Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah Al-Azraqi () was a 9th-century Islamic commentator and historian, and author of the ''Kitab Akhbar Makka'' (Book of Reports about Mecca). Al-Azraqi was from a family who lived in

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow v ...

for hundreds of years. He gave information on the design and layout of the pre-Islamic Ka'aba at Mecca after its rebuilding following a fire in 603 AD until its possession by

Mohammed Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...

in 630 AD. The contents included a statue of Hubal, the principal male deity of Mecca, and a number of other pagan items, which were destroyed in 630 as idolatrous. They also included a pair of ram’s horns said to have belonged to the ram sacrificed by the Prophet

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

in place of his son, the Prophet Ismail, and a painting (probably a fresco) of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

and

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

. According to Al-Azraqi, Mohammed spared these items, which survived until the destruction by the Umayyads in 683 AD. Al-Azraqi is silent on the fate of the images of trees that are known also to have decorated the interior of the Ka'aba, pictures of which formed part of the mosaic decoration on the walls of the cathedral of al-Qalis in

Sana'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Gover ...

, and were later to emerge in the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

mosaics in the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock ( ar, قبة الصخرة, Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the ''al-Haram al-Sharif'' or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initial ...

, the

Mosque of the Prophet Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (), known in English as the Prophet's Mosque, is a mosque built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the city of Medina in the Al Madinah Province of Saudi Arabia. It was the second mosque built by Muhammad in Medina, after Qu ...

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

, and the Great Mosque of Damascus.King, G. R. D. 2004. The Paintings of the Pre-Islamic Ka'ba. In Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, XXI, 219-230 The key manuscript of ''Akhbar Makka'' is Leiden, University Library, Or.424. The only printed edition is volume one of ''Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka'', ed. by Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, 4 vols (Leipzig 1858-61)
vol. 1vol. 2vol. 3vol. 4

References

9th-century Arabs 9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate Arab Muslim historians of Islam {{Asia-historian-stub