Mecca

Name	Mecca
Official name	City of Makkah Makkat Al Mukarramah
Native name
Nickname	Umm Al Qura (Mother of Villages)
Motto	Holiest city in Islam
Pushpin map	Saudi Arabia
Map caption	Location of Mecca
Coordinates region	SA
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	Saudi Arabia
Subdivision type1	Province
Subdivision name1	Makkah Province
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Osama Al-Bar
Leader title1	Provincial Governor
Leader name1	Khalid al Faisal
Established title	Construction of Kaaba
Established date	+2000 BCE (Disputed see history section)
Established title2	Established
Established date2	Ibrahim (Disputed see history section)
Established title3	Joined Saudi Arabia
Established date3	1924
Unit pref	Metric
Area km2	760
Area metro km2	1200
Area urban km2	850
Area footnotes
Population note	Mecca Municipality estimate
Population as of	2007
Population total	1,700,000
Population density km2	4200
Population density sq mi	2625
Population urban	2,053,912
Population metro	2,500,000
Timezone	AST
Utc offset	+3
Timezone dst	AST
Utc offset dst	+3
Coordinates display	display=inline
Postal code type	Postal Code
Postal code	(5 digits)
Area code	+966-2
Website	Mecca Municipality

Mecca (; also spelled Makkah or Bakkah; ; and in full: or , ) is a city in the Makkah province of Saudi Arabia. Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants. In the 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad proclaimed Islam in the city which was by then an important trading center. After 966, Mecca was led by local sharifs. When the authority of the Ottoman Empire in the area collapsed in 1916, the local rulers established the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz. The Hejaz kingdom, including Mecca, was absorbed by the Saudis in 1925. In its modern period, Mecca has seen tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure.

The modern day city is the capital of Saudi Arabia's Makkah Province, in the historic Hejaz region. With a population of 1.7 million (2008), the city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level.

Mecca is regarded as the holiest city in Islam. More than 13 million Muslims visit Mecca annually, including several million who perform the Hajj (pilgrimage). As a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Muslim world. Non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the city. by international organizations in their English language literature and in academic writing.

The city's formal name, , means "Mecca the Honored".

Government

Mecca is governed by the Municipality of Mecca, a municipal council of fourteen locally elected members headed by a mayor (called an Amir) appointed by the Saudi Government. The current mayor of the city is Osama Al-Barr.

Mecca is the capital of Makkah Province, which includes neighboring Jeddah. The provincial governor was Prince Abdul Majeed 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

Early history

Ptolemy may have called the city "Macoraba", though this identification is controversial. Archaeology found no inscriptions or mentionings of Mecca from before that time, although other cities and kingdoms in that region are well documented in historical records.

Around the 5th century CE, the Kaaba was a place of worship for the deities of Arabia's pagan tribes. Mecca's most important pagan deity was Hubal, which had been placed there by the ruling Quraysh tribe and remained until the 7th century CE.

In the 5th century, the Quraysh took control of Mecca, and became skilled merchants and traders. In the 6th century they joined the lucrative spice trade as well, since battles in other parts of the world were causing trade routes to divert from the dangerous sea routes to the more secure overland routes. The Byzantine Empire had previously controlled the Red Sea, but piracy had been on the increase. Another previous route that run through the Persian Gulf via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was also being threatened by exploitations from the Sassanid Empire, as well as being disrupted by the Lakhmids, the Ghassanids, and the Roman–Persian Wars. Mecca's prominence as a trading center also surpassed the cities of Petra and Palmyra. The sassanids however did not always pose a threat to Mecca as in 575 CE they actually protected the Arabian city from invasion of the Kingdom of Axum, led by its Christian leader Abraha. The tribes of the southern Arabia, asked the Persian king Khosrau I for aid, in response to which he came south to Arabia with both foot-soldiers and a fleet of ships into Mecca. The Persian intervention prevented Christianity from spreading easterward into Arabia, and Mecca and the Islamic prophet Muhammad who was at the time a six year boy in the Quraysh tribe "would not grow up under the cross."

