Before muhammad created islam, why would arabs visit the kaaba in mecca

Pilgrimage is the sacred act of traveling to a sacred place in almost every religion.

Kaaba, which means a cube in Arabic, is the most sacred place in Islam. It is a square building embroidered with silk and cotton work, is located in Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Muslims pray five times a day. After 624 CE, they always turned to Kaaba for prayer, not Jerusalem, wherever they were in the world. In each mosque, the direction towards Mecca is indicated so that they know in which direction they are to be prayed. The Qurayush tribe, who ruled  Mecca, restored the pre-Islamic Kaaba in architectural terms in 608 CE.

Officially the beginning of Islam is the transfer of Muhammed from Mecca to Medina. After his return to Mecca 629/30, Mecca became the main center of Muslim faith, ritual and pilgrimage. All the elements of Paganism, which were present around Kaaba, was cleansed by Muhammad, and established Islam as a monotheistic religion. Within Kaaba is the Black Stone, believed that Ibrahim have been received  from the angel Gabriel and respected by  Arabs before Islam and later by Muslims, too.

By this act of cleansing from idol, Mihammed restored Kaaba from pre-Islamic time to the very beginning, monotheism. It is believed that Kaaba was built by Abraham or Ibrahim, known in the muslim world, and his firstborn son, Ismail, and the Black Stone was placed there. From the very beginning, Kaaba emphasized the monotheism of Ibraham. Over the centuries, he has acquired the elements of paganism which Mohammed had purified and returned to the monotheism of Ibrahim. Yet all the time, even before the emergence of Islam, for the Arabs, Kaaba is the holy place because it was established by the father of all nations - Ibrahim (Abraham).

To worship their gods

Explanation:

According to Edge