The King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa: The Factory That Makes Islam’s Most Sacred Textile

On a stretch of the old Makkah–Jeddah road, in a district of the city that most pilgrims never think to visit, there is a working textile mill guarded like a vault. Inside, on any given weekday, a few hundred Saudi craftsmen are washing raw silk, threading Jacquard looms, printing Qur’anic calligraphy onto black cloth, and hand-stitching gold-plated wire into letters two-thirds of the way up a garment fourteen metres tall. What they are making has no equivalent anywhere else on earth: the kiswah, the covering of the Kaaba, replaced once a year, and for the whole of the last century made only here, in the Umm al-Joud district of Makkah, at what is now called the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa — known to most people, more simply, as the Kiswa Factory.

This is not a museum, though it displays some of its own history to the visitors it lets in. It is not a tourist attraction in any conventional sense, though its output is arguably the most photographed piece of cloth in the world. It is a state production facility, operating under the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque (commonly the General Presidency of Haramain), whose entire purpose is to weave, dye, print, embroider and assemble one garment a year, at a cost that recent estimates put at around 25 million Saudi riyals, using close to a tonne of silk, gold and silver thread combined (Bernama, Saudi Expatriates). It suits a narrow but genuine category of visitor: the pilgrim or Islamic-heritage traveller who wants to understand what covers the Kaaba and why, who is willing to apply for a permit weeks in advance, and who accepts that this is a working factory with an active-production floor, not a leisure attraction with fixed opening times and a gift shop. It is not for the casual sightseer looking for something to fill an afternoon in Makkah — for that person, the honest answer is that this venue will likely disappoint, given the access hurdles described later in this guide. The verdict, stated plainly and early: this is one of the most historically significant working buildings in the Islamic world, and one of the hardest to actually get inside.

The District and Its History: Umm al-Joud, on the Old Jeddah Road

Umm al-Joud is not an ancient quarter of Makkah in the way that Ajyad, Misfalah, or Shi’b Amir are. It sits several kilometres northwest of the Grand Mosque, along the old Makkah–Jeddah road, in terrain that was largely undeveloped hill and open ground until the second half of the twentieth century (UN-Habitat’s urban history of Makkah). UN-Habitat’s own account of the city’s growth describes a Makkah that, before 1518, developed almost entirely around the Haram itself; between 1518 and 1925 it began pushing outward to the northwest and southwest; and only in the period after 1926 did urban growth expand more forcefully along the roads leading out of the city, occupying exactly the kind of undeveloped terrain — flatter ground beside the arterial roads — that districts like Umm al-Joud represent. In other words, Umm al-Joud is a twentieth-century Makkah district, a child of the era of trucks and asphalt roads rather than caravan routes, and its development is bound up with the state’s need, after unification of the Kingdom, to put its administrative, religious and logistical institutions somewhere with room to build.

That is precisely what happened here. The district’s importance to Makkah’s religious life has nothing to do with any seerah event, battle, or companion’s grave — there is no such claim to make and none should be invented. Its significance is entirely a twentieth-century, Saudi-era story: it is where the Kingdom chose to relocate and modernise the production of the Kaaba’s kiswah in 1977, and it is where, in 2000, the state also built the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, a museum of relics and models from the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque, a short walk from the Kiswa complex’s gates (Arab News on the Two Holy Mosques Architecture Exhibition). The two institutions share a neighbourhood, a founding era, and a governing authority — the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques — but they are separate buildings with separate purposes, and this guide treats the Kiswa Complex as its subject, addressing the exhibition only as a neighbour, in the section reserved for it below.

Today Umm al-Joud (sometimes rendered Umm al-Jud, or combined on maps with the adjoining Al-Hamra district as “Al Hamra Umm Al Jud”) is a mixed residential and light-industrial area roughly ten to seventeen kilometres from the Grand Mosque by road, depending on which source and which entry point is used — one widely cited figure gives roughly seventeen kilometres from the city centre along the old Jeddah road, while several visitor guides describe the drive from the Haram as closer to ten kilometres and twenty to twenty-five minutes by car (UmrahTransit’s Kiswa Factory guide, Prayer Times KSA). It is not a heritage quarter with old coral-stone houses or Ottoman-era shopfronts; it is a functional district built to house exactly this kind of state facility, at a comfortable remove from the crowding and security perimeter of the Haram itself, but still unambiguously inside the sacred boundary — the haram territory of Makkah — a point that matters a great deal for the practical visiting guidance later in this article.

Origins and Development: From Cairo’s Workshops to a State Factory in Makkah

Covering the Kaaba Before Islam

The custom of draping a cloth over the Kaaba is older than Islam itself. According to the early biographer Ibn Hisham, the practice is traditionally traced to Abu Karib As’ad, a Himyarite king of Yemen known as Tubba’, who is said to have clothed the Kaaba for the first time in the early fifth century CE, during the era when the Jurhum tribe controlled Makkah, using a striped red woollen cloth, layered over hangings that were apparently already there (Wikipedia’s account of the Kiswah’s history). The story, as related in the classical sources, has him adopting the practice after conversations with two Jewish rabbis who told him of the sanctuary’s status — a detail worth reporting as tradition rather than settled fact, since pre-Islamic Arabian history of this kind rests on later Islamic-era retelling rather than contemporary record. What is reasonably well attested is the practical arrangement that followed: the Quraysh, as the tribal confederation controlling Makkah before Islam, organised annual funding for the kiswah, levying contributions from the tribes that worshipped at the shrine (Wikipedia). Some accounts describe the earliest coverings as leather; by the time of the Prophet’s birth, Yemeni striped textiles, red-and-white in colour, were the standard.

Whatever the precise sequence, this history matters because it establishes something the rest of this article depends on: the kiswah was never invented by Islam. Islam inherited a pre-existing Arabian custom of honouring the Kaaba with cloth, and then transformed its meaning, its funding, its material and eventually its colour over fourteen centuries of caliphs, sultans and kings. None of what follows should be read as claiming a false originality for the Islamic-era kiswah; the honest history is one of continuity and adaptation, not invention from nothing.

The Prophet’s ﷺ Era and the Rightly Guided Caliphs

During the Quraysh’s control of Makkah before the conquest, the Muslims were not permitted to take part in draping the Kaaba — the ruling tribe kept that role for itself (Wikipedia). When Makkah was conquered in 8 AH (630 CE), the existing covering was left in place; historical accounts differ on precisely why the Prophet ﷺ came to replace it, though a widely repeated tradition holds that the existing kiswah was accidentally burned — some versions describe a woman lighting incense near the Kaaba — and that the Prophet ﷺ then had it replaced with a Yemeni cloth, striped in red and white, continuing rather than inventing the pre-Islamic pattern (Scoop Empire’s history of the kiswah, Salaamedia). This particular incident-and-replacement story appears consistently across several independent popular retellings, though it should be flagged that these are drawing on classical Islamic historical literature rather than a single hadith text, and readers seeking hadith-level certainty on this specific episode should treat it as widely reported tradition rather than verified through a chain in the major hadith collections.

After the Prophet’s ﷺ death, the pattern of covering the Kaaba continued under his successors. Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab and Uthman ibn Affan are consistently described in the sources as having draped the Kaaba in white cloth — specifically qubati, a fine linen woven by the Coptic Christian weavers of Egypt, from whom the fabric took its name (Arab News on the Kiswa’s history, Wikipedia). This is the first appearance of Egypt in the kiswah’s story, and it would prove to be the defining relationship of the next thirteen centuries: from the era of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who is credited as the first caliph to send an Egyptian-made kiswah, Egypt became the kiswah’s principal source of manufacture, on and off, until the twentieth century.

The Umayyads, the Abbasids, and a Kaaba Draped in Layers

The Umayyad caliph Mu’awiya is reported to have removed the pre-Islamic-style hangings still covering the Kaaba after complaints that they had become religiously impure through age and handling, replacing them with a new kiswah of silk, qubati linen and striped wool (Wikipedia). From his time onward, the practice shifted toward sending two coverings a year — one of qubati, one of silk — with the silk kiswah draped over the linen one, which typically arrived months earlier. Successive Umayyad caliphs kept this pattern, continuing to layer new coverings over old ones rather than removing them each year.

This habit of accumulation became a real structural concern. The Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi, after performing pilgrimage in 777 CE, is credited with recognising that the weight of years’ worth of stacked kiswahs risked damaging the Kaaba itself, and establishing the practice — followed in some form ever since — of removing the old covering before installing the new one, rather than draping cloth upon cloth (Wikipedia, IslamOnline’s historical account). Multiple sources place this decree in roughly 160 AH, corresponding to 776–777 CE, and describe it as the beginning of the tradition of a single-layer kiswah, renewed annually — the practice observed today (About Islam on the origins of the black kiswah).

