of the People of the Book—namely, the earlier prophets’ foretelling of his prophethood and messengership and their injunction that people should follow him—are likewise events that lay wholly outside his power, knowledge, and will, and occurred before he was even born.

The same holds true for the distinction God has granted the Kaʿbah, the Sacred House, from the moment Abraham built it until this very hour: the reverence shown to it, the honor accorded it, and the way hearts are irresistibly drawn toward it. It is common knowledge that kings and others erect fortresses, cities, and palaces with massive tools and meticulous engineering, only for them soon to fall into ruin and contempt. By contrast, the Kaʿbah is merely a house of black stones in a barren valley where nothing grows. It is devoid of the orchards, streams, and other delights that people covet; there is no army posted to defend it from enemies, and along the road to it lie none of the worldly pleasures that souls crave. On the contrary, the path to it often entails fears, fatigue, thirst, and hunger the extent of which only God knows.

Yet God has placed in human hearts a yearning for it that none but He can fathom. He has bestowed upon the House such dignity, honor, and majesty that the necks of all the earth’s inhabitants are humbled before it: mighty kings and the leaders of tyrants travel to it and there stand in lowliness and need like ordinary folk. One knows by sheer necessity that this lies beyond human ability and beyond the power of their souls and bodies—the man who built it has been dead for thousands of years.

Because of this, the Kaʿbah has baffled philosophers, astrologers, and naturalists, for it eludes the measure of their intellects and the laws of their sciences. They have therefore fabricated tales about it that any intelligent, discerning person recognizes as false, such as the claim of some that beneath the Kaʿbah there is a chamber containing an idol which is perfumed with incense and turned toward the four directions so that people will be drawn to the pilgrimage.