MECCA – The holy Kaaba got a new gold-laced Kiswah (cover) on Sunday.
Officials from the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs took down the old kiswah and replaced it with the new one, which is made from pure silk at Makkah’s Kiswah Factory.
The new kiswah hung over the old one from the top and then the old one is removed from underneath.
The new Kiswah was transported from the King Abdel Aziz Complex to the Grand Mosque using a fleet. The fleet consists of a truck designed especially to transport the Kiswah, where it is coated from the inside with a special material to protect it from tearing or damage.
Until 1927, Egypt used to manufacture the kiswah and sent it in a huge annual parade before the hajj season. But this tradition stopped after late Saudi King Abdel Aziz bin Saud ordered the establishment of a factory to manufacture the Kiswah.
The Kiswah consists of black silk with self embroidered calligraphists, and strips of embroidered in the lower part of the top quarter of the walls.
It is made with 1,000 kg of pure silk, and 220 kg of gold and silver thread that is used for sewing the Qur’anic verses. It is 658 square meters in size and consists of 47 pieces, each 14 metres long and 95 cm wide.
It is manufactured by 200 technicians, weavers and administrators.
It costs about 22 million Saudi riyals.
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