The most elaborate documented phase of variation came under the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (reigned 813–833 CE), who is reported to have draped the Kaaba three times in a single year: a red brocade kiswah on the eighth of Dhul Hijjah (the Day of Tarwiyah, on the eve of Hajj), a white qubati covering at the sighting of the new moon of Rajab, and a white brocade covering on the twenty-seventh of Ramadan (IslamOnline, The Review of Religions). His successor al-Mutawakkil, on learning that the constant touching and handling by pilgrims wore out the red brocade before Rajab arrived, ordered new coverings every two months instead (Hajj and Umrah Planner). During the Fatimid era the kiswah is reported to have remained consistently white (Raseef22’s history of the kiswah’s colours). It was the later Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah, who reigned from 1180 to 1225 CE, who first changed the colour to green early in his caliphate, and then, before the end of his reign, to black — the colour that has, with a small number of documented exceptions discussed below, endured to the present day (Ink of Faith’s detailed colour history, Raseef22). Conventionally this settling on black is dated to the early seventh century AH — roughly the early thirteenth century CE.

Egypt Takes Over: The Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Rise of the Mahmal

From the Ayyubid era — specifically the reign of as-Salih Ayyub in the thirteenth century — kiswah manufacture became centred in Egypt on a more institutional basis, with raw materials sourced not only within Egypt but from Sudan, India and Iraq (Wikipedia). This is the beginning of the long Egyptian custodianship of the kiswah that would last, with interruptions, until the twentieth century. Under the Mamluk sultans and later the Ottomans, the responsibility for transporting the kiswah from Egypt to Makkah fell to the Amir al-Hajj, the commander of the annual pilgrimage caravan, a role of real prestige and political weight, personally appointed by the ruling sultan.

It was within this Egyptian custodianship that the most theatrical and politically loaded element of the kiswah’s history developed: the mahmal. A mahmal was an empty, elaborately decorated litter — pyramidal or tent-shaped in its upper half, roughly cubical in its lower half, in a deliberate echo of the Kaaba’s own form — mounted on the back of a dedicated camel and paraded through Cairo before making the desert crossing to Makkah as part of the official pilgrimage caravan (Wikipedia’s article on the mahmal). Ibn Battuta, travelling through Cairo in the fourteenth century, witnessed and described the procession himself, recording an elaborate civic ceremony involving the grand jurists, the intendant of the treasury, the syndics of the guilds, and the officers of state, all riding out from the citadel to meet the mahmal as it emerged, accompanied by the amir appointed to lead that year’s Hijaz caravan (a translated passage from Ibn Battuta’s travels). Wikipedia’s summary of the kiswah’s history dates the earliest recorded procession of this kind, drawing on the twelfth-century traveller Ibn Jubayr’s own account, to 1184 CE, with the mahmal specifically associated with the caravan from at least the era of the Mamluk sultana Shajar al-Durr, though the practice did not become fixed tradition until the fifteenth century (Wikipedia). Other accounts trace the mahmal’s formal beginning to the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who is credited with sending the first mahmal to Makkah in roughly 1272 or 1277 CE and making it a fixture of every subsequent caravan (a nineteenth-century travel account of the mahmal ceremony).

It is worth being precise about what the mahmal actually was, because popular retellings often blur this: the litter itself carried nothing inside it. It was ceremonial and symbolic, not a container for the kiswah in any simple sense — though in later centuries it is described as carrying the new kiswah to Makkah and returning with the old one to Cairo (Wikipedia). Its cover — the mahmal’s own outer cloth, a triangular dome-shaped textile embroidered in gold, silver and coloured silk appliqué, bearing the name of the reigning sultan or khedive and a Qur’anic inscription — was itself a significant piece of craftsmanship, made in the same Cairo workshops that made the kiswah (Arab News’s history of the mahmal and Egyptian kiswah production). The mahmal’s real function was political and symbolic: it represented the sovereignty of whichever ruler sent it — sultan, khedive, or later the King of Egypt — over the custodianship of the holy places, an honour and a claim to religious legitimacy that no other Muslim ruler was permitted to dispute by force.

Cairo’s own send-off for the mahmal became a genuine civic festival, described in some detail by nineteenth-century Western travellers who happened to be in the city at the right time of year. One account describes crowds gathering at the Rumeleh square below the citadel, streets roped off and guarded by soldiers with bayonets, water-sellers and sherbet-vendors working the crowd, and a procession of soldiers, heavily decorated camels carrying palm branches and oranges, and bands of music leading up to the mahmal itself, swaying on its camel through what the writer called “a sea of excited and tumultuous humanity” (a nineteenth-century description of the Cairo mahmal festival). Under the nineteenth-century Ottoman governor Muhammad Ali Pasha and his successors, celebrations around the mahmal’s departure are described as beginning roughly a month before Hajj, with the convoy touring Cairo for three days, twenty-one artillery rounds fired in Castle Square, and the khedive’s own anthem played as he stood to salute the departing caravan (Arab News). It was, by any account, one of the great annual public spectacles of Ottoman-era Cairo — a scale of ceremony that gives some sense of how much prestige, and how much political capital, was bound up in Egypt’s role as the kiswah’s maker.

The actual manufacture, by the early nineteenth century, was concentrated at a dedicated workshop: Dar al-Kiswa al-Sharifa, established in 1817 in the al-Khoronfesh street of Cairo’s al-Gamaleya district, which at its peak employed around a hundred craftsmen making the kiswah and related sacred textiles for both Makkah and Madinah (Wikipedia’s article on Dar al-Kiswa, Wikipedia’s article on Islamic embroidery). Muhammad Ali Pasha ordered the costs of production covered by the Egyptian state treasury, formalising what had previously depended more loosely on royal and religious patronage (Wikipedia). This is also roughly the period — the early twentieth century — in which the modern colour scheme, gold and white embroidery worked onto a black silk background, became fixed as the design used on the sitara, the door curtain (Wikipedia).

1926: The Rupture With Egypt

The end of this centuries-long Egyptian custodianship came suddenly, and violently, in the summer of 1926 — and it happened not over the kiswah itself, but over music.

By 1925, Abdulaziz Al Saud (Ibn Saud) had completed the conquest of the Hijaz, taking Makkah and ending Hashemite rule there. Egyptian pilgrims arriving for Hajj that year, keen to make a good impression on the region’s new ruler, brought their traditional mahmal procession into the city accompanied, as always, by a military band and an armed Egyptian escort. This immediately put the new authorities’ most zealous supporters on a collision course with an old Egyptian custom. The Ikhwan — the Bedouin religious militia whose fighters had done much of the actual conquering on Ibn Saud’s behalf — regarded the music accompanying the mahmal as religiously objectionable, an innovation with no place in the sanctified space of Makkah, and their objections in 1925 were waved off by the Egyptian musicians, who continued as they had in previous years (Wikipedia’s account of Sultan bin Bajad al-Otaybi and the mahmal incident).

The following year, on 18 June 1926, the tension broke into violence. As the Egyptian mahmal approached, escorted by musicians and armed guards, a group of Ikhwan fighters — some accounts describe them as unarmed and in pilgrim ihram dress at the time — moved to block the camel carrying the mahmal, reportedly throwing stones at the procession (Marefa’s Arabic account of the mahmal incident). An Egyptian officer gave the order to open fire. Wikipedia’s account of the mahmal tradition states plainly that the Egyptian escort’s gunfire killed twenty-five people (Wikipedia’s article on the mahmal); the Arabic-language account carries the same figure. Ibn Saud, who was reportedly nearby with his sons Faisal and Saud, moved immediately to calm the Ikhwan’s fury and prevent wider retaliation. He ordered the Egyptian officer responsible detained and barred from continuing with the pilgrims, and barred the mahmal itself from entering Makkah that year — but stopped short of harsher punishment, partly because an Islamic conference happened to be convening in Makkah at the time and a harsher response risked wider embarrassment (Marefa).

The diplomatic fallout was immediate and lasting. Egypt severed relations with the new Saudi authorities over the killings, and — in the account given on the Wikipedia page for Sultan bin Bajad al-Otaybi, the Ikhwan commander whose men were involved — the Egyptian government refused to weave any further covering for the mahmal, cutting off its own long-standing ceremonial role in protest (Wikipedia). The German-language Wikipedia article on the mahmal adds that the Egyptian government recalled its mahmal caravan early that year and cancelled a planned charitable donation (sadaqat) of 50,000 Egyptian pounds that normally accompanied the caravan to the Hijaz, while the Egyptian press debated boycotting Hajj altogether for several years over the “lack of security” (the German Wikipedia’s account of the 1926 mahmal incident). A detailed academic treatment in the Historical Journal notes that although the 1926 Ikhwan attack on the mahmal is often treated as the single decisive turning point in Saudi–Egyptian relations over custodianship of the holy places, it is better understood within a much longer-running contest between Egypt and the new Saudi state over primacy in the Hijaz — the shooting mattered less as an isolated event than as the moment that finally and visibly ended Egypt’s centuries-old claim to ceremonial precedence there (the Historical Journal’s analysis of Saudi–Egyptian relations over the holy places). It is also worth noting that some sources place the founding of the first Saudi-run kiswah workshop slightly earlier, in 1925 or 1926, framing the domestic factory as a response already underway before the shooting rather than purely its consequence (Arab News’s account of the Kiswa maintenance staff and the factory’s founding, Saudi Gazette’s account dating the factory to 1926) — the more consistently repeated and officially cited date, however, is 1927, discussed below.

