- Bringing both doors down to ground level, thereby regulating and easing access for anyone who wishes to enter or leave.
ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr — may Allah be pleased with him — carried these reforms out in full during his rule over Mecca. Yet unjust politics later returned the Kaaba to its former condition. The matter is detailed in the authentic report recorded by Muslim and Abū Nuʿaym, through their chain from ʿAṭāʾ, who said:
“When the House was burned in the time of Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah, during the Syrian army’s assault on Mecca, Ibn al-Zubayr left it as it was until the people arrived for the pilgrimage season; he wished thereby to embolden them — or incite them — against the Syrians. When the pilgrims had dispersed, he said:
‘People, advise me about the Kaaba: shall I demolish it completely and rebuild it, or simply repair the part that has been damaged?’
Ibn ʿAbbās replied, ‘A view has become clear to me. I think you should repair what has been damaged and leave the House upon which the Muslims first embraced Islam, the very stones upon which they submitted, the same stones upon which the Prophet ﷺ was commissioned.’
Ibn al-Zubayr said, ‘If one of you had his own house burned, he would not rest until he restored it. How, then, about the House of your Lord? I shall seek my Lord’s guidance for three nights and then decide.’
When the three nights had passed, he resolved to tear it down. People hesitated, fearing that some punishment from heaven might befall the first person to climb onto it. Then a man ascended and cast down stones from the structure; when the crowd saw that nothing happened to him, they followed suit, pulling it down to the ground. Ibn al-Zubayr then erected pillars, draped them with cloth screens, and the building rose behind that covering.
He went on to say, ‘I heard ʿĀʾishah report that the Prophet ﷺ said…’ (here he quoted the hadith containing the Prophet’s first stipulation) ‘…and today I have funds to spend and no longer fear public opinion.’ He therefore added five cubits of the Hijr, exposing its foundation for everyone to see, and built upon it. The Kaaba had been eighteen cubits high; finding that too low after the expansion, he increased its height by ten cubits. He also made two doors — one for entering and the other for exiting.
After Ibn al-Zubayr was killed, al-Ḥajjāj wrote to ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, informing him of all this and explaining that Ibn al-Zubayr had set the structure upon a foundation inspected by trustworthy men of Mecca. ʿAbd al-Malik wrote back to him: ‘We are not among…’