A crowd of Muslims surround the Kabah in the Haram Mosque in Mecca. Tawaf, performed on arrival in the great Haram Mosque in Makkah, is completed by circling seven times around the Kabah, located in a great open area in the Haram Mosque. The Kabah is considered the spiritual and geographical center of Islam.

The Muslim view

Islamic scholars say that the Kaaba,the sacred edifice towards which all Muslims pray, was built by the patriarch Abraham and his son Ishmael. One of the cornerstones of the Kaaba, the Black Stone, was sent down from heaven. The Kaaba was the center of Islam, as revealed to Abraham and Ishmael, and it was maintained by Ishmael's descendants for generations. However, Ishmael's descendants, the Arabian tribes, fell into idolatry and filled the Kaaba with idols. They still remembered Allah, the one god, but accepted idols as his "associates". There were a few hanif who still maintained the pure Abrahamic faith, but they were few and had no power to cleanse the Kaaba. Then came Muhammad,the last prophet of Islam, and denounced idolatry. After he took power in Mecca, he destroyed the idols in the Kaaba and re-established the pure and ancient worship.
The Muslim view of the pre-Islamic religion, then, is that it was pagan, barbaric, and idolatrous. The most important gods were evidently Hubal(the moon God/that's why there's a moon on muslim flags) and the three "daughters of God": Manat, Allat, and al-Uzza. Islamic traditions supply the names of hundreds of other gods as well. The Arabians sacrificed animals to the gods and made pilgrimages to cult centers. Mecca was only one of many cult centers.