Whichever precise month the decision was taken, the practical consequence was unambiguous: Ibn Saud, having just taken control of the Hijaz and its holy places, was no longer willing to depend on an outside power — one he had just fallen out with over a bloody incident inside Makkah itself — for the manufacture of Islam’s most symbolically important textile. The mahmal tradition itself did not end instantly across the wider Muslim world; Egypt continued to parade mahmals through Cairo’s streets as a domestic civic festival until 1952, but the practice of sending an annual mahmal caravan to Makkah ended with the 1926 rupture (Wikipedia). Cairo’s own kiswah workshop, Dar al-Kiswa, limped on for decades afterward making other sacred textiles, but its role in producing the actual covering for the Kaaba was already effectively finished; Egypt would continue partial production for a period, before the whole undertaking shifted permanently to Makkah — the detailed timeline of that transition follows in the next section. Dar al-Kiswa closed for good only in 1997, and the Cairo building that once housed it now serves as storage space for the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments, reported as of 2017 to be in a state of disrepair (Wikipedia) — a quietly melancholy postscript to more than a century of ceremony.

The Colour of the Kiswah: A Settled Question With an Unsettled History

It is worth pausing on a point that surprises many visitors and even many Muslims: the kiswah has not always been black. The record, as pieced together above, runs roughly as follows. Pre-Islamic and early Islamic coverings were red-and-white striped Yemeni wool. Umar, Uthman and Abu Bakr used white Egyptian qubati linen. The Umayyads layered white linen and silk. The Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun rotated between red brocade, white qubati and white brocade within a single year. The Fatimids kept it consistently white. The Seljuk sultans are credited with a period of yellow brocade. And it was the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah, reigning 1180–1225 CE, who first tried green and then, before his reign ended, settled on black — the point at which, by most tellings, the matter was finally closed (Ink of Faith, Arab News, Raseef22).

Dr Fawaz Al-Dahas, director of the Center of Makkah History, gave Arab News a practical explanation for why the colour moved the way it did: white was the brightest and most symbolically pure option, but it was also the least durable, prone to tearing, staining and visible impurity as pilgrims touched and rubbed against it over months of exposure; the choice of colour in any given era, he said, was “based on the financial means in every era,” with black eventually winning out because it withstood constant contact from visitors and pilgrims far better than lighter fabrics (Arab News). One late and notable exception to the black standard deserves honest mention: Raseef22’s account of the kiswah’s colours states that Saudi Arabia’s first monarch, King Saud bin Abdulaziz, at one point had the Kaaba covered in red silk — a striking departure from the norm by then a very old convention, though the exact date and duration of this covering are not given with precision in the available sourcing, and readers should treat this specific claim as reported rather than fully corroborated across multiple sources (Raseef22). Since the early twentieth century, however, and without serious deviation, the working convention has been black silk with gold and silver embroidery — the kiswah familiar to every pilgrim and every photograph of the Kaaba today.

From Ajyad to Umm al-Joud: Building a Saudi Kiswah Industry

1927: The First Saudi Workshop

The most consistently cited founding date for domestic Saudi kiswah production is 1 July 1927 (corresponding to mid-1346 AH), when King Abdulaziz ordered the establishment of a dedicated workshop for manufacturing the kiswah, located in the Ajyad district of Makkah, close to the Grand Mosque and, in one account, facing the Ministry of Finance building (Saudipedia’s article on al-Kaaba’s Kiswa, Ummid’s account of the factory’s founding). The official position, as recorded by the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites, dates the order to mid-1346 AH, which converts to 1927 CE (the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites). This new workshop began with a modest workforce — one detailed account gives sixty workers, including skilled embroiderers, who completed the first fully Saudi-made kiswah by the end of 1346 AH, that is, 1927 CE (Hajj and Umrah Planner’s history of the factory). This did not instantly end Egyptian involvement; Wikipedia’s account describes production as only “partially” moving to Makkah from 1927, with Egypt continuing some role until manufacture was “fully transferred” in 1962, when Egypt ceased production altogether (Wikipedia). Other sources place the definitive end of the Egyptian Dar al-Khoronfosh workshop’s role specifically in 1962 as well, under King Saud, who is credited with ordering the preparation of a proper Saudi factory and delegating the task to his brother, then-Crown Prince Faisal, who selected a building affiliated with the Ministry of Finance in the Jarwal district (Saudi Expatriates’ history of the kiswah’s manufacture, Arab News). Taken together, the honest account is this: 1927 is the year Saudi Arabia began making its own kiswah, in a small Makkah workshop; 1962 is the year Egyptian production stopped entirely and the responsibility became wholly and permanently Saudi.

1972 and 1977: The Move to Umm al-Joud

By the 1970s the Ajyad-area facility — and its intermediate home in the Jarwal/Al-Tayseer area, mentioned in some accounts as a staging point between Ajyad and Umm al-Joud (Saudi Gazette) — had outgrown its premises and its equipment. SaudiPedia’s official timeline states that in 1972, King Faisal bin Abdulaziz ordered the establishment of a new Kiswa factory in the Umm al-Joud district of Makkah, and that in 1977 the new factory was inaugurated with fully integrated production departments (SaudiPedia’s timeline of the King Abdulaziz Complex). Several other sources converge on March 1977 (1397 AH) as the specific inauguration date, describing the new Umm al-Joud building as equipped with the most advanced textile machinery available at the time, under the oversight of then-Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz (Arab News, Prayer Times KSA). This 1977 building, expanded and modernised since, is the same complex that operates today.

From Kiswa Factory to King Abdulaziz Complex: A Royal Renaming

For most of the twentieth century the facility was known simply, functionally, as the Kiswa Factory of the Holy Kaaba. That changed by royal decree of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, who — in honour of the founding king who had first established domestic kiswah production nearly a century earlier — ordered the factory renamed the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa. Sources differ slightly on the exact year this took effect: SaudiPedia’s official timeline dates the renaming order to 2017 (SaudiPedia), one detailed account specifies the decree was approved on 13 Shaban 1439 AH, corresponding to 2018 (Saudi Expatriates), and the Wikipedia summary article gives 2018 as well (Wikipedia’s article on the King Abdulaziz Complex) — the safest honest statement is that King Salman ordered the rename in 2017, with the change formally taking effect in 2018. Administratively, the complex today sits under the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque, the same authority that runs the Two Holy Mosques themselves and the neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture.

Architecture and Design: A Working Mill, Not a Monument

The King Abdulaziz Complex was built to manufacture textiles at scale and under tight security, and its architecture reflects that brief rather than any attempt at monumental religious styling — the ornamental, Haram-echoing design vocabulary that visitors will notice next door, at the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, was not the priority here. Estimates of the complex’s total site size vary in the available sourcing: one detailed Arab News account, describing the history of kiswah manufacture, puts the complex at 100,000 square metres (Arab News on how kiswah manufacturing changed over the centuries), a figure large enough to accommodate the separate specialised departments the facility is consistently described as containing. Multiple independent sources — official and travel-focused alike — describe the same basic department structure: a dyeing department, a mechanical (Jacquard) weaving department, a hand-weaving department, a printing department, a gold-and-silver embroidery (“gilding”) department, a belt (hizam) department, a sewing/assembly department, and a laboratory department for quality control and dye testing (the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites, Travel Tale’s account of the complex’s departments).

Visitor accounts and tour write-ups repeatedly note that despite the availability of high-technology equipment — computer-aided embroidery machines, industrial Jacquard looms — the complex has deliberately retained substantial hand-production stages “because of its high artistic value,” in the words of one Arab News report on the annual replacement process (Arab News on the 2018 Kiswa replacement). This mixed character — an industrial mill with hand-craft departments embedded inside it — is really the building’s defining architectural fact: it is designed around workflow and security rather than aesthetics, a working factory floor that happens to produce something of enormous devotional significance.