By the middle of the 6th century, there were three major settlements in northern Arabia, all along the south-western coast that borders the Red Sea, in a habitable region between the sea and the great desert to the east. This area, known as the Hejaz, featured three settlements grown around oases, where water was available. In the center of the Hijaz was Yathrib, later renamed Medina, from "Madinatun Nabi", or "City of the Prophet." south of Yathrib was the mountain city Ta’if, north-west of which lay Mecca. Although the area around Mecca was completely barren, it was the wealthiest of the three settlements with abundant water via the renowned Zamzam Well and a position at the crossroads of major caravan routes.

Camel caravans, said to have first been used by Muhammad's great-grandfather, were a major part of Mecca's bustling economy. Alliances were struck between the merchants in Mecca and the local nomadic tribes, who would bring goods – leather, livestock, and metals mined in the local mountains – to Mecca to be loaded on the caravans and carried to cities in Syria and Iraq. Historical accounts also provide some indication that goods from other continents may also have flowed through Mecca. Goods from Africa and the Far East passed through on route to Syria including spices, leather, medicine, cloth, and slaves; in return Mecca received money, weapons, cereals and wine, which in turn were distributed throughout Arabia. The Meccans signed treaties with both the Byzantines and the Bedouins, and negotiated safe passages for caravans, giving them water and pasture rights. Mecca became the center of a loose confederation of client tribes, which included those of the Banu Tamim. Other regional powers such as the Abyssinian, Ghassan, and Lakhm were in decline leaving Meccan trade to be the primary binding force in Arabia in the late 6th century. However, outside of Islamic tradition, little is known about the Kaaba before the 5th century CE.

Muhammad and Conquest of Mecca

is where Muhammad is believed to have received the first revelation of God through the Archangel Gabriel.]] Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with the city ever since. He was born in a minor faction, the Hashemites, of the ruling Quraysh tribe. It was in Mecca, in the nearby mountain cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nour, that, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad is said to have begun receiving divine revelations from God through the Archangel Gabriel in 610 AD, and began to preach his form of Abrahamic monotheism against Meccan paganism. After enduring persecution from the pagan tribes for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated (see Hijra) in 622 with his companions, the Muhajirun, to Yathrib (later called Medina). The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims, however, continued: the two fought in the Battle of Badr, where the Muslims defeated the Quraysh army outside Medina; while the Battle of Uhud ended indecisively. Overall, however, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam failed and proved to be very costly and ultimately unsuccessful. During the Battle of the Trench in 627, the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad's forces .

In 628, Muhammad and his followers marched to Mecca, attempting to enter the city for pilgrimage. Instead, however, they were blocked by the Quraysh, after which both Muslims and Meccans entered into the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, whereby the Quraysh promised to cease fighting Muslims and promised that Muslims would be allowed into the city to perform the pilgrimage the following year. Two years later, the Quraysh violated the truce by slaughtering a group of Muslims and their allies. Muhammad and his companions, now 10,000 strong, decided to march into Mecca. However, instead of continuing their fight, the city of Mecca surrendered to Muhammad and his followers who declared peace and amnesty for the inhabitants. The native pagan imagery was destroyed by Muhammad and his followers and the location Islamized and rededicated to the worship of God. Muhammad declared Mecca as the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage, one of the faith's Five Pillars. He also declared that no non-Muslim would be allowed inside the city so as to protect it from the influence of polytheism and similar practices. Then, Muhammad returned to Medina, after assigning Akib ibn Usaid as governor of the city. His other activities in Arabia led to the unification of the peninsula.

Muhammad's migration to Medina shifted the focus away from Mecca, this focus moved still more when Ali, the fourth caliph took power choosing Kufa as his capital. The Abbasid Caliphate moved the capital to Baghdad, in modern-day Iraq, which remained the center of the Islamic Empire for nearly 500 years. 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 and again when the caliph Yazid I besieged Mecca in 683. For some time thereafter the city figured little in politics remaining a city of devotion and scholarship governed by the Hashemite Sharifs.

In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349.

In 1517, the Sharif, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained a great degree of local autonomy.

In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State, which held Mecca until 1813. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, which had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517. The Ottomans assigned the task of bringing Mecca back under Ottoman control to their powerful Khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. Muhammad Ali Pasha successfully returned Mecca to Ottoman control in 1813.

