Kiswa of Holy Kaaba: How much do you know?
Kiswa is the black cover of the holy Kaaba, The House of Allah, highly respectable to the Muslim ummah. Kiswah is a purely artistic piece of Quranic calligraphy. It continues from pre-Islamic times to cover the Kaaba with pieces of cloth.
A minimum of 100 workers work in the Kiswah-making factory in Makkah. They turned 670kg pure silk into Kiswah which total cost is SAR 17,000,000. The cover is 658 sqm and is embroidered with 120kg gold threads and 100kg silver threads. There are 45 pieces of cloth, each piece is 45m long and 101cm wide. The kiswa is changed every year during the time of Hajj and 200 Saudi craftsmen are engaged every year to make one Kiswah. A copper belt is set around the Kaaba to hold the kiswah which is highly emboderied with Quranic verses of calligraphy with white and yellow ink.
History of Kiswah
The cover of the Kaaba continues through pre-historic times. The first man who covered the Kaaba was named Tubbaa Al-Humairi, the king of Yemen.
Historians specialized in the Kaaba’s history mention in some accounts that Al-Humairi covered the Kaaba with a thick cloth called khasf and later with Maafir, which is originally named after an ancient city in Yemen where Maafir cloth was made. He then covered it with milaa, a soft, thin one-piece cloth known as rabitah. After that, he covered the Kaaba with wasael, a red-striped Yemeni cloth. The tradition is still continuing.
The colour of kiswah
The colour of kiswah is regularly changed through the ages. It represents the financial statement of every era of Makka’s ruler. The Prophet Mohammad (sm ) covered the Kabba with white and red striped Yemeni cloth. During the rule of Khilafah Rashedin, the kiswah’s colour was white. In Ibn Abdulah Al Zubayr’s time, the colour of it was red. During the Abbasid era, the colour they used was white and red and Seljuk sultan used yellow colour for Kaaba covering. Abbasid Khalifa Al Nassir time yellow colour coverage was used for Kaaba. White colour does not use for Kaaba’s covering because of its cleanliness and durability. Because of this, Black colour Kiswah is used to cover the holy Kaaba.
At first, the kiswah was manufactured in Egypt but now Makkah has its own manufactured house near the holy mosque. The pieces of Kiswah were distributed among the rulers of different countries after it was changed during the time of Hajj. The Kiswah of Kabba is a very beautiful art piece of highly decorated calligraphy which is a very prestigious Hajj souvenir.