What You Will Actually Find There: Inside the Production of the Kiswah

The Silk and the Dyeing

The kiswah’s outer cloth begins as raw silk, and every recent account agrees the silk itself is imported — most sources specify Italy as the source (Al Jazeera’s explainer on the Kiswah, Kiswah al-Kaabah’s account of the 2026 kiswah’s production). Figures for the total quantity of silk used vary between roughly 670 kilograms and, in some more recent and expansive accountings that appear to include lining and backing material, up to around 825 kilograms (Wikipedia, Kiswah al-Kaabah) — this kind of variation across otherwise credible sources is common with the kiswah’s statistics, and this guide reports the range rather than picking a single number to state with false precision. The raw silk arrives white; it is washed multiple times, first to strip away the natural wax coating the threads, then repeatedly in hot water to restore its brightness, before being dyed black for the main body of the cloth and green for the reverse side that faces the Kaaba’s own stone walls (Al Jazeera, Saudi Gazette). A pure cotton inner lining — reported at around 400 kilograms in one detailed account — is added to help the finished cloth hold its shape and withstand Makkah’s heat and humidity over the year it hangs on the Kaaba (Kiswah al-Kaabah).

Machine and Hand Weaving

The dyed black silk is woven on Jacquard looms into forty-seven separate panels, each reported at roughly ninety-eight centimetres to 101 centimetres in width and fourteen metres in length, with figures across sources clustering consistently around these dimensions even where they differ by a few centimetres (Wikipedia, Saudi Gazette). One account of the weaving technology describes a Jacquard process running close to ten thousand threads per metre (UmrahTransit). The Shahada — the Islamic declaration of faith — is woven directly into the patterned sections of certain panels during this weaving stage itself, rather than added afterward, meaning some of the kiswah’s text is a structural part of the fabric rather than an embroidered addition (Wikipedia). Each finished panel is then stretched over a frame, and templates of further Qur’anic verses and ornamental Islamic motifs are applied by silk-screen printing — one of the seven broad stages of production that a 2025 account of the process lists as desalinising the water, washing, weaving, printing, embroidery, assembly, and a final inspection (Saudi Expatriates).

The Embroidery: Gold, Silver, and the Hizam

The most visually striking and labour-intensive stage is the embroidery of the hizam, the belt of Qur’anic calligraphy that wraps around the Kaaba roughly two-thirds of the way up the kiswah’s height. The hizam is consistently described as assembled from sixteen panels of silk cloth — four attached to each of the Kaaba’s four sides — forming a completed band measuring approximately ninety-five centimetres wide and between forty-six and forty-seven metres in total length once wrapped around the building (Al Jazeera, the Saudi Ministry of Interior’s description of the kiswah’s dimensions, Kiswah al-Kaabah). The hizam carries Qur’anic verses, each set within its own decorative frame, with the spaces between them filled by crescent-shaped ornamentation and the names and praise of Allah. Beneath the belt, at each of the Kaaba’s four corners, sit square panels called the kardashiyyat, each embroidered with Surat al-Ikhlas (Wikipedia).

The embroidery technique itself is genuinely three-dimensional. Artisans first pack the interior of each letter’s outline with thick cotton cording to create raised padding, then stitch gold-plated silver wire over that padding at a controlled angle, a method designed so the lettering catches and reflects light distinctly from any viewing distance — precisely the effect that makes the hizam legible even to pilgrims standing many metres back in the mataf (Kiswah al-Kaabah). The gold thread itself is reported by several accounts to be twenty-one or twenty-four karat gold-plated silver wire, sourced in some accounts from Germany and in others produced domestically in Saudi Arabia, while the silver wire is separately sourced, with Germany and Italy both named across different reports as suppliers of the silver in different years (Bernama, Indonesia Window’s account of the gold and silver thread sourcing, Arab News) — as with the silk and total weight figures, sourcing details for the precious-metal thread appear to vary somewhat by year and by which official gave the interview, and this guide reports the spread rather than asserting a single fixed supplier.

On the quantities themselves, the figures most consistently repeated across recent official and press accounts converge on approximately 120 kilograms of gold-plated thread and 100 kilograms of silver thread used in a given year’s kiswah, though some individual reports give figures as low as 15 kilograms of gold thread or as high as 25 kilograms of silver thread specifically for the embroidery portion, likely reflecting different ways of counting gold used across the whole garment versus gold used in specific components (Ummid, Yarns and Fibers, a video report on the gold used in the kiswah). The completed kiswah, including all its components, is reported by a 2025 media-tour account to weigh around 850 kilograms on its own, or as much as 1,415 kilograms in some accountings that include the full weight of silk, gold and silver combined (Bernama, Saudi Expatriates). The finished kiswah covers a surface area of 658 square metres (Wikipedia, Radiance News).

The Sitara and the Qur’anic Text

Above the door of the Kaaba hangs the most elaborately decorated single component of the kiswah: the sitara, also called the burqu’, a curtain assembled from four sewn textile panels and averaging roughly 5.75 by 3.5 metres, though some sources give slightly different dimensions of around 6.5 by 3.5 metres for the current curtain (Wikipedia, Arab News). The earliest known sitara on record was made in Egypt in 1544, and the earliest known Ottoman-made hizam was produced for Sultan Selim II in the late sixteenth century — evidence that while embroidery techniques have become steadily more ornate, the basic design concept of a decorated curtain over the door and a decorated belt around the walls has changed very little across nearly five centuries (Wikipedia). Sura al-Ikhlas appears in circular medallions set within squares at each of the Kaaba’s four corners, named in the classical terminology as Rukn al-Hajar al-Aswad, Rukn al-Iraqi, Rukn al-Yamani and Rukn ash-Shami, after the direction or feature each corner faces (Wikipedia). Longer Qur’anic verses run beneath and around the hizam; one detailed account of the current kiswah’s text puts the total number of Qur’anic verses embroidered onto it at sixty-eight (Saudi Expatriates). The verses selected relate directly to the Kaaba, Hajj, the sanctity of the sanctuary, and core declarations of faith including the Shahada (Al Jazeera). The only formal stylistic requirement governing the calligraphy and ornamentation, according to Wikipedia’s account, is that the text and decoration must remain legible and visible from a distance — a practical constraint that has shaped the scale and boldness of the Thuluth-style lettering across the centuries (Wikipedia).

The Workforce

Figures for the number of people working at the complex cluster fairly tightly across recent sources: “more than 200” is the phrase used by the majority of official and press accounts, including a 2025 Bernama report from a guided media tour and the official Visit Saudi page for the complex (Bernama, Visit Saudi). A more precise figure from a 2024 interview with the complex’s official spokesman gives 222 total workers, including 165 described as the most skilled craftsmen among them (the Iraqi News Agency’s interview with the complex’s spokesman). One earlier account specifically states that of roughly two hundred workers, 114 work solely on embroidery, giving some sense of how labour-intensive that single stage is relative to weaving, dyeing, printing and assembly combined (Umrah Traveller). All accounts agree the workforce is Saudi and trained specifically for this work; several describe the roles as requiring years of specialised apprenticeship in embroidery, gilding, or loom operation before a worker is trusted with the kiswah itself.

Cost and Timeline

Reported figures for the annual cost of producing the kiswah range from roughly SAR 17 million up to SAR 25 million depending on the year and the source, converting to figures of very roughly USD 4.5 million to USD 6.65 million (a video report on the cost of the kiswah, Al Jazeera, the Iraqi News Agency). Given the rising cost of gold and silver over the past decade, the higher end of that range — around SAR 25 million — is the more consistent figure in the most recent reporting, from 2024 and 2025. Multiple accounts describe the production cycle as running roughly eight to ten months for the embroidery stage alone, with the whole process — from washing the raw silk to final assembly — taking close to a full year, meaning work on any given year’s kiswah typically begins not long after the previous one has been installed (Saudi Gazette, UmrahTransit).

Beyond the Kaaba’s Outer Covering

The complex does not make only the one garment most people picture. Its departments are also responsible for the Kaaba’s inner kiswah — a separate, less ornate covering for the interior walls — the inner curtain of the Prophet’s ﷺ chamber inside the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, and, notably, the official flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, embroidered and printed to the specifications set out in the Kingdom’s flag law (the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites, Travel Tale). This last detail is easy to overlook, but it says something about the trust placed in this facility: the state’s own national symbol is produced in the same building, by the same hands, as the covering of the Kaaba.

Highlights Worth Your Time — And What Is Skippable

For the visitor who does secure a permit, the genuine highlight is watching the hand-embroidery of the hizam in progress — the padded, gold-wire calligraphy work is the single most skilled and visually arresting stage of production, and it is the stage most consistently described as available to see on a guided tour, since it happens on a fixed schedule across most of the year rather than being timed tightly around Hajj (Discover Haramain’s overview of the Kiswa Complex). Seeing the Jacquard looms weaving the black silk panels, and the printing department applying the Qur’anic verse templates by silkscreen, is the next most substantive thing on offer, and gives a real sense of the scale of thread and labour involved (Yarns and Fibers).

What is skippable, or at least should not be oversold: several tour write-ups mention a short introductory video and a handful of framed historical kiswah fragments on display in a reception or waiting area, and more than one visitor account describes this part of the experience as brief and somewhat perfunctory compared with the production floor itself — one Instagram commenter, describing a recent visit, noted bluntly that visitors are shown a video and a few framed models, are not permitted to touch or attempt any stitching themselves, and that the whole visit was free of charge but modest in scope (an Instagram account of a recent Kiswa Complex visit). This is a working factory being shown to outsiders, not a curated museum experience, and visitors should calibrate expectations accordingly — the actual historical depth and museum-quality artefacts are much better served at the neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, addressed below.

