Kaaba Trivia
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48 free Kaaba trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Kaaba trivia quiz covers the stone cube at the centre of Mecca's Grand Mosque, the building every Muslim faces in prayer. The easy questions are the ones most people know: what the word means, which city and mosque it stands in, which direction pilgrims walk around it and how many times, what the black cloth is called, and which stone sits in its eastern corner. From there it moves into the tradition of Ibrahim and Ismail, the Maqam Ibrahim, the Hijr Ismail, the Zamzam well and the pre-Islamic 360 idols cleared out in 630. The hard end covers the details: the qibla change from Jerusalem, the Byzantine shipwreck timber used in the rebuild of about 600, the fire of 683 and Ibn al-Zubayr's rebuilding, Abd al-Malik's 693 restoration, the Qarmatians' theft of the Black Stone in 930, the 1626 flood, the golden rain spout, the 300 kg gold door of 1979, the corners named for Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the star Canopus alignment, the twice-yearly cleaning ceremony and the tribe that has held the keys since before Islam. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Kaaba, the Black Stone, the kiswah, the Hajj and Meccan history, and each question links to the page that establishes it. Fifty questions, free, with an explanation after every answer.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the Arabic word Kaaba literally mean?
The Cube
The Cube: the shrine is usually said to be named for its shape, though it is not a perfect cube, standing taller than it is wide.
Q 02The Kaaba stands at the centre of which mosque?
Masjid al-Haram
Masjid al-Haram, the Great Mosque of Mecca, began as a simple wall that Caliph Umar built around the Kaaba in the 630s, and rulers have been enlarging it ever since.
Q 03Muslims call the Kaaba Baytullah, meaning what?
House of God
House of God: Muslims everywhere turn toward it for the five daily prayers, and they bury their dead facing it too.
Q 04How do pilgrims circle the Kaaba during tawaf?
Seven circuits, anti-clockwise
Seven circuits, anti-clockwise: each one starts at the corner holding the Black Stone, which pilgrims try to kiss or touch if the crowd allows.
Q 05What is the area around the Kaaba where pilgrims perform tawaf called?
The Mataaf
The Mataaf is the open paved space around the Kaaba; following the Prophet's reported example, men take their first circuits there at a brisk pace and walk the rest.
Q 06The black cloth covering the Kaaba is called what?
The Kiswah
The Kiswah is black silk embroidered with Quranic verses in gold; when a new one goes up each year, the old cloth is cut into pieces that were long sold to pilgrims as relics.
Q 07Long changed on the Day of Arafah, the Kaaba's covering has since 2022 been replaced on which occasion?
Islamic New Year
Islamic New Year, 1 Muharram: the old date fell when the Hajj pilgrims are all out on the plain of Arafat, the one day of the year the Kaaba is not thronged.
Q 08Since 1962 the Kaaba's covering has been made in Saudi Arabia; which country produced it for most of Islamic history?
Egypt
Egypt sent a new covering to Mecca with the pilgrim caravan each year; weaving moved partly to Mecca in 1927 and wholly in 1962, when the Cairo workshop stopped.
Q 09The Black Stone is set into which corner of the Kaaba?
East
East: legend says the stone came down from paradise white and was turned black by the sins of the countless pilgrims who have touched it.
Q 10The Black Stone is held together in a frame made of what metal?
Silver
Silver: the stone is said to have been shattered during a 7th-century siege, and Mecca's ruler bound the pieces together with a silver band, a repair renewed many times since.
Q 11What has the Black Stone often been described as, though it has never been analysed with modern techniques?
A meteorite
A meteorite is the popular guess, but the stone has never been tested; geologists doubt it, and other ideas range from basalt to glass fused by a meteorite strike in the Arabian desert.
Q 12After circling the Kaaba, pilgrims walk seven times between which two small hills?
Safa and Marwah
Safa and Marwah: the walk, called the sa'y, recalls a mother's frantic search for water for her infant son, and today it runs along an enclosed gallery built onto the mosque.
Q 13The Maqam Ibrahim, a glass and metal enclosure near the Kaaba, is said to preserve what?
Q 21By one disputed tradition, which future caliph was born inside the Kaaba?
Ali ibn Abi Talib
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law: Shia Muslims celebrate him as the only one ever born inside the shrine, while Sunni scholars more often give that distinction to Hakim ibn Hizam.
