—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—reached puberty, a woman perfumed the Kaʿbah with incense; a spark leapt from her censer onto the covering of the Kaʿbah and it caught fire. The people therefore demolished the structure, and when they rebuilt it and reached the spot where the Corner—that is, the Black Stone—belonged, Quraysh fell into dispute: which of the tribes should place it? They said, “Let us appoint as judge the first person who appears to us.” The first to approach was the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, a young man wearing a striped mantle. They accepted him as arbiter. He ordered that the Corner be set upon a cloth, then had the chief of every tribe take hold of one edge. He himself climbed up, and when they had raised the Stone to him he placed it in position with his own hand. Thereafter, as his years advanced, the people’s esteem for him only increased until they called him al-Amīn, the Trustworthy—this was before any revelation had come to him. They would never slaughter a camel without seeking him out so that he might invoke blessings upon it for them.

It is related from ʿUrwa, Mujāhid, and others that the House was rebuilt fifteen years before the commencement of the Prophet’s mission.

Dāwūd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAṭṭār said: Ibn Khuthaym narrated to us from Abū al-Tufayl, who said: I asked him, “Uncle, tell me about the Kaʿbah before Quraysh rebuilt it.” He replied: “It was only a low, dry heap of stones without mortar; young goats could leap over it. The covering was simply laid on the walls and left to hang down. Then a Byzantine ship came sailing until, when it reached al-Shuʿaybah, it broke apart. Quraysh heard of this, rode out to it, and took its timber—together with a Byzantine carpenter named Balqūm. When they returned to Mecca they said, ‘Let us rebuild the House of our Lord.’ They gathered for that purpose and carried stones from the outskirts of Ajyad. While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was helping to carry stones, his striped garment slipped and exposed his private parts. A voice called out, ‘O Muhammad, cover your nakedness!’—and, Allah knows best, his nakedness was never seen again.”

Abū al-Aḥwaṣ narrated from Simāk ibn Ḥarb that Abraham ﷺ built the House—he recounted the report in full—until he said: “Time passed and the House collapsed, so the Amalekites rebuilt it; then time passed and it collapsed again, so Jurhum rebuilt it; then time passed and it collapsed once more, so it was rebuilt….”