The Annual Replacement: From the Day of Arafat to the First of Muharram

The Old Date: The Ninth of Dhul Hijjah

For most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the kiswah’s annual replacement was fixed to one of the most significant days in the Islamic calendar: the ninth of Dhul Hijjah, the Day of Arafat, when the overwhelming majority of that year’s Hajj pilgrims are gathered at the plain of Arafat rather than at the Grand Mosque itself. The change traditionally took place after the Fajr prayer, timed so the Kaaba would be dressed in its new covering ready to receive worshippers arriving for the morning of Eid al-Adha (Hajj and Umrah Planner, Madhyamam’s account of the historical Arafat Day timing). Ahmad bin Mohammed Al-Mansouri, then director-general of the King Abdul Aziz Complex, described the sequence to Al Arabiya English in 2018: the gold threads holding the old kiswah in place were removed on the eighth of Dhul Hijjah, in line with the operational plan, so that the actual swap — old kiswah down, new kiswah up — could be completed by the dawn of Arafat Day itself (Al Arabiya English). Practically, the swap has been reported to take a matter of hours — one 2025 account puts the physical replacement process itself at around four hours, a remarkably fast turnaround for a garment this large and heavy, achieved by a dedicated, drilled team working in a fixed sequence (Saudi Expatriates).

The Change: A Move to the First of Muharram

That fixed association with the Day of Arafat no longer holds. Multiple independent sources confirm that starting in 2022, Saudi authorities moved the annual kiswah replacement from the ninth of Dhul Hijjah to the first day of Muharram — the start of the new Hijri year — a date that falls roughly three weeks after Hajj concludes rather than during it. Gulf News reported at the time that the 2022 replacement, carried out on Muharram 1, 1444 AH, was the first time in the Kingdom’s history that the change had been made on that date rather than the Day of Arafat (Gulf News). A royal decree from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques set out the new arrangement, and specified that the kiswah would still be formally handed over to the Kaaba’s guardian on the tenth of Dhul Hijjah, even though the physical replacement itself would now happen weeks later, at the start of Muharram (AZ Official’s report on the 2022 change). The stated purpose of the shift, according to reporting at the time, was to move the ceremony to a calmer period, away from the extreme crowding, heat and logistical strain of the Hajj season itself, allowing the change to be carried out — and photographed, and attended — in a more controlled environment (Bise World’s account of the reasoning behind the change). It is worth being honest, however, that the specific administrative reasoning was not always transparently explained at the time it happened: one contemporary report from 2022 noted plainly that “the reason for changing the dates of this ritual is still unknown” at the point of first announcement, with journalists reportedly still awaiting an official explanation from the Grand Mosque’s administration (The Islamic Information) — the later “calmer period” rationale appears to have emerged in subsequent reporting and official commentary rather than being stated outright at the moment of the first Muharram-dated change.

Since 2022 the change has been repeated on the first of Muharram each subsequent year, and this is now the settled, current practice — not a one-off experiment. Readers should note that plenty of older web content, and even some newer aggregator articles, continue to describe the ninth of Dhul Hijjah as the replacement date; this is now outdated, and anyone planning a Hajj-season visit around witnessing the ceremony itself should not expect to see it during Hajj at all.

The 2024 Innovation: Women in the Ceremony

One further, genuinely notable change is worth recording precisely because it is recent and easy to miss in older sources. Wikipedia’s article on the kiswah states that 2024 was the first year in recorded history in which women took part in the ceremonial replacement process — specifically, women employed by the General Authority for the Care of the Two Holy Mosques were involved in carrying sections of the new kiswah and handing them to the men who then carried the pieces onward into Makkah for installation (Wikipedia). This is a small but real break with more than a thousand years of precedent, and worth stating plainly rather than glossing over.

What Happens to the Old Kiswah

The old covering is not thrown away, sold, or repurposed as ordinary material — every credible source agrees on this point, and several stress that commercial sale of an authentic piece of kiswah is not permitted through any official channel (Dua Travels’ account of the disposal process). Once removed, the cloth is placed into secure government storage and treated to prevent bacterial growth or chemical degradation in the fabric (Al Arabiya English). It is then, according to Al Jazeera’s account citing an Islamic Studies academic, carefully cut apart: the most valuable sections — those bearing gold or silver embroidery, Qur’anic verses, or other decorative calligraphy — are separated out and preserved, often destined for museums that formally request them through official Saudi channels, while other sections are divided into smaller pieces and distributed to government officials, institutions, and representatives of foreign embassies in the Kingdom (Al Jazeera). A social-media account attributed to a Haramain-focused archive page describes the same process with a specific procedural citation: distribution proceeds according to “Article 12, second paragraph of the warehouse system of the Kiswa complex,” following the authority’s approval, with pieces going to museums or as gifts to visiting foreign Muslim dignitaries and organisations — a marked change, the same source notes, from an older historical practice in which the kiswah was divided among specific families known as the traditional “curtain holders” of the Kaaba, before the government moved toward gifting whole sections to other Muslim states instead (a Haramain Archives account of the old kiswah’s distribution process) — this last detail, sourced to a social-media post rather than an official government publication, should be read as a plausible but not fully independently verified account of internal procedure. Small fragments, generally without significant embroidery or material value, are also reported to be given out to attendees present at the replacement ceremony itself (Al Jazeera). Because of this wide distribution, some fragments do eventually surface on private and online markets, despite the official position that the kiswah is not for sale — a discrepancy between policy and reality that several sources acknowledge rather than deny (Al Jazeera).

This same basic pattern — cutting, cleaning, distributing pieces as gifts rather than commodities — has deep historical roots. Under the old Egyptian mahmal system, the returning mahmal caravan brought the previous year’s kiswah back to Cairo, where it was likewise cut into pieces and distributed among nobles and princes, some fragments reportedly still found today in the tombs of Egyptian royal family members, preserved there as a form of blessing (Arab News). The underlying instinct — that a garment this sacred cannot simply be discarded, and that sharing pieces of it is itself a form of honour — long predates the Saudi state and the Umm al-Joud factory alike.

Practical Visitor Guide

Location and Getting There

The complex sits in the Umm al-Joud district, on the old Makkah–Jeddah road, roughly ten to seventeen kilometres from the Grand Mosque depending on the specific route and source (UmrahTransit, Prayer Times KSA). Reported driving times from the Haram range from about ten to twenty-five minutes depending on traffic (Kiswah al-Kaabah’s visitor guide, UmrahTransit). One address given for GPS purposes is: 8308 Old Makkah Jeddah Rd, Al Hamra Umm Al Jud, Makkah 24321 (UmrahTransit). There is no dedicated public bus route serving the complex directly, and several recent visitor guides are blunt about this: hailing a return ride afterward via Uber or Careem is described as “notoriously unreliable” from this specific location, since drivers are not reliably available in what is a mixed residential and light-industrial area with no taxis or tuk-tuks waiting outside the gates (UmrahTransit). The consistent advice across multiple sources is to arrange a private car or a pre-booked return transfer, rather than relying on being able to find transport back after the visit (UmrahTransit, Labbaik Hajj Umrah). All figures in this section were checked against sources dated between 2025 and 2026; given that opening hours and access rules for this facility have changed more than once in the past decade, readers should treat these as a snapshot rather than a permanent schedule and confirm directly before travelling.

Opening Hours

The most consistently repeated current opening hours, cited by the official Visit Saudi page and multiple independent visitor guides checked in 2025 and 2026, are Monday to Thursday, 8:00am to 11:00am, with the complex closed to visitors Friday through Sunday (Visit Saudi, UmrahTransit, Labbaik Hajj Umrah). This should be treated as the primary, most current figure. That said, sourcing is not perfectly uniform: one account describes visiting days as specifically Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays from 9am to noon (Prayer Times KSA, Saudi Scoop), and a slightly older account describes two daily sessions, morning and evening, across five days a week (The Islamic Information), while a Tripadvisor listing shows opening hours of 8am to 11am on Wednesday through Tuesday with Friday and Saturday closed (Tripadvisor). Given this spread, the honest guidance is: expect a short morning window on some subset of weekdays, most likely Monday to Thursday, 8am to 11am — but confirm the exact days and hours directly on the General Presidency of Haramain’s booking portal before making any other travel plans around a visit, since this detail has clearly shifted more than once and different tour operators are not all working from the same current information.

