Ibn Kathir’s Tafsir Narrates How Two Jewish Rabbis Protected The Ka’bah – OpEd By Rabbi Allen S. Maller Before I can explain Ibn Kathir’s account of the two rabbi who protected the Ka’bah, I have to relate something about the Jews in Arabia in the five centuries before the birth of Prophet Muhammad. In 2014, a French-Saudi expedition studying rock inscriptions around Bir Hima – a site about 100 kilometers north of the city of Najran in southern Saudi Arabia; discovered what could be the oldest texts written in the Arabic alphabet. At least two of the early Arabic petroglyphs...