In the previous chapter we discussed the content of the Kaʿba: what was housed there before and after the advent of Islam, and what is held there today. In the present chapter, we shall continue to inquire into the housing functions of the Kaʿba by looking at a little-known function of the robe that covers the House, the Kiswa. Referring to descriptions and depictions of the Kaʿba by travellers, pilgrims and miniaturists, I shall argue that a particular way of hanging the Kiswa signals when within the House a divine presence is imagined to dwell.

The chapter is in two parts and will proceed as follows. First, a history and description of the Kiswa, leading to an examination of the Kiswa’s relationship to the Kaʿba. Here we shall ask if the Kiswa is integral to the Kaʿba or an afterthought, and if it hides or reveals the Kaʿba. Second, an analysis of the dynamics of the Kiswa, of how the different ways it is hung in the course of the Islamic year serve either to animate the Kaʿba from without or to prompt the perception that the Kaʿba has been animated from within, quickened. The first type of animation will be seen to be figurative only, the elevated Kiswa breaking up the otherwise unbroken solidity of the Kaʿba's walls. Via a review of verbal and visual representations of the Kaʿba, the second type of animation will be seen to verge on the literal, and at times cross into it.

Part One: A History and Description of the Kiswa

The history of the Kiswa has been well treated in scholarship. A number of European-language publications cover the subject, meaning that only an overview will be provided here, taken from the most extensive of them. In tandem with a description of the Kiswa, this overview will facilitate an examination of the relationship of the Kiswa to the Kaʿba, which is not straightforward.

From the Kiswa's alleged origins in the fifth century ce as a gift from a Southern Arabian ruler wishing to honour the Kaʿba, to the animal skins and palm weavings that allegedly first comprised it, the pre-Islamic history of the Kiswa is mired in uncertainty and will not detain us.