islam

  Prayer and passage   Passage to a holy point is a core principle of nearly all faiths. The Kaaba, meaning cell in Arabic, is a square structure elegantly draped in a silk and cotton robe. Located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, it's the holiest sanctum in Islam.   In Islam, Muslims supplicate five times a day and after 624 CE, these prayers were directed towards Mecca and the Kaaba rather than Jerusalem; this direction — or qibla in Arabic — is marked in all kirks and enables the faithful to know in which direction they should supplicate. The Qur‘an established the direction of prayer.   All Muslims aspire to shoulder the hajj, or the periodic passage, to the Kaaba formerly in their lives if they're suitable. Prayer five times a day and the hajj are two of the five pillars of Islam, the most abecedarian principles of the faith.  Upon arriving in Mecca, pilgrims gather in the yard of the Masjid al-Haram around the Kaaba. They also circumnavigate — tawaf ...