BUANASENI

Title: Lego of Masjidil Haram and the Kaabah
Medium: Lego
Artist: Johan Ishak and Daniel Ariff
Time/Date: 9:00pm, 18 April 2010
Place of creation: Shah Alam
www.buanaseni.blogspot.com

NOTHER Lego Saga with my boy but this time it's the Masjidil Haram with the Kaabah in the middle. We chose this to model as it is one of the most noticeable landmark in the world that is even visible from the moon. This site represents unity in the Islamic world whereby all Muslims pray 5 times a day facing a direction that leads to the Kaabah. It is a very sacred site to the Muslims almost on par with Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.

Worshippers claim that they feel devine presents in their heart when performing the pilgrimage (ie. the Hajj) at the Kaabah - the act of submission to God after having the health, wealth and time to perform the preriquisites such as the declaration of faith in Islam (shahadah), praying 5 times a day (solat), fasting for 30 days (Ramadhan) and donate to the poor (zakat). The Hajj is the 5th pillar of Islam that completes a Muslim's duty to God, mankind and to him/herself. The Kaabah is located in the middle of an open area surrounded by a mosque, Masjidil Haram, in the city of Mekkah in Saudi Arabia.

It is believed, as well as written in the Quran, that Mekkah and Kaabah were founded and built by the Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim) and his son, the Prophet Ishmael (Ismail), peace be upon them. Abraham, peace be upon him (p.b.u.h), believed to be of the Mesopotamian-Assyrian stock, took a second wife, Hagar (Siti Hajar), from the Bedouins as Sarah (Siti Sarah), his first wife, could not give him any children. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael p.b.u.h and miraculously, Sarah later gave birth to Prophet Isaac (Ishak) p.b.u.h despite her old age. As a diplomatic solution to maintain peace in the family, Hagar and Ishmael p.b.u.h were sent to the desert of Arabia to start a life - where the Kaabah is. This humble beginning turned out to be a mighty nation today. Likewise, Isaac p.b.u.h also produced a similar titan. The former being the Arabs and the latter, Hebrew/Jews/Israelis, as foretold by the Angel Gabriel (Jibrail) to Hagar when left alone with his boy at the barren region.

Back to the lego construction, we sort of have an idea on how it looks like and decided not to refer to any photos. So we embarked on the lego construction for which the result is: As attached below - everything seems to be disproportionate and of course, architecturally, the lego reconstruction seems to deviate from the real thing. Nevertheless, it does resemble the real thing, I think. I am sure a glance of our work sparks the real thing in your mind.