FALCON POWERS – What most attracts the attention of visitors to the Holy Kaaba is the Meccan dove, gray in color with a bluish or greenish tinge on its neck, and they are all identical in size, shape, and color, not mixing with other flocks or groups of doves, and they do not take the Holy Haram as a nesting or overnight place, but rather disappear with the coming of night and return again with the rise of the sun.
The Meccan dove is treated with special care, and it is not permissible for anyone to kill it, frighten it, drive it away, or break its eggs in order to expel the nest from the vicinity of the Masjid al-Haram, and if anyone kills one of the flock, it is necessary to slaughter a sheep to atone for the sin. The flocks of doves are given many names, including: “Rawfan, which is a river from the rivers of Paradise,” and it is also called the Meccan dove, the Lord of the House dove, and the dove of fever, as the flocks of doves come to Mecca in the first five days of the month of Dhul-Hijjah, then return to Medina on the fifteenth of the same month.
Non-dropping of dove droppings inside the Holy Haram
The doves soar and inhabit the Holy Haram, and they have a divine ability to preserve the sanctity of the holy place, as the flocks of doves are not able to fly directly or stand above the Kaaba, but rather the flocks of doves circle around the Kaaba as the pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, without the droppings of these birds falling into the courtyard of the Haram.
The flocks of doves, estimated at 4 million doves, mostly circulate around the Haram and around its minarets, and some roam the airspace of other areas in Makkah, and it is impossible to find the doves throwing their droppings inside the noble Haram of Makkah, and this is one of the matters for which there is no explanation so far.
