits to wife and son,

When his infant son Ishmael was by then of years dozen,

The father visioned slaying him for pleasure of God,

Asking the boy of his will, who agreed to be killed, giving a nod,

He took him away on a rock, his hands at the back tied,

Laying the lad on chest, to cut his neck, hard he tried.

 

The dagger refused to cut, the rock trembled and split

At the grim act, a father tried son's neck to slit.

The act was accepted by God, as the boy sacrificed,

As instead of him, angels brought a ram to be sacrificed.

Years later at His will, they built Kaa'ba, the House of God

A symbol of sacrifices to please our Lord.