They used to fast on Ashura before the fasting of Ramadan was made obligatory, and it was a day on which the Kaabah was draped with a covering.
كانوا يصومون عاشوراء قبل أن يفرض رمضان، وكان يوما تستر فيه الكعبة.
Bukhari (1592) and Muslim in the Book of Fasting (1125:115) both narrated it from the hadith of Ibn Shihab, from Urwa bin Zubayr, from Ayesha, and she related the hadith in full, except that Muslim did not mention "the Kaaba was covered in it."Reconciling the two hadiths, some tribes of Quraysh used to cover it in Ramadan, while others covered it on Ashura.As for identifying the first person who covered the Kaaba, the most apparent view is that it was Tubba, who lived a century and a half before the Messiah, this being a title given to the kings of Yemen.Ibn Abbas said, "Tubba set out heading for the Kaaba. When he reached Kuraa al-Ghameem, Allah sent a wind against him such that a standing person could hardly stand except with great difficulty, and one who was walking would fall and be knocked down. It overwhelmed them, and they suffered greatly from it. So Tubba summoned his two rabbis and asked them, 'What is this that has been sent against me?' They said, 'Will you grant us safety?' He said, 'You are safe.' They said, 'You intend to go to a house that Allah protects from whoever means it harm.' He said, 'What will make this leave me?' They said, 'Strip down to two garments, then say, Labbayk, Labbayk, then enter and circle that house, and do not molest any of its people.' He said, 'If I resolve to do this, will this wind leave me?' They said, 'Yes.' So he stripped and recited the Labbayk." Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "Then the wind withdrew like pieces of a dark night."Hakim narrated it (2/388) and its chain is sahih. Hakim said, "Sahih according to the criterion of the two Shaykhs (Bukhari and Muslim)."Then the people of the pre-Islamic era continued covering the Kaaba one after another. When the Conquest year came, a woman came to fumigate the Kaaba with incense, and its covering caught fire and burned. That covering had belonged to the polytheists, so the Muslims covered it anew after that.Fakihi narrated it with a hasan chain from Saeed bin Musayab, as Hafiz mentioned in Fath al-Bari (3/458–459).Hafiz mentioned in the place referred to several daif and disconnected narrations regarding who first covered it, and the one I have mentioned is the most sahih of them.The Prophet ﷺ approved of the covering of the noble Kaaba, and the governors and rulers continued this practice thereafter.One of the greatest instances of attention given to the covering of the Kaaba was in the flourishing, blessed Saudi era, when the righteous king, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Imam Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul-Rahman Al Saud, ordered the establishment of the first factory in Makkah in the year 1344 AH. Then each of his sons, the righteous kings who came after him, continued to make improvements to it.Now this factory produces the most magnificent and most valuable covering for the noble Kaaba. Praise be to Allah for His enabling grace.