The Kaaba is a cube-shaped building inside the Grand Mosque (al-Masjid al-Haram) in Makkah — Mecca — in Saudi Arabia. For Muslims it is the holiest place on earth. When they pray, they turn toward it; that direction is the point of the compass for prayer, wherever they are. During the Hajj, the great religious journey, people walk together around the Kaaba as part of the worship — seven times, close in a crowd. The building is covered in black cloth with gold writing. The name comes from Arabic for “cube,” which is honestly what it looks like: a great box of a house. Though actually, Mecca is the city, the Grand Mosque is the mosque around it, and the Kaaba is the cube in the middle — students sometimes mash those three into one word. Hajj is not something every Muslim does every year; it is the special journey, once in a lifetime if you can.

克爾白、天房