Abraha, who then set out for the Kaaba to demolish it, until events unfolded as they did.

Allah Most High says:

“Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephant?
Did He not bring their plot to nothing?
And He sent against them birds in flocks,
pelting them with stones of hardened clay,
leaving them like chewed-up straw.”

It is well known among scholars of Quranic commentary, historical biography, and other disciplines that he built a church to which he wanted to divert the Arabs’ pilgrimage. It is also clear that he intended only to perform there what is performed in Christian churches. This shows that travelling to churches among them is of the same kind as pilgrimage among Muslims: it is called pilgrimage, and through it the Sacred House is rivalled. It also shows that anyone who intends to designate a place for worship, to be travelled to as the Sacred Mosque is travelled to, intends an act of worship of the same kind as pilgrimage.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade anyone to make a pilgrimage or travel to any place other than the three mosques. The obligatory pilgrimage, which is what the unqualified word “pilgrimage” denotes, is exclusively to the Sacred Mosque. The other two mosques are destinations for travel to a particular place to worship there. Any other journey to a venerated place is of the same kind as making pilgrimage to it, and that is forbidden.

Likewise, in the report: “When Abū Sufyān met with Umayya ibn Abī al-Salt al-Thaqafī, the latter mentioned a Christian scholar who had told him that a prophet would soon be sent from among the Arabs. Umayya said: ‘I said, “We are Arabs.” He replied, “He comes from the people of a House to which the Arabs make pilgrimage.” I said, “We, the people of Thaqīf, have among us a house to which the Arabs make pilgrimage.”