Mecca

This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. For other uses, see Mecca (disambiguation).

Makkah al-Mukarramah مكة المكرمة
File:Makkah al Mukarramah skyline.jpg
Location in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Location in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Province	Makkah
Government
• Mayor	Usama Al-Barr
Area
• Total	26 km2 (10 sq mi)
Elevation	277 m (909 ft)
Population  (2004)
• Total	1,294,168
Time zone	UTC+3

Mecca IPA: [ˈmɛkə] or Makkah IPA: [ˈmækə] (in full: Makkah al-Mukarramah IPA: [(Arabic) mækːæ(t) ælmʊkarˑamæ]; Template:Lang-ar) is an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia's Makkah province, in the historic Hejaz region. It has a population of 1,294,167 (2004 census). The city is located 73 kilometres (45 miles) inland from Jeddah, in the narrow sandy Valley of Abraham, 277 metres (909 ft) above sea level. It is located 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Red Sea.

The city is revered by Muslims for containing the holiest site of Islam, the Masjid al-Haram, and a pilgrimage that involves an extended visit to the city is required of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to go at least once in an individual's lifetime. People of other faiths are forbidden from entering the holy city, under penalty of death.

The English word 'Makkah al Mukarramah (uncapitalized), meaning "a place to which many people are attracted" is derived from 'Makkah al Mukarramah.

The City

Mecca is at an elevation of 277 m (910 ft.) above sea level. The city is situated between mountains, which has defined the contemporary expansion of the city. The city centers around the Masjid al-Haram (holy place of worship). The area around the mosque comprises the old city. The main avenues are Al-Mudda'ah and Sūq al-Layl to the north of the mosque, and As-Sūg as Saghīr to the south. Houses near the mosque have been razed and replaced with open spaces and wide streets. Residential complexes are more compacted in the old city than in residential areas. Traditional homes are built of local rock and are two to three stories. The city has a few slums, where poor pilgrims who were unable to finance a trip home after the hajj settled.

Transportation

Transportation facilities related to the Hajj or Umrah (minor pilgrimage) are the main services available. Mecca has no airport, or rail service. Paved roads and modern expressways link Mecca with other cities in Saudi Arabia. The city has good roads. Most pilgrims access the city through the hajj terminal of King Abdul Aziz International Airport (JED) or the Jeddah Islamic Port both of which are in Jeddah.

Mecca in 1850

People

Population density in Mecca is very high. Most of the people who live in Mecca live in the old city. The city has an average of four million visitors as "pilgrims" and that is only in hajj time each year. Pilgrims also visit all year round for Umrah.

Government

The mayor of Mecca is appointed by the king of Saudi Arabia. The current mayor of the city is Usama Al-Barr. A municipal council of fourteen locally elected members is responsible for the functioning of the municipality.

Mecca is also the capital of Makkah province., which also includes neighboring Jeddah. The governor was Prince Abdul-Majid bin Abdul-Aziz from 2000 until his death in 2007. On May 16, 2007, Prince Khalid al-Faisal was appointed as the new governor.

History

1787 Turkish map of Mecca

The Kaaba, a large cubical building now surrounded by the Masjid al-Haram. According to the Qur'an, the Kaaba was built by Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ismail (Ishmael), and has been a religious center ever since.

The Black Stone

Main article: Black Stone

The Black Stone (called الحجر الأسود al-Hajar-ul-Aswad in Arabic) is a Muslim object of reverence, said by some to date back to the alleged time of Adam and Eve. It is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba in Mecca.

Well of Zamzam

Main article: Zamzam

Muslims believe that the Zamzam well was revealed to Hagar, wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael. (Abraham is known as Ibrahim to Muslims.) She was desperately seeking water for her infant son, but could find none. Mecca is located in a hot dry valley with few other sources of water.

Muslims believe that the water of the Zamzam well is divinely blessed (it is believed to satisfy both hunger and thirst, and cure illness) and make every effort to drink of this water during their pilgrimage. The water is served to the public through coolers stationed throughout the Masjid al Haram in Mecca and the Masjid al Nabawi in Medina.

Importance of Mecca

Picture of the Kaaba taken in 1880

Academic historians, however, state with certainty only that Mecca was a shrine and trading center for a number of generations before Muhammad. The extent of Meccan trade has been debated. Some historians believe that Meccah was a waypoint on a land route from southern Arabia north to the Roman and Byzantine empires, and that Arabian and Indian Ocean spices were funneled through Mecca. Patricia Crone, in her book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, argues that the Meccans were small merchants dealing in hides, camel butter, and the like.

According to the Qur'ān and Muslim traditions, the city was attacked by an Ethiopian Aksumite army led by Abraha in 570, the year of Muhammad's birth. The attack was said to have been repelled by stones dropped by thousands of birds, followed by a plague.

Before the time of Muhammad, Mecca was under the control of the Banu Quraish. Muhammad, a member of the Banu Quraish, exiled from the city for preaching against paganism, returned to the city in triumph in 630 and after removing the cult images from the Kaaba, dedicating it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage. (For further information, see the main article, Conquest of Mecca.)

View of Mecca 1910

After the rise of the Islamic empire, Mecca attracted pilgrims from all over the extensive empire, as well as a year-round population of scholars, pious Muslims who wished to live close to the Kaaba, and local inhabitants who served the pilgrims. Due to the difficulty and expense of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage was small compared to the millions that swell Mecca today. Pilgrims arrived by boat, at Jedda, and came overland, or joined the annual caravans from Syria or Iraq. The city was small. 18th and 19th century maps and pictures show a small walled city of mud-brick houses crowded around the mosque.

