Muslims Gather around the Kaaba Shrine during the Hajj in Mecca

Muslims from across the world have gathered in Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage, and visited the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque.

Key to the Ka’aba Breaks All Records in Sotheby's Sale
Key to the Ka’aba fetches record price at auction. Photo courtesy of the BBC
BBC: A 12th Century key to Islam's holiest shrine has sold at auction in London for £9.2m ($18.1m).

The key to the Kaaba - the ancient cube-shaped shrine in Mecca - went to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby's.

The auction house said the price set a record for the sale of an Islamic work of art.

Made of iron and measuring 37cm (15in) in length, the key is engraved with the words "This was made for the Holy House of God".

The key was the centrepiece of Sotheby's Islamic art sale, which realised more than £21.5m ($40m) in total.

'Important symbol'

Head of Sotheby's Islamic art department Edward Gibbs said: "Remarkably, the sale realised more than the Islamic department's annual total for 2007, demonstrating beyond doubt the burgeoning and international demand for Islamic art."

The key is the only known example to be in private hands. All of the other 58 Kaaba keys are in museums.

Sotheby's said the key was "arguably one of the most important symbols of Islam".

The auction house said the keys were dedicated to caliphs, starting with the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad.

"As a physical object, the key to the holiest building of an entire religion, it demonstrates the authority of the caliph and is the ultimate emblem of power," said Sotheby's. [Source: BBC: Holy Islamic Key Sets Sale Record]

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

The Ka’aba: ”Stupid Stone”
Photo of the Ka’aba courtesy of Google Images
BBC: A Berlin art gallery has temporarily closed an exhibition where one of the posters made fun of Islam's holiest shrine, the Kaaba in Mecca.

The decision came after threats believed to be from Muslims.

The exhibition was organised by the Danish group Surrend, which said it wanted to oppose religious extremism.

A poster on display showed the Kaaba - the black granite cube-shaped building in Mecca. The words "stupid stone" in German were superimposed on it.

It is toward the Kaaba that Muslims must pray.

Confronting ideology

The poster - among 22 on display - also showed the faithful walking around it with speech bubbles saying "Zionist occupied government", which referred to the title of the exhibition.

The Danish artists said they wanted to satirise the conspiracy theory that Jews are behind everything - a view they say is prevalent among neo-Nazis and in parts of the Arab world.

The director of the art gallery in Berlin said there had been threats of violence if the poster was not removed, so they had decided to shut for a while. Berlin gallery in Islam art row >>> By Frances Harrison, BBC religious affairs reporter

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)