Booking and Permits

This is not a walk-in attraction. Every credible current source agrees that advance booking through an official channel is required, and that turning up without a permit risks being turned away at the gate (Labbaik Hajj Umrah, Kiswah Islamic Store’s visitor guide). Individual visitors are generally directed to apply through the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques’ own digital services portal (variously referenced as gph.gov.sa, eservices.gph.gov.sa, or the newer visits.alharamain.gov.sa booking system), logging in via the Nafath national digital identity system for residents, or with a passport number for international visitors, and specifying a preferred date, time, and the names and nationalities of any companions (UmrahTransit, Labbaik Hajj Umrah). Individual applicants are commonly permitted to add up to ten companions to a booking, with a maximum of around four reservations per applicant per week, while larger Hajj and Umrah tour groups coordinate separately through the same portal, typically for parties of twenty to one hundred people and sometimes with an official request letter attached (UmrahTransit, Visit Saudi, Saudi Scoop). Approved applicants receive a confirmation message containing the permit itself, which should be printed or saved and brought along with original identification on the day (an Instagram walkthrough of the booking process, Labbaik Hajj Umrah). Several practical guides recommend applying at least three to seven days ahead, and further in advance around Ramadan and the run-up to Hajj, since slots are limited and fill quickly (UmrahTransit, Kiswah Islamic Store). Practice on the ground does not always match the published process exactly — one Instagram commenter reported being asked for an invitation letter despite guides stating none was required (Instagram) — and if the online portal proves difficult to navigate, a licensed Hajj or Umrah tour operator can typically arrange the visit instead (Kiswah Islamic Store, Saudi Scoop).

Cost

Entry itself is consistently reported as free of charge across every source checked, official and independent alike (Visit Saudi, Labbaik Hajj Umrah, Saudi Scoop). There is no ticket price and no booking fee described anywhere in current sourcing; the only real cost to the visitor is transport, since, as noted above, getting to and from Umm al-Joud generally means a private taxi, ride-hailing app, or a tour operator’s transfer.

Who May Actually Visit: Non-Muslims and the Makkah Boundary

This point needs to be stated plainly and without euphemism, because it is the single most important practical fact for many readers of this guide. The King Abdulaziz Complex sits inside the city of Makkah, which is closed to non-Muslims under Saudi law and long-standing Islamic practice, regardless of any specific policy the complex itself might otherwise adopt. The official Visit Saudi page for the complex states directly that access is “for Muslims only,” and describes the complex as welcoming “Muslim visitors” specifically, with no mention anywhere on the page of non-Muslim access (Visit Saudi). Independent visitor guides confirm the same restriction explicitly, stating that access is “restricted to Muslims due to the factory’s location in Makkah” (Kiswah Islamic Store). This is not a quirk of this particular venue; it follows directly from Makkah’s status as a city entirely closed to non-Muslims, a restriction that applies to the whole city and everything within it, not to this facility in isolation. Any non-Muslim reader planning travel in the region should understand this as a blanket restriction on entering Makkah at all, not a specific rule about the kiswah factory that might be worked around.

Guided Tours and What Visitors Actually See

Accounts differ somewhat on how “guided” the experience actually is. One aggregator-style venue listing describes free guided tours available in Arabic and English, lasting forty-five to sixty minutes, walking visitors through the factory floor and displays of historical kiswah pieces (Discover Haramain) — though this specific source reads in places like a general tourism-directory template and its specific claims about tour length and bilingual guiding should be treated as plausible rather than officially confirmed, since neither the Visit Saudi page nor the Royal Commission’s own description mention a fixed tour duration or explicitly guarantee an English-language guide. What several visitor accounts do agree on is a broadly similar shape: an introductory video, some viewing of the working departments (weaving, embroidery, gilding), and framed historical kiswah samples, delivered in a controlled, guided fashion rather than free unsupervised wandering (Bernama, Instagram). Group visits arranged through Hajj and Umrah campaigns appear to receive a broadly similar structured walkthrough of the departments (Bernama).

Photography

This is one of the least consistent details across all the sourcing gathered for this guide, and readers should treat it accordingly. One detailed visitor-guide article states flatly that “taking photos or videos inside the complex is prohibited” (The Islamic Information). A separate venue-listing site claims the opposite, stating photography is allowed as one of the complex’s features (Discover Haramain). Other guides hedge, advising visitors to check with staff or their guide on arrival and to “respect any photography restrictions,” implying the rule may vary by area of the facility, by day, or possibly by the level of production activity underway during a given visit (Airial Travel, UmrahTransit). Given this genuine inconsistency across otherwise reasonably credible sources, the safest practical advice is to assume photography may be restricted, particularly in the more secure or sensitive gold-and-silver embroidery areas, and to ask complex staff directly on arrival rather than assuming either way.

Prayer Facilities and Religious Considerations

Because the complex sits inside the Makkah haram boundary and admits Muslim visitors only, it does not need to accommodate mixed-faith visitor flows or non-Muslim-specific arrangements the way some other Saudi cultural venues do. Dress-code guidance across visitor accounts consistently recommends the same modesty standard expected inside the Grand Mosque itself: an abaya and hijab for women, and modest, fully covering clothing for men, avoiding shorts or sleeveless shirts (Kiswah al-Kaabah). No specific on-site musalla (prayer hall) is described in the sourcing gathered for this guide, which is unsurprising given the tightly restricted, short visiting window of roughly three hours on permitted mornings — most guided visits are timed to be completed within that window, with visitors expected to pray at the Grand Mosque or their accommodation outside of it. There is no indication in current sourcing that the complex closes or adjusts its hours specifically around prayer times beyond the general rhythms of a Saudi working day, though given the narrow existing window, visitors should not expect to combine a visit with performing a prayer on-site.

Families, Children and Accessibility

Guidance here is mixed and, again, worth reporting honestly rather than smoothing over. One detailed visitor-timing guide explicitly states that children under twelve are not permitted (The Islamic Information), which would rule this out as a family activity with younger children entirely if that restriction is currently enforced. Other sources make no mention of any age restriction at all and describe the venue, in a general tourism-listing style, as suitable for “all ages” (Visit Saudi) — a discrepancy that matters practically, and one this guide cannot resolve with full confidence from the sourcing available. Families travelling with young children should confirm the current age policy directly with the General Presidency’s booking service before applying, rather than assuming either the more permissive or the more restrictive account is correct. On accessibility, one general venue-listing source describes the complex as wheelchair accessible and air-conditioned (Discover Haramain), but no official Saudi government source specifically confirms step-free access, ramps, or accessible facilities, and this guide is not able to verify that claim independently — travellers with mobility needs should ask directly when booking rather than relying on this one secondary source.

Costs and Value

There is no entry fee, so in the narrowest sense the “cost” of visiting is entirely the cost and inconvenience of getting a permit and arranging transport to a district with limited return transit options. Whether that effort is worth it depends heavily on what the visitor is hoping for. For someone with a genuine interest in Islamic textile history, sacred craft, or the kiswah’s story specifically, a confirmed permit and a well-organised private transfer make this one of the more meaningful and unusual things to do in Makkah beyond the Haram itself — there is nowhere else on earth that lets a member of the public watch this specific process. For a general sightseer without that particular interest, the actual visitor experience described across multiple accounts (a video, some viewing of working departments, a handful of framed textile samples, a forty-five-to-ninety-minute visit) is unlikely to justify the booking hassle and the transport logistics on its own — and the neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, discussed below, offers a richer and more straightforwardly “museum” experience for less procedural effort. The cheaper and easier alternative, for most pilgrims short on time, is simply to visit the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture instead, where several genuine historical kiswah pieces, an old Kaaba door, and other original architectural artefacts are already on permanent public display (Arab News on the exhibition’s kiswah displays).

Seasons, Weather and Timing

Makkah’s climate is desert-hot for most of the year, and Umm al-Joud, being inland from the coast, offers no relief from that — summer daytime temperatures regularly climb well above 40°C, making the enclosed, air-conditioned interior of the factory itself the more comfortable part of any visit, and making an early morning slot (the only kind on offer, given the reported 8am to 11am window) a sensible choice regardless of the exact month. There is no seasonal opening or closing described anywhere in the sourcing for this venue; unlike the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, which has undergone renovation closures in recent years, the King Abdulaziz Complex is a continuously operating production facility and its visiting programme runs year-round on whatever weekly schedule is currently in force.

The one genuine timing consideration specific to this venue is Hajj season itself. Since the ceremonial replacement of the kiswah no longer happens during Hajj — it now takes place on the first of Muharram, roughly three weeks after Hajj concludes, as established above — a visitor hoping to see the actual changing ceremony should not plan a Hajj-season trip around it. Visiting hours and booking availability may also be affected during the peak Hajj period given the enormous citywide logistical strain Makkah is under at that time; several practical guides recommend booking a visit for a period outside of Hajj and Ramadan altogether, both to improve the odds of an available slot and to avoid the worst of the city’s seasonal congestion (UmrahTransit, Kiswah Islamic Store). For anyone building a broader Umrah travel guide itinerary that includes a Kiswa Complex visit, the quieter months outside Ramadan and Dhul Hijjah are generally the more practical window, both for booking availability and for avoiding Makkah’s most extreme seasonal crowding.

