Picturing the ka‘ba


Although few Western non-Muslim travelers penetrated the forbidden zone of the ka‘ba in Mecca, illustrations proliferated by the mid-18th century. The image above was taken from the 1857 edition of Sale’s translation of the Qur’an (London: W. Tegg & Co) and reproduced in Henry J. Van-Lennep’s Bible Lands: Their Modern Customs and Manners Illustrative of Scripture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875). The two most famous travelers to make surreptitious trips to Mecca were Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1814 and Richard Burton in 1853.