Rebuilding the Ka'bah

After the fire, 'Abdullah decided to rebuild the Ka'bah. He remembered what his aunt 'A'ishah had told him: the Prophet ﷺ said to her, "If your people were not so close to the days of disbelief, I would have rebuilt the House on the foundations of Ibrahim, and I would have given it two doors, one for people to enter and one to leave."

He took the decision on that basis. The Quraysh had left out part of the original foundations, called al-Hijr, when they rebuilt it before Islam. 'Abdullah included it, raised the walls, and made two doors at ground level, one facing east and one west.

After his death, al-Hajjaj returned the Ka'bah to the form the Quraysh had built, on the instruction of the caliph 'Abd al-Malik. Reports say that 'Abd al-Malik later regretted this when he heard the hadith of 'A'ishah. That is why the Ka'bah today does not follow the plan the Prophet ﷺ mentioned. Scholars later advised that it should not be changed again, so that it does not become a plaything of rulers.