Nearby Places to Combine

The Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture

The most obvious pairing, and the one worth making explicit rather than assuming readers already know it, is the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture, which sits in the same Umm al-Joud district, on the same old Makkah–Jeddah road (Wikipedia’s article on the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture). The two institutions share a district, an era of origin, and an overseeing authority — both ultimately fall under the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque — but they are separate buildings with separate purposes, and it would be a mistake to treat a visit to one as covering the other. The Exhibition was inaugurated in either 1999 or 1 February 2000 depending on the source (sources genuinely differ on this point: madainproject.com and a 2013 Arab News piece describe a 1999 establishment under Prince Abdul Majeed bin Abdulaziz, while other accounts date the formal opening to February 2000) (Madain Project, Arab News Pakistan). Its seven halls display genuine historical artefacts directly connected to the Kaaba and the two Holy Mosques, including a wooden pillar from the Kaaba dating to around 65 AH, the historic Mizab al-Rahma water spout bearing the name of Ottoman Sultan Mahmud Khan and dated 1021 AH, a wooden staircase used for the Kaaba dated 1240 AH (1825 CE), a Kaaba door dated 1363 AH (1944 CE) from King Abdulaziz’s own era, and — directly relevant to this guide — kiswah pieces from past centuries, giving visitors here a tangible look at exactly the kind of historical textile fragments this article has described (Arab News’s account of the Exhibition’s collection).

The practical contrast between the two venues is worth stating explicitly, because it is genuinely useful for trip planning: the Exhibition is, by a wide margin, the more visitor-friendly and accessible of the two. Its official Visit Saudi listing gives far more generous hours — Sunday to Thursday, 8:00am to 8:00pm — a substantially longer and more convenient window than the roughly three-hour, four-day-a-week schedule reported for the Kiswa Complex itself (Visit Saudi’s listing for the Exhibition). The Exhibition underwent a significant renovation and reopened with modern interactive displays, entering a trial-operations phase reported by Arab News in June 2025, with visits bookable through the General Presidency’s own visits.alharamain.gov.sa portal (Arab News on the Exhibition’s 2025 reopening). For a visitor with limited time in Makkah who has to choose one of the two, the Exhibition is the stronger recommendation for most people: it requires the same general booking approach but delivers a richer, better-documented, and more consistently described visitor experience than the working factory next door.

Other Nearby Context

Beyond the Exhibition, Umm al-Joud itself is a working residential and light-industrial district rather than a tourist zone, and there is little else in the immediate vicinity aimed at visitors; most travellers will treat this as a dedicated, single-purpose trip out from central Makkah rather than a stop on a longer walking itinerary, given the district’s road-oriented layout and its distance of ten to seventeen kilometres from the Grand Mosque. The obvious broader combination for anyone planning around Makkah attractions generally is to treat a Kiswa Complex or Exhibition visit as a half-day excursion bookended by prayers and time at the Grand Mosque itself, rather than trying to combine it with other, unrelated sightseeing in the same outing.

Common Misconceptions and Traveller Warnings

A number of misconceptions recur across travel forums, social media and even some published guides, and are worth correcting directly.

“The kiswah is still changed on the Day of Arafat.” This was true for most of the twentieth century and remains widely repeated online, but it has not been accurate since 2022, when Saudi authorities moved the annual replacement to the first of Muharram instead (Gulf News). Anyone planning a Hajj-season trip specifically to witness the changing ceremony will be disappointed; it now happens roughly three weeks after Hajj ends.

“Anyone can just show up and take a tour.” Every current source agrees this is not the case: a permit obtained in advance through the General Presidency’s official booking system, or arranged through a licensed tour operator, is required, and turning up without one risks being turned away (Labbaik Hajj Umrah).

“Non-Muslims can visit if they book far enough in advance.” They cannot. This is not a booking or documentation problem that can be solved with enough lead time; the restriction follows from Makkah’s status as a city closed to non-Muslims altogether, and the complex’s own materials describe it as open to Muslim visitors specifically (Visit Saudi).

“You can buy a genuine piece of old kiswah as a souvenir.” There is no official sale of kiswah fragments, and multiple sources explicitly warn against believing otherwise (Dua Travels). Fragments do circulate informally, some through historical family inheritance and some through less clear channels, but there is no legitimate retail market, and buyers of “authentic kiswah pieces” from street vendors or online sellers should assume they are very likely not getting what is advertised.

“The factory and the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture are the same place.” They are two separate buildings, a short distance apart, with different purposes, different hours, different booking systems and different visitor experiences, even though both sit in Umm al-Joud and fall under the same governing authority.

“Opening hours are fixed and easy to find.” They are not, at least not in the secondary sourcing available to travellers. This guide found genuinely conflicting hours across otherwise reasonably credible sources — Monday to Thursday 8–11am according to the official Visit Saudi page, Saturday/Monday/Wednesday 9am–noon according to another guide, and two daily sessions according to a third — and this inconsistency should be read as a signal to confirm directly with the General Presidency’s booking portal before travelling, not as a sign that any one of these guides (including this one) has the final, permanently correct answer.

Lesser-Known Facts

• The complex makes far more than the outer kiswah most people picture: it also produces the Kaaba’s separate inner covering, the inner curtain of the Prophet’s ﷺ chamber in Madinah, and the official flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites).
• The 1926 killing that helped end Egyptian production was reportedly triggered by a dispute over music, not over the kiswah’s design, ownership or religious content at all (Wikipedia).
• The Kaaba has been covered in white, red, yellow and green at various points in Islamic history — black is a relatively late standardisation, dating only to the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah between 1180 and 1225 CE (Arab News).
• 2024 marked the first time in recorded history that women took part in the physical ceremony of replacing the kiswah (Wikipedia).
• The Shahada is not embroidered onto some sections of the kiswah — it is woven directly into the fabric itself as part of the Jacquard weaving process (Wikipedia).
• Cairo’s own kiswah workshop, Dar al-Kiswa, continued to exist for decades after losing its central role, finally closing in 1997; the building is reported as of 2017 to be in disrepair, used as storage by the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments (Wikipedia).
• As recently as 2019, an official Invest Saudi investment document for expanding the Exhibition and the Kiswa Factory stated plainly that “the Kiswah Factory is not open for the public yet” — a reminder that public access to this facility, in whatever form it currently takes, is a comparatively recent development (Invest Saudi’s project document on expanding the Exhibition and Kiswa Factory).

Timeline

• c. 5th century CE: The Yemeni king Tubba’ Abu Karib is traditionally credited with an early covering of the Kaaba, in red-striped wool.
• 7th century CE: The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is reported to have covered the Kaaba in white-and-red striped Yemeni cloth.
• 7th century CE: The Rightly Guided Caliphs, including Umar and Uthman, use white Egyptian qubati linen.
• 661–750 CE: The Umayyad caliphs layer silk, qubati linen and striped wool coverings.
• 813–833 CE: The Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun covers the Kaaba three times a year, alternating red brocade and white qubati and brocade.
• 1037–1194 CE: The Seljuk sultans are credited with a period of yellow brocade covering.
• 1180–1225 CE: The Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah shifts the covering to green and then, before his reign ends, to black — the point at which black becomes the enduring standard (Arab News).
• 1517 onward: Ottoman-controlled Egypt assumes responsibility for producing the kiswah, sending it to Makkah via the ceremonial mahmal caravan.
• 1544: The earliest surviving reference to a decorated sitara (door curtain) made in Egypt (Wikipedia).
• 1817: Dar al-Kiswa, the dedicated kiswah workshop, is founded in Cairo’s al-Gamaleya district.
• 18 June 1926: Egyptian guards escorting the mahmal open fire on Ikhwan objectors in Makkah, reportedly killing twenty-five people; Egypt and the new Saudi state sever relations, and Egypt withdraws its mahmal (Wikipedia).
• 1 July 1927: King Abdulaziz orders a dedicated Saudi kiswah workshop established in the Ajyad district of Makkah (Saudipedia).
• 1952: Egypt’s domestic mahmal procession, by then purely a Cairo civic festival with no role in Makkah, is discontinued entirely (Wikipedia).
• 1962: Under King Saud, Egyptian kiswah production ceases altogether; manufacture becomes fully and permanently Saudi, based in the Jarwal area (Wikipedia).
• 1972: King Faisal orders the construction of a new, larger kiswah factory in the Umm al-Joud district (SaudiPedia).
• 1977 (1397 AH): The new Umm al-Joud factory is formally inaugurated under Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz (Arab News).
• 1997: Dar al-Kiswa in Cairo officially closes (Wikipedia).
• 1999/2000: The neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture is established in Umm al-Joud (Madain Project).
• 2017–2018: King Salman orders the factory renamed the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa, in honour of the founding king (SaudiPedia).
• 2019: An official investment document still describes the factory as “not open for the public yet” (Invest Saudi).
• 2022 (1444 AH): For the first time in Saudi history, the annual kiswah replacement moves from the ninth of Dhul Hijjah to the first of Muharram (Gulf News).
• 2024: Women take part in the physical ceremony of changing the kiswah for the first time in recorded history (Wikipedia).
• 2025: The Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture reopens in a modernised, trial-operations phase (Arab News).

