Secrets of the drape of Ka’aba (KISWA )

Everytime I go for Umrah,I always wonder about the drape of kaab’a-the House of Allah.How beautiful is the calligraphy ! I always wanted to stand there forever looking at the kiswa,and reading the ayats.I wanted to know which ayats are written in it?I wondered that such a beautiful intricate design must have some secrets,and then I began my research.I was astonished to know that it takes 20,million SR to produce the drape of kaaba.The beauty of islam is that such a precious piece is not kept locked anywhere but distributed as a gift among the general public and to muslim countries.Masha Allah !

Kiswah (Arabic: كسوة الكعبة‎, kiswat al-ka’bah) is the cloth that covers the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.The holy Kaaba is covered with new kiswa (cover) every year on the 10th Dhu Al Hijjah, which coincides with Haj. It was a custom started by the Prophet Ismail (Pubh) 4000 years before the origin of Islam.The term kiswah is Arabic for ‘pall‘, the cloth draped over a casket,

COST OF MAKING KISWAH

The present cost of making the kiswa amounts to SAR 20,000,000 . The cover is 658m² and is made of 670 kg of silk. The embroidery contains 15 kg of gold threads. It consists of 47 pieces of cloth and each piece is 14m long and 101 cm wide. The kiswa is wrapped around the Kaaba and fixed to its base with copper rings. The manually designed embroidery of the Quranic verses are slowly being aided by computers, thus increasing the speed of production

DIMENSION OF KISWAH

The cloth is 14 meters high.
On the top third of the cloth, there is the Kiswa belt which is 95 centimeters wide and 45 meters long.
It consists of 16 pieces and surrounds the Kiswa from all sides.
The belt is embroidered with protruding designs that are enameled with silver threads covered with gold. The material is made up of silk and a gold embroidered band is sewn about three fourth the distance from the bottom.
The part covering the door, which stands 2.13 mts above the ground on the north-east side wall, is covered separately with richly embroidered Quranic verses, leaving an opening for the black stone

WHAT IS WRITTEN IN KISWAH

1996, Mecca, Saudi Arabia --- The black cloth covering the Kaaba the focus of Muslim prayer, is called a kiswah, and is embroidered with Quranic verses. --- Image by © Kazuyoshi Nomachi/Corbis — At each corner of Kaaba,surah Ikhlas is written in a circle

CALLIGRAPHY:- Quranic verses are written on it in Ath-Thuluth style of Arabic calligraphy.

1)The Kiswa is made of pure natural silk dyed in black. On this silk are engraved the phrases:

” 0′ Allah, There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. The Most Loving, the Bene- factor. Glory be to Allah and Praise be to Allah and Glory is to Allah the Great”.

2)Under the belt, at each corner of the Ka’aba, Surah of Ikhlas (Purity of Faith) is written inside a circle surrounded by a square shape of Islamic embellishment

3)At the same height, also under the belt, there are six verses of the Holy Quran. Each of these verses is written in a separate frame.

4)On the areas separating these frames there is a shape of a lamp on which either of the following Phrases is written:”O’ you The Alive The Self Subsisting”. “The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful”, or “Praise be to Allah”. All that is written under the belt is in Ath- Thuluth style of handwriting, embroidered in protruding designs and interwoven with silver threads covered with gold.

5) Earlier the Kiswas’ were plain. Only in 1340 the embroidery border tradition was introduced by the Egyptian ruler Hassan.

6)KISWA WAS NOT BLACK :The colour of Kiswa kept changing during the reigns of different Caliphs and rulers.Once the grand mother of Prophet Mohammed (Pbuh) had offered white Kiswa.The Caliph Al-Ma’mun, draped the Kaaba three times a year, each time with a different colour: red on the eighth of Dhu al-Hijjah, white gabati on the first of Rajab, and another red brocade on the twenty-ninth of Ramadan. Later on, Al-Nasir draped the Kaaba with green; both he and Al-Ma’mun disagreed on the frequent colour changes and switched to black, the only colour that has since been used for Kiswah.Nassir Abbasi (1160-1207) started green Kiswa and later shifted to black, since then the black kiswa has become the tradition.

MAKING OF KISWA