Simon O'Meara, The Kaʿba Orientations

The Kaba Orientations is a monograph on the most important building in the history of Islamic culture and religion, which has nonetheless received surprisingly little scholarly attention to date.The author, a prolific historian of Islamic architecture, employs a transdisciplinary approach.Under creative chapter headings in the form of "The Kaba as" and "The House as", he brings together materials from architectural history, art history, scientific and folk astronomy, travel literature, and mystical and theological texts to comprehensively examine the Kaba in the pre-modern period.In this, he does not, in my view, proceed in a "multidisciplinary" way (pp.4-5); rather, he directly relates the partial analyses to one another, though with a transdisciplinary attitude and a fine attunement to terminological issues (e.g., for the designation of the Kaba as temple, betyl, house, or palladium, pp.6-7).The author's systematic approach focuses on the spatial dimension of this Islamic sanctuary and conceives of its main religious function as orientation, in accordance with Charles Long (p. 1).O'Meara's book is structured as a zoom-in from "furthest to nearest" (pp.3-4).He first discusses the qibla function of the Kaba, including whether the Kaba or Mecca indicated the direction of the qibla, the metaphorical transfer of its function to rulers, and the extent to which profane buildings were also oriented toward the Kaba.This is followed by a discussion of David King's discovery that the Kaba is oriented astronomically not cardinally (pp.40-42), its function as the navel of the world, and its possible role in the naming of places.The third chapter addresses the fact that although the Kaba has been destroyed and rebuilt several times, this has not led to apocalyptic expectations on the part of Muslims.O'Meara then discusses the rituals conducted at the Kaba, explains that there have been few attempts by Islamic scholars to explain them rationally (leading to their consequent neglect in Orientalist

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