The Ethics of Aesthetics: Legal Reasoning, Sacred Space, and the Politics of Renovation in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Mecca

Abstract This article examines two treatises by the Shāfiʿī jurists Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ziyād, who held differing positions on the legality of Ottoman plans to rebuild part of the Kaʿba’s roof in 959/1551–52 – a proposal that echoed earlier controversies. The jurists of early Islam, including al-Shāfiʿī, had rejected similar interventions, even when the goal was to restore the Kaʿba to the form favoured by the Prophet Muhammad. Their opposition was rooted in fears of harm ( mafsada ) to the Kaʿba’s sanctity ( ḥurma ) and concern for the welfare ( maṣlaḥa ) of both the building and the Muslims who venerated it. Drawing on classical Shāfiʿī precedents, al-Haytamī and Ibn Ziyād disagreed over whether the Ottoman proposal constituted a legitimate act of preservation or a breach of legal and architectural decorum. I situate their disagreement within broader Shāfiʿī debates about the legal status of sacred architecture, the inviolability of the Kaʿba, and the limits of dynastic authority over sacred spaces. In doing so, I shed new light on how maṣlaḥa was interpreted and contested in classical Islamic jurisprudence, and how Ottoman governance in Mecca required jurists to revisit inherited legal traditions to address new political realities.