On Jeffrey Epstein’s island, the private Caribbean resort where he committed some of his worst sexual crimes, a domed structure mystified observers.
It is cubic, like the Kaaba — the ancient structure in Mecca that attracts millions of devotees each year — only painted in blue and white stripes. The top is a gilded dome, similar to the one adorning the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and other ancient buildings in the Levant.
Some theorised that the structure served as a pavilion or a chapel when Epstein lived on theisland of Little Saint James. But the disgraced financier, it has emerged, described it as a “mosque,” a monument to his fascination with Islamic architecture and relics that led him to acquire an embroidered cloth that covered the Kaaba.
Epstein first conceived of the mosque while in prison in 2009, after he was charged with soliciting prostitution, The New York Times reported. He ordered the construction of a Turkish steam bath and an “Islamic garden” surrounding it. He abandoned the idea in favour of what he described as a “music room” in a request for a construction permit, to be called the 5 Palms.
Ion Nicola, a Romanian architect hired for the task, later said that Epstein, who was a secular Jew, would describe it as a “mosque”.
Epstein sought decorative tiles from a contact in Uzbekistan, telling him in an email that “it will be for the inside walls, like a mosque”, Nicola said.
Epstein’s biggest trophy was the kiswa, the golden embroidered black cloth that covers the Kaaba. It is changed every year, and the pieces of the old ones sometimes make their way to other countries as gifts. For millions of Muslims, the kiswa is a blessed item, if not a holy relic, in a religion that bans idolatry.
How he acquired it is a controversial matter in the Muslim world. He was pictured standing over the cloth — laid on the floor like a rug — in 2014 with the powerful Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the former head of DP Worldwho resignedafter his correspondence with Epstein came to light.
In a chain of custody that displayed his connections to the region, he enlisted Terje Rod-Larsen, theNorwegiandiplomat who played a role in the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians.
Rod-Larsen introduced him to Aziza al-Ahmadi, a businesswoman who worked at the time with a consultant to the Saudi royal court. In emails sent to Epstein and his aides, Ahmadi promised a piece of the Kaaba, which they initially mistook for the entire structure itself.
“We are now receiving a Kaaba,” one of his aides announced in an email, before correcting it to “3 pieces of the Kaaba.”
Separately,Epsteinemailed his architect a picture of an old Syrian bathhouse with a golden dome and striping, only with a personal twist. “Remember we saw the aribic [sic] writing in black and white,” he wrote. “instead [sic] of allah [sic], i [sic] thought j’s and e’s,” he wrote.
The ownership of Little Saint James and its larger neighbour Great Saint James went into limbo in 2019 after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. In 2023, the pair of islands was purchased for $60 million by Stephen Deckoff, the founder of Black Diamond Capital Management, with plans to develop Little Saint James into a holiday resort.
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