The Quran

۞ جَعَلَ اللَّهُ الكَعبَةَ البَيتَ الحَرامَ قِيامًا لِلنّاسِ وَالشَّهرَ الحَرامَ وَالهَديَ وَالقَلائِدَ ۚ ذٰلِكَ لِتَعلَموا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعلَمُ ما فِي السَّماواتِ وَما فِي الأَرضِ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ بِكُلِّ شَيءٍ عَليمٌ

Muhammad Asad

God has laid down that the Ka'bah, the Inviolable Temple, shall be a symbol for all mankind;¹ and [so, too, is the sacred month [of pilgrimage] and the garlanded offerings [are symbols] meant to make you aware² that God is aware of all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth, and that God has full knowledge of everything.

All hunting, whether by pilgrims or non-pilgrims, is prohibited in the vicinity of the Ka'bah - i.e., within the precincts of Mecca and its environs - because it is a sanctuary (amn, see 2 : 125) for all living beings. For its association with Abraham, see 2:125 ff., and the corresponding notes. The noun ka'bah, by which, owing to its shape, the sanctuary has always been known, denotes any "cubical building". It would seem that he who first built the Ka'bah (for, since the time of Abraham, it has been rebuilt several times, always in the same shape) consciously chose the simplest three-dimensional form imaginable - a cube - as a parable of man's humility and awe before the idea of God, whose glory is beyond anything that man could conceive by way of architectural beauty. This symbolism is clearly expressed in the term giyam (lit., "support" or "mainstay"), which - in its abstract sense - signifies "a standard by which [men's] affairs are made sound or improved" (Razi): hence my rendering of qiyam li'n-nas as "a symbol for all mankind".
Lit., "this, so that you may know". The "garlanded offerings" (lit., "offerings and garlands") are a reference to the sacrificial animals (see note 4 of this surah). Thus, the pilgrimage and the rites connected, with it are stated to be symbols of man's self-surrender to God.