Kaaba First Safe Place of Worship
God says in Verse 96 of Surah Al Imran: “The first house (of worship) that God assigned to men was in Bakka. It is a blessed one and a guide for all people.”
Bakka in Arabic means place of crowding. The land of the Kaaba and its surroundings are called Bakka due to the crowding of people there. Also, Baraka means permanence, blessing, a fixed benefit, and something in which there is a constant advantage.
One of the objections of the Bani Isra’il was why Muslims, considering the antiquity of Jerusalem (Al-Quds), which was built a thousand years before Jesus (AS) by Prophet Solomon (AS), abandoned it and chose the Kaaba as their qibla (direction of prayer). This verse responds to them by stating that the Kaaba has been the first house of worship since the earliest times and its antiquity is older than any other place.
The verse also says that the house located in the land of Bakka is blessed and a guide for all of the world.
Furthermore, Allah the Exalted enumerates clear signs of monotheism in this house, including the Maqam Ibrahim (AS), the very place where Prophet Abraham (AS) stood during the construction of the Kaaba.
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In the Quran, in addition to being described as the first house, the Kaaba is mentioned with various expressions, including: the center of stability and the rise of the people: “an establishment for people” (Verse 97 of Surah Al-Ma’idah: 97); a free and ownerless house (Verse 29 of Surah Hajj); and a gathering place and a secure home for the people (Verse 125 of Surah Al-Baqarah). In the verse under discussion (97 of Surah Al Imran), security is mentioned as a characteristic of this land.
