A Kába elhagyja Mekkát. Középkori példák a legszentebb iszlám épület helyi analógiáira
The Kaaba Leaves Mecca: Mediaeval Examples for Local Analogies of the Holiest Islamic Building

Summary/Abstract: The square sanctuary of the Kaaba, located in the Mosque of the Haram in Mecca, has a central role in Islam: it orients people who pray towards it and desire to visit it once in their lifetime as part of their religious beliefs. Besides these normative regulations of Islam, there is a parallel, though less known, phenomenon, namely that several buildings were – and still are – revered as local analogies of the Kaaba. The present paper touches upon some examples of this phenomenon in the mediaeval Islamic world, ranging from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem the Shalla in Rabat (Morocco), the Eski Mosque in Edirne (Turkey), and the Shrine of Imam Reza in Meshhed (Iran). What unifies these, admittedly diverse and remote, sites is the fact that they have adopted some functions of the Kaaba, and made their visitors perform rites that are traditional parts of the pilgrimage to Mecca. To that end, given that the journey to Mecca often led through hostile territories and was thus rightly considered to be dangerous, many communities in the Islamic world would rather establish their own local ‘Kaaba’.

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