Ten years passed thus in prosperity and study.  Mahomet was no longer obscure but the chief of a wealthy house, revered for his piety, and looked upon already as one of those “to whom God whispers in the ear.”  His character now exhibited more than ever the marks of the poet and seer; the time was at hand when all the subdued enthusiasm of his mind was to break forth in the opening Suras of the Kuran.  The inspiration had not yet descended upon him, but it was imminent, and the shadow of its stern requirements was about him as he attended to his work of supervising Khadijah’s wealth or took part in the religious life of Mecca.

In A.D. 605, when Mahomet was thirty-five years old, the chief men of Mecca decided to rebuild the Kaaba.  The story of its rebuilding is perhaps the most interesting of the many strange, naive tales of this adventurous city.  Valley floods had shattered the house of the gods.  It was roofless, and so insecure that its treasury had already been rifled by blasphemous men.  It stood only as high as the stature of a man, and was made simply of stones laid one above the other.  Rebuilding was absolutely necessary, but materials were needed before the work could begin, and this delayed the Kureisch until chance provided them with means of accomplishing their design.  A Grecian ship had been driven in a Red Sea storm upon the coast near Mecca and was rapidly being broken up.  When the Kureisch heard of it, they set out in a body to the seashore and took away the wood of the ship to build a roof for the Kaaba.  It is a significant fact that tradition puts a Greek carpenter in Mecca who was able to advise them as to the construction.  The Meccans themselves were not sufficiently skilled in the art of building.

But now a great difficulty awaited them.  Who was to undertake the responsibility of demolishing so holy a place, even if it were only that it might be rebuilt more fittingly?  Many legends cluster round the demolition.  It would seem that the gods only understood gradually that a complete destruction of the Kaaba was not intended.  Their opposition was at first implacable.  The loosened stones flew back into their places, and finally none could be induced to make the attempt to pull down the Kaaba.  There was a pause in the work, during which no one dared venture near the temple, then Al-Welid, being a bold and god-fearing spirit, took an axe, and crying: 

“I will make a beginning, let no evil ensue, O Lord!” he began to dislodge the stones.

Then the rest of the Kureisch rather cravenly waited until the next day, but seeing that no calamity had befallen Al-Welid, they were ready to continue the work.  The rebuilding prospered until they came to a point where the Black Stone must be embedded in the eastern wall.