Practical Takeaways

• The King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa is a working textile factory in the Umm al-Joud district of Makkah, roughly ten to seventeen kilometres from the Grand Mosque, producing the black-and-gold covering placed on the Kaaba each year, along with the Kaaba’s inner covering, the Prophet’s chamber curtain in Madinah, and the Saudi national flag.
• Entry is free, but this is not a walk-in attraction: a permit obtained in advance via the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques’ official booking channels, or arranged through a licensed Hajj or Umrah operator, is required.
• Access is for Muslims only, in line with Makkah’s status as a city closed to non-Muslims under Saudi law; this is not a restriction that can be resolved with advance booking or documentation.
• Reported opening hours vary across sources; the most current official figure is Monday to Thursday, 8:00am to 11:00am, but readers should confirm directly with the General Presidency’s booking portal before travelling, since other sources describe different days and hours.
• The annual kiswah replacement ceremony no longer happens on the Day of Arafat; since 2022 it has taken place on the first of Muharram, roughly three weeks after Hajj ends, so a Hajj-season visit will not coincide with the changing ceremony.
• There is no legitimate market for old kiswah fragments; genuine pieces are distributed by the state to museums, foreign dignitaries and institutions, not sold.
• Photography rules are inconsistently reported across sources — assume restrictions may apply, especially in embroidery areas, and confirm with staff on arrival.
• Transport back from the complex can be unreliable via ride-hailing apps; arranging a private return transfer in advance is the safer option.
• For visitors short on time or unable to secure a Kiswa Complex permit, the neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture — with longer public hours and genuine historical kiswah pieces on permanent display — is a strong, more accessible alternative covering much of the same subject matter.

Sources

Official and Governmental Sources

• Visit Saudi: The Kiswa Factory of the Holy Kaaba in Makkah
• Visit Saudi: Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture
• Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites: King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa
• SaudiPedia: Al-Kaaba’s Kiswa
• SaudiPedia: Timeline of the King Abdulaziz Complex for the Holy Kaaba Kiswa
• Saudi Ministry of Interior: Description of the Kaaba’s Kiswa
• Invest Saudi: Expansion of the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques and Kiswah Factory (project document)

Independent Reporting and Reference Sources

• Wikipedia: Kiswah
• Wikipedia: Mahmal
• Wikipedia (German): Mahmal
• Wikipedia: Dar al-Kiswa
• Wikipedia: Sultan bin Bajad al-Otaybi
• Wikipedia: King Abdulaziz Complex for Holy Kaaba Kiswa
• Wikipedia: The Two Holy Mosques Architecture Exhibition
• Wikipedia: Islamic Embroidery
• Marefa: The Incident of the Egyptian Mahmal
• The Historical Journal: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Longue Durée Struggle for Islam’s Holiest Places
• Arab News: How Kiswah Manufacturing Has Changed Over the Centuries
• Arab News: The Many Colours of the Kaaba’s Kiswa
• Arab News: The People Behind the Kiswa
• Arab News: The History of the Kiswa’s Journey
• Arab News: The 2018 Kiswa Replacement
• Arab News: The Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques’ Collection
• Arab News: The Exhibition’s 2025 Reopening
• Arab News: Kiswah Displays at the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques
• Arab News Pakistan: The Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture
• Asharq Al-Awsat: Architecture of the Two Holy Mosques Exhibition
• Saudi Gazette: The Story of the Kiswa Factory
• Gulf News: For the First Time in History, Saudi Arabia Replaces Kaaba’s Kiswa on Muharram 1
• Madhyamam: Saudi Changes Kaaba’s Kiswa on Muharram 1
• The Islamic Information: Kiswah Replaced on 1st Muharram
• The Islamic Information: Kiswa Factory Visit Timings
• Bise World: The Gilaf-e-Kaaba Change Ceremony
• AZ Official: Kiswah Will Be Replaced on the First of Muharram
• Siasat Daily: Cover of Kaaba to be Replaced on Dhul Hijjah 29
• Al Arabiya English: Where Does the Kaaba’s Kiswa End Up After Its Replacement?
• Al Jazeera: What’s Inside the Kaaba and What Covers It — The Story of the Kiswah
• Kiswah al-Kaabah: The Art of Devotion — Inside the Creation of the New Kiswa
• Kiswah al-Kaabah: How to Visit the Kiswa Factory in Mecca
• Bernama: Inside the Making of the Kaaba’s Kiswah
• Iraqi News Agency: The Stages of Making the Kaaba’s Kiswah
• Saudi Expatriates: How the Kaaba’s Kiswa is Sewn and Embroidered
• Saudi Expatriates: The Process Behind the Kaaba’s New Kiswa
• Yarns and Fibers: The Kaaba Kiswa Factory’s Gold Thread Embroidery
• Indonesia Window: Gold and Silver Threads Adorn the Kiswah’s Calligraphy
• Radiance News: Saudi Arabia Installs New Kiswa to Mark the Islamic New Year
• Raseef22: The Colourful Coverings of the Kaaba
• Ink of Faith: The Many Colours of the Kaaba
• Hajj and Umrah Planner: The History of the Kiswa Factory
• Hajj and Umrah Planner: The Kiswah
• Ummid: Holy Kaaba Adorned With New Kiswa
• Prayer Times KSA: The Kiswa Factory
• UmrahTransit: Kiswa Factory Visitor Guide
• Umrah Traveller: Ghilaf-e-Kaaba
• Labbaik Hajj Umrah: Visiting the Kiswa Factory
• Kiswah Islamic Store: How to Get Passes for the Kiswa Factory
• Kiswah Islamic Store: What Happens to the Old Kiswa
• Dua Travels: What is the Kiswa?
• Saudi Scoop: How to Visit the Kiswa Factory
• Airial Travel: Kiswa Factory (Kaaba Cloth)
• Discover Haramain: Kaaba Kiswa Factory Makkah
• Travel Tale: Kiswa Factory Makkah
• Tripadvisor: The Kiswa Factory of the Holy Kaaba
• Madain Project: Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture
• Haramain Archives (Facebook): What Happens to the Old Kiswa
• Instagram: A Visitor’s Walkthrough of Booking and Visiting the Kiswa Complex
• YouTube: A Report on the Gold, Silver and Cost of the Kiswah

A Note on Method

This guide was compiled entirely from published secondary and primary sources — official Saudi government and tourism pages, established news organisations, academic history, and a smaller number of independent travel blogs and social-media accounts — rather than from a first-hand visit, and it was researched and checked on 25 July 2026. Several figures in this article genuinely vary across otherwise credible sources: the total weight of silk, gold and silver used in the kiswah; the exact cost of production; the complex’s opening hours and visiting days; whether photography is permitted; and whether children under twelve may attend. Rather than silently picking one figure to present as definitive, this guide has reported the range or the conflict directly and flagged it, because presenting false precision on points where the sources themselves disagree would be more misleading than acknowledging the uncertainty. Some sourcing — particularly around the exact administrative procedure for distributing the old kiswah, and around some visitor-experience details like tour length and photography rules — relies on social media posts, single travel-blog accounts, or tourism-directory listings that could not be independently cross-checked against an official government statement; these are flagged individually in the text. Given how frequently the practical details of visiting this specific site have changed in recent years — the 2022 date change, the reported but unconfirmed 2019 closure to the public, and the inconsistent hours across current sources — readers planning an actual visit should treat every hour, fee, and access rule in this guide as needing direct confirmation through the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques’ official booking channels before travelling, rather than as a fixed and permanent schedule.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to book the Kiswa factory in advance?

Yes. Entry requires a free permit reserved beforehand via the official government permits portal or an Absher account. Slots are limited and fill quickly in Ramadan and Hajj season, so book as early as you can.

What are the Kiswa complex visiting hours?

Visits generally run Sunday to Thursday between about 8am and 11am. Exact slots appear when you book, and schedules can change around Hajj when the new kiswa is in production.

How much does the Kiswa factory tour cost?

Nothing - the permit and the guided tour are completely free. The visit usually lasts 30-60 minutes covering the weaving, dyeing, printing and embroidery sections.

How far is the complex from the Haram?

It is in the Umm Al-Joud district, roughly 10 km from the Grand Mosque - plan on a 15-20 minute taxi ride each way, and pair it with the neighbouring Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques.

Are there visitor restrictions?

Visitors must be Muslim, as with all sites inside Makkah's sacred boundary, and children under 12 are generally not admitted. Photography is allowed in most sections but follow your guide's instructions.