Mecca was never the capital of the Islamic empire; the first capital was Medina, some 250 miles (400 km) away. The capital of the caliphate was soon moved to Kufa by the fourth Caliph Ali and then to Damascus by the Ummayads and Baghdad by the Abbasids and then to Cairo after the Mongol invasion, and then at last to Constantinople by the Ottomans.

the Kaaba , Mecca 1937

Mecca re-entered Islamic political history briefly when it was held by Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr, an early Muslim who opposed the Umayyad caliphs. The caliph Yazid I besieged Mecca in 683. Thereafter the city figured little in politics; it was a city of devotion and scholarship. For centuries it was governed by the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca, descendants of Muhammad by his grandson Hassan ibn Ali. The Sharifs ruled on behalf of whatever caliph or Muslim ruler had declared himself the Guardian of the Two Shrines. Mecca was attacked and sacked by Ismaili Muslims in 930. In 1926, the Sharifs of Mecca were overthrown by the Saudis, and Mecca was incorporated into Saudi Arabia.

On November 20, 1979 two hundred armed Islamist dissidents led by Saudi preacher Juhayman al-Otaibi seized the Grand Mosque. They claimed that the Saudi royal family no longer represented pure Islam and that the mosque, and the Kaaba, must be held by those of the true faith. The rebels seized tens of thousands of pilgrims as hostages and barricaded themselves in the mosque. The siege lasted two weeks, and resulted in several hundreds deaths and significant damage to the shrine, especially the Safa-Marwa gallery. While it is the Saudi forces that carried out the assault, they were assisted with weapons and planning by a small team of advisors from France's GIGN commando unit.

Current Status

The city has grown substantially in the last several decades, as the convenience and affordability of jet travel has increased the number of pilgrims participating in the Hajj. Thousands of Saudis are employed year-round to oversee the Hajj and staff the hotels and shops that cater to pilgrims; these workers in turn have increased the demand for housing and services. The city is now ringed by freeways, and contains shopping malls and skyscrapers.

Mekkah on May 2007

Non-Muslims and Mecca

"Non-Muslim Bypass:" Non- Muslims are not allowed to enter Mecca

Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca. Road blocks are stationed along roads leading to the city, with officials conducting occasional random checks to confirm that intending visitors are legitimate pilgrims and in possession of the required documentation. The main airport has a similar security policy. While one of the purpose of these checks is to ensure that the visitor is, in fact, a Muslim, they also serve to prevent illegal immigrants including guest workers whose visas have expired or who have not attained the extra permit required to perform the pilgrimage. As one might expect, the existence of cities closed to non-Muslims and the mystery of the Hajj aroused intense curiosity in European travelers. A number of them disguised themselves as Muslims and entered the city of Mecca and then the Kaaba to experience the Hajj for themselves . The most famous account of a foreigner's journey to Mecca is A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, written by Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton traveled as a Qadiri Sufi from Afghanistan; his name, as he signed it in Arabic below his front piece portrait for "The Jew, The Gypsy and al-Islam," was al-Hajj 'Abdullah.

The holy mosque centre, showing the Ka'bah after the Friday prayers

Spelling

Mecca is the original English transliteration of the Arabic name. In the 1980s, the Saudi Arabian government and others began promoting the transliteration Makkah (in full, Makkah al-Mukarramah), which more closely resembles the actual Arabic pronunciation.

The spelling Makkah or Meccah is not new and has always been a common alternative . (In the works and letters of T E Lawrence, almost every conceivable variation of the spelling appears.)

The spelling Makkah is starting to be taken up by many organizations, including the United Nations, U.S. Department of State and the British Foreign Office , but the spelling Mecca remains in common use.

Economy

The Meccan economy is almost entirely dependent on money spent by people attending the hajj. The city takes in more than $100 million during the hajj. The Saudi government spends about $50 million on services for the hajj. There are some industries and factories in the city, but Mecca no longer plays a major role in Saudi Arabia's economy, which is mainly based on oil exports. The few industries operating in Mecca include textiles, furniture, and utensils. The majority of the economy is service oriented. Water is scarce and food must be imported.

References to Mecca in ancient texts

Patricia Crone, in her 1987 book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, gives a precise of various Greek and Roman texts thought by some to have referred to Mecca. She argues that there is no hard evidence linking those references to the South Arabian trade to Mecca.

In the Torah/Bible

Main article: Bakkah

Some Muslims believe that Mecca is mentioned in the Jewish Torah/Christian Bible, claiming that the word "Baca" can be found in Psalm 84:6. [2] The verse Quran 3:96 ^{(Translated by Yusufali)} indicates that "the first House (of worship) appointed for men was that at Bakka". However, some non-Muslim commentators of the Qur'an do not accept that reading of Qur'an 3:96, and most modern translations of the Bible use "Valley of Weeping" instead of "Baca."

See also

• Allah
• Allat
• Hajj
• Hejaz
• Hejazi Accent
• Islam
• Islamic architecture
• Jeddah
• List of famous mosques
• Manah
• Medina
• Saudi Arabia
• Sharif of Mecca
• Shia
• Uzza
• Guru Nanak & Mecca

Further reading

• Rosenthal, Franz; Ibn Khaldun (1967). The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09797-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Crone, Patricia -- Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, as published in 1987 by the Princeton University Press and reprinted in 2004 by Gorgias Press.

External links

• Template:Wikitravel
• Holy Makkah Municipality Official website (in Arabic)
• Emirate of Makkah Official website
• Saudi Information Resource - Holy Mecca
• Inside Mecca DVD National Geographic documentary about Mecca
• Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah, by Richard Burton
• Siege of Mecca A wesbite about the 1979 siege of Mecca's Grand Mosque.

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