Rebuilding of the Ka'bah and the Black Stone Dispute

Approximately five years before the first revelation — when the Prophet ﷺ was about thirty-five — the Ka'bah in Mecca was damaged by flood and fire, and the Quraysh undertook a complete reconstruction. They organized the work by clan, assigning each family a section of the wall to build, distributing both the labor and the honor. The Prophet ﷺ participated in carrying stones from the surrounding mountains, and the seerah records a notable detail: when his uncle suggested he remove his lower garment to cushion the stones on his shoulder, the Prophet was immediately struck with a sense of modesty and did not do so. The reconstruction proceeded without major incident until the moment the rebuilt structure needed the most sacred element: the Black Stone (al-Hajar al-Aswad), the ancient stone from Paradise set in the Ka'bah by Ibrahim in the corner facing east. Every clan of Quraysh wanted the honor of placing the stone in its position — and no clan was willing to yield. The dispute escalated toward violence; some accounts record that clan chiefs dipped their hands in a bowl of blood, pledging to fight to death rather than concede the honor. The standoff lasted four or five days. An elder of Quraysh then proposed a solution: whoever entered through the mosque gate next would be their judge. The first person to enter was Muhammad ibn Abdullah ﷺ — and the assembled Quraysh called out in relief: "This is al-Amin! We accept him!" The Prophet ﷺ did not assign the honor to any single clan. He asked for a cloth to be spread on the ground, placed the Black Stone at its center with his own hands, and had representatives of every clan hold the edges of the cloth. Together, they all lifted it to the height of the wall. The Prophet ﷺ then took the stone from the cloth and placed it in the wall himself — so that all had participated and none had been excluded. The crisis was resolved without bloodshed, and the unified action of placing the stone inscribed the Prophet's instinct for inclusive justice into one of the most sacred moments of Meccan history.