In 1818, followers of the Salafi juristic school were again defeated, but some of the Al Saud clan survived and founded the Second Saudi State that lasted until 1891 and lead on to the present country of Saudi Arabia.

Mecca was regularly afflicted with cholera epidemics. 27 epidemics were recorded during pilgrimages from the 1831 to 1930. More than 20,000 pilgrims died of cholera during the 1907–08 hajj.

Revolt of Sharif of Mecca

In World War I, the Ottoman Empire was at war with Britain and its allies, having sided with Germany. It had successfully repulsed an attack on Istanbul in the Gallipoli Campaign and on Baghdad in the Siege of Kut. The British agent T E Lawrence conspired with the Ottoman governor Syed Hussain bin Ali Sharif e Mecca. The Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali revolted against the Ottoman Empire from Mecca, and it was the first city captured by his forces in the Battle of Mecca (1916). Sharif's revolt proved a turning point of the war on the eastern front. Sharif Hussein declared a new state, the Kingdom of Hejaz, and declared Mecca as the capital of the new kingdom.

Saudi Arabia

Following the Battle of Mecca (1924), the Sharif of Mecca was overthrown by the Saud family, and Mecca was incorporated into Saudi Arabia.

Destruction of Islamic heritage sites

The officially-approved form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, is hostile to any reverence given to historical or religious places of significance for fear that it may give rise to idolatry. As a consequence, under Saudi rule, the city has suffered from considerable destruction of its physical heritage and it has been estimated that since 1985 about 95% of Mecca's historic buildings, most over a thousand years old, have been demolished.

Historic sites of religious importance which have been destroyed by the Saudis include five of the renowned "Seven Mosques" initially built by Muhammad's daughter and four of his "greatest Companions": Masjid Abu Bakr, Masjid Salman al-Farsi, Masjid Umar ibn al-Khattab, Masjid Sayyida Fatima bint Rasulillah and Masjid Ali ibn Abu Talib.

It has been reported that there now are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of Muhammad. Other buildings that have been destroyed include the house of Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet, demolished to make way for public lavatories; the house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, now the site of the local Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet, and the Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location of the King's palace in Mecca.

The ostensible reason for much of the destruction of historic buildings has been for the construction of hotels, apartments, parking lots and other infrastructure facilities for Hajj pilgrims. However, many have been destroyed without any such reason. For example, when the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Muhammed was discovered and excavated, King Fahd himself ordered that it be bulldozed in case it should become a pilgrimage site. Often, they perform the Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, while visiting the Masjid al-Haram.

Geography

Mecca is at an elevation of above sea level, and approximately inland from the Red Sea. Central Mecca lies in a corridor between mountains, which is often called the "hollow of Mecca." The area contains the valley of Al Taneem, the Valley of Bakkah and the valley of Abqar.

In pre-modern Mecca, the city exploited a few chief sources of water. The first were local wells, such as the Zamzam Well, that produced generally brackish water. The second source was the spring of Ayn Zubayda. The sources of this spring are the mountains of J̲abal Saʿd (Jabal Sa'd) and Jabal Kabkāb, which lie a few kilometers east of Ḏj̲abal ʿArafa (Djabal 'Arafa) or about east southeast of Mecca. Water was transported from it using underground channels. A very sporadic third source was rainfall which was stored by the people in small reservoirs or cisterns. The rainfall, as scant as it is, also presents the threat of flooding and has been a danger since earliest times. According to Al-Kurdī, there had been 89 historic floods by 1965, including several in the Saudi period. In the last century the most severe one occurred in 1942. Since then, dams have been constructed to ameliorate the problem.

Al Faisaliyyah

Al Gemmezah

Al Ghassalah

Al Hindawiyyah

Al Iskan

Al Khalediya

Jabal Al Nour

Jarwal

Jurhum

Mina

Misfalah

Shar Mansur

Climate

Unlike other Saudi Arabian cities, Mecca retains its warm temperature in winter, which can range from at midnight to in the afternoon. Summer temperatures are considered very hot and break the mark in the afternoon dropping to in the evening. Rain usually falls in Mecca in small amounts between November and January.

Landmarks

panorama.]] Mecca houses the Masjid al-Haram, the largest mosque in the world. The mosque surrounds the Kaaba, which Muslims turn towards while offering daily prayer. This mosque is also commonly known as the Haram or Grand Mosque.

As mentioned above, because of the Wahhabist hostility to reverence being paid to historic and religious buildings, Mecca has lost much of its heritage in recent years and few buildings from the last 1500 years have survived Saudi rule. The towers are set to be completed in 2010 when they will be one of the world's tallest buildings. The construction of the towers involved the demolition of the Ajyad Fortress, which in turn sparked a dispute between Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The Zamzam Well is home to a celebrated water spring.

The Qishla of Mecca was an Ottoman castle facing the Grand Mosque and defending the city from attack. However, the Saudi government removed the structure to give space for hotels and business buildings near to the Grand Mosque. Hira is a cave near Mecca, on the mountain named Jabal Al-Nūr in the Hejaz region of present day Saudi Arabia. It is notable for being the location where Muslims believe Muhammad received his first revelations from God through the angel Jibreel, also known as Gabriel to Christians.

Economy

The Meccan economy has been heavily dependent on the annual pilgrimage. As one academic put it, "[Meccans] have no means of earning a living but by serving the hajjis." Economy generated from the Hajj, in fact, not only powers the Meccan economy but has historically had far reaching effects on the economy of the entire Hijaz and Najd regions. The income was generated in a number of ways. One method was taxing the pilgrims. Taxes especially increased during the Great Depression, and many of these taxes existed as late as 1972. Another way the Hajj generates income is through services to pilgrims. For example, the Saudi national airline, Saudi Arabian Airlines, generates 12% of its income from the pilgrimage. Fares paid by pilgrims to reach Mecca by land also generate income; as do the hotels and lodging companies that house them. The few industries operating in Mecca include textiles, furniture, and utensils. The majority of the economy is service oriented.

Nevertheless, many industries have been set up in Mecca. Various types of enterprises that have existed since 1970: corrugated iron manufacturing, copper smithies, carpentry shops, upholstering establishments, vegetable oil extraction plants, sweets manufacturies, flour mills, bakeries, poultry farms, frozen food importing, photography processing, secretarial establishments, ice factories, bottling plants for soft drinks, barber shops, book shops, travel agencies and banks.

Health care

Health care is provided by the Saudi government free of charge to all pilgrims. There are five major hospitals in Mecca:

Ajyad Hospital (Arabic: مستشفى أجياد)

King Abdul Aziz Hospital ( Arabic: مستشفى الملك عبدالعزيز)

Al Noor Hospital ( Arabic: مستشفى النور )

Sheesha Hospital ( Arabic: مستشفى الششة )

Hira Hospital ( Arabic: مستشفى حراء )

There are also many walk-in clinics available for both residents and pilgrims.

Culture

Mecca's culture has been affected by the large number of pilgrims that arrive annually, and thus boasts a rich cultural heritage. The locals speak Hejazi Arabic, but languages from all over the Muslim world can be found amongst the pilgrims.

As a result of the vast numbers of pilgims coming to the city each year (many of whom remain permanently), Mecca has become by far the most diverse city in the Muslim world. In contrast to the rest of Saudi Arabia, and particularly Nejd, Mecca has, according to the New York Times, become "a striking oasis" of free thought and discussion and, also, of "unlikely liberalism" as "Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken much Islamic debate".]]

Many television stations serving the city area include Saudi TV1, Saudi TV2, Saudi TV Sports, Al-Ekhbariya, Arab Radio and Television Network and hundreds of cable, satellite and other speciality television providers.

In pre-modern Mecca the most common sports were impromptu wrestling and foot races.

Cuisine

As in other Saudi cities Kabsa (a spiced dish of rice and meat) is the most traditional lunch but the Yemeni mandi (a dish of rice and tandoori cooked meat) is also popular. Grilled meat dishes such as shawarma (flat-bread meat sandwich), kofta (meatballs) and kebab are widely sold in Mecca. During Ramadan fava beans in olive oil and samosas are the most popular dishes and are eaten at dusk. These dishes are almost always found in Lebanese, Syrian, and Turkish restaurants.

The mixture of different ethnicities and nationalities amongst Meccan residents has significantly impacted Mecca's traditional cuisine. The city has been described as one of the most cosmopolitan Islamic cities, with an international cuisine.

Traditionally during the month of Ramadan, men (known as Saggas) provided mineral water and fruit juice for Muslims breaking their fast at dusk. Today, Saggas make money providing sweets such as baklava and basbosa along with fruit juice drinks.

In the 20th century, many fast-food chains have opened franchises in Mecca, catering to locals and pilgrims alike. Exotic foods, such as fruits from India and Japan, are often brought by the pilgrims.

Demographics

are one the largest housing projects, with a total capacity of 65,000. Mecca receives excess of 2 million pilgrims annually.]] Population density in Mecca is very high. Most long-term residents of Mecca live in the Old City, and many work in the industry known locally as the Hajj Industry. Iyad Madani, Saudi Arabia's minister for Hajj, was quoted as saying, "We never stop preparing for the Hajj." Year-round, pilgrims stream into the city to perform the rites of Umrah, and during the last weeks of Dhu al-Qi'dah, on average 4 million Muslims arrive in the city to take part in the rites known as Hajj.

Pilgrims are from varying ethnicities and backgrounds, mainly Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Many of these pilgrims have remained and become residents of the city. Adding to the Hajj-related diversity, the oil-boom of the past 50 years has brought hundreds of thousands of working immigrants.

Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca under Saudi law, and using fraudulent documents to do so may result in arrest and prosecution. Nevertheless, as a result of curiosity, many non-Muslims have falsely posed as Muslims in order to visit the city and experience the Hajj for themselves. The first such recorded example is that of Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna in 1503. The most famous was Richard Francis Burton, who traveled as a Qadiriyyah Sufi from Afghanistan in 1853. The Saudi government supports their position using Sura 9:28 from the Qur'an.

Education

Formal education started to be developed in late Ottoman period continuing slowly into and Hashimite times. The first major attempt to improve the situation was made by a Jeddah merchant, Muhammad ʿAlī Zaynal Riḍā, who founded the Madrasat al-Falāḥ in Mecca in 1911–12 that cost £400,000. The medium of instruction in both public and private schools is Arabic with emphasis on English as a second language, but some private schools founded by foreign entities such as International schools use the English language for medium of instruction. They also allow the mixing between males and females while other schools do not.

For higher education, the city has only one university, Umm al-Qura University, which was established in 1949 as a college and became a public university in 1979.

Archaeology

In 2010, the Mecca area became an important site for paleontology with respect to primate evolution, with the discovery of a Saadanius fossil. Saadanius is considered to be a primate closely related to the common ancestor of the Old World monkeys and apes. The fossil habitat, near what is now the Red Sea in western Saudi Arabia, was a damp forest area between 28m and 29m years ago.

Paleontologists involved in the research hope to find further fossils in the area.

Communications

Telecommunications in the city were emphasized early under the Saudi reign. King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud (Ibn Saud) pressed them forward as he saw them as a means of convenience and better governance. While in King Husayn's time there were about 20 telephones in the entire city; in 1936 the number jumped to 450, totalling about half the telephones in the country. During that time telephone lines were extended to Jeddah and Ta’if, but not to the capital Riyadh. By 1985, Mecca, like other Saudi cities, possessed the most modern telephone, telex, radio and TV communications.

Limited radio communication was established within the Hejaz region under the Hashimites. In 1929, wireless stations were set up in various towns of the region, creating a network that would become fully functional by 1932. Soon after World War II, the existing network was greatly expanded and improved. Since then, radio communication has been used extensively in directing the pilgrimage and addressing the pilgrims. This practice started in 1950, with the initiation of broadcasts the Day of Arafa, and increased until 1957, at which time Radio Makka became the most powerful station in the Middle East at 50 kW. Later, power was increased to 450 kW. Music was not immediately broadcast, but gradually introduced. A total of 5 metro lines are planned to carry pilgrims to the religious sites.

See also

Meccan sura

Mecca Time

Notes

References

Encyclopedia

Watt, W. Montgomery. "Makka – The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2008. Brill Online. June 6, 2008

Winder, R.B. "Makka – The Modern City." Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2008. Brill Online. June 6, 2008

Further reading

External links

Holy Mecca Municipality Official website (in Arabic)

Saudi Information Resource – Holy Mecca

Mecca Then and Now - slideshow