Q 22Before the qibla was changed to the Kaaba, toward which city did the early Muslims pray?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem was the qibla after the move to Medina in 622; about 16 months later a Quranic revelation turned the faithful toward the Kaaba instead.
Q 23Medina's Mosque of the Two Qiblas long had two of which feature, each marking a different direction of prayer?
Mihrabs
The imprint of a prophet's feet
The imprint of a prophet's feet: in the best-known telling, Ibrahim stood on this stone to build the Kaaba's upper walls with his son Ismail.
Q 14Which low semicircular wall beside the Kaaba encloses ground that was once inside the building?
The Hatim
The Hatim, also called Hijr Ismail, marks where the older walls ran, so pilgrims circle outside it; tradition holds that praying within it counts as praying inside the Kaaba.
Q 15Why did the Quraysh rebuild the Kaaba smaller than its old foundations around 600 CE?
They ran short of money
They ran short of money: the Quraysh had vowed to build only with honestly earned funds, and the shortfall left a strip of the old foundations outside the new north-west wall.
Q 16Where did the Quraysh get the timber to rebuild the Kaaba around 600 CE?
A wrecked Byzantine ship
A wrecked Byzantine ship: it had run aground on the nearby Red Sea coast, and a carpenter who had been aboard, named Baqum, was hired to do the woodwork.
Q 17How did Muhammad settle the Meccan clans' quarrel over who would set the Black Stone in place?
Had them share a cloak
Had them share a cloak: he laid the stone on the cloth, a leader from each clan took hold and they lifted it together, and Muhammad set it in the wall himself.
Q 18Before Islam, how many idols is the Kaaba said to have hosted?
360
360, perhaps one for each day of the year; when Muhammad took Mecca he is said to have struck them down with his staff, reciting 'Truth has come and falsehood has vanished'.
Q 19The chief idol of pre-Islamic Mecca, a red stone figure with a golden right hand, was named what?
Hubal
Hubal: seven arrows lay before the statue, and the Quraysh cast them to settle questions of death, marriage and virginity.
Q 20In one early report, which picture did Muhammad spare when he cleared the Kaaba of images after taking Mecca?
Maryam and Isa
Maryam and Isa: al-Azraqi's history of Mecca reports that he covered the painting of Mary and her child with his hands and had the rest erased; other accounts say every image was destroyed.
Mihrabs: a mihrab is the wall niche that shows worshippers which way to face, and this mosque kept one for each direction until modern rebuilding left only the niche pointing to Mecca.
Q 24Which 628 truce with the Quraysh, named for the place it was made, opened the Kaaba to Muslim pilgrims the following year?
Hudaybiyyah
Hudaybiyyah: turned back outside Mecca with some 1,400 pilgrims, Muhammad accepted a ten-year truce and put off his visit by a year; within two years the city was his.
Q 25The Kaaba burned in 683 while Mecca was under siege by the army of which caliphate?
The Umayyads
The Umayyads were trying to crush Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, who ruled Mecca as a rival caliph; he rebuilt the gutted shrine on a larger plan, which the victors later undid.
Q 26Which general bombarded the Kaaba with stones during the siege of Mecca in 692?
Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf
Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf took the city, Ibn al-Zubayr died in the fighting, and the caliph Abd al-Malik had the enlarged Kaaba pulled down and rebuilt on its earlier, smaller plan.
Q 27Which Shia sect sacked Mecca in 930 and carried off the Black Stone, holding it for some two decades?
The Qarmatians
The Qarmatians, a radical Ismaili sect, attacked during the Hajj itself, threw the bodies of slain pilgrims into the mosque's sacred well and held the stone for ransom.
Q 28What brought down walls of the Kaaba around 1630, forcing it to be rebuilt?
Flash flooding
Flash flooding after heavy rain collapsed the walls, and Sultan Murad IV had them rebuilt; the mosque around the Kaaba, damaged along with it, was renovated at the same time.
Q 29The golden rain spout on the Kaaba's roof is called what?
The Mizab ar-Rahmah
The Mizab ar-Rahmah, 'spout of mercy', has been needed only since the Quraysh first gave the Kaaba a roof around 600 CE; before that the shrine stood open to the sky.
Q 30How is the Kaaba's door, set some two metres above the ground, reached when the shrine is opened?
A staircase on wheels
A staircase on wheels, kept elsewhere in the mosque, is rolled up to the door on the few days a year the shrine is opened, chiefly for its ceremonial washing.