Made in Makkah
The Kiswa is the cloth that covers al-Kaaba al-Musharrafa, woven every year from black silk with gold and silver thread. It is made at the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa in Umm al-Joud, Makkah, and is formed of 47 pieces, each 98 cm wide; in 2022 it cost more than SAR 20 million.
The work moves from dyeing pure natural silk, through laboratory tests of the threads' strength, to the departments for the belt and embroidery and for sewing, and parts of it are embroidered by hand in gold thread. Fitting the curtain of the Kaaba's door is the final step, and one of the most demanding.
From Ajyad to Umm al-Joud
In 1927 King Abdulaziz ordered a dedicated workshop in the Ajyad district, the first to make the Kiswa in Makkah in the Saudi era. It moved to Jarwal in 1962, produced its first machine-made Kiswa in 1965, and in 1977 opened in Umm al-Joud, in the new factory King Faisal had ordered in 1972.
Since 1993 it has been overseen by the authority for the affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque. A supreme order in 2022 set the handover of the new Kiswa to the senior caretaker of the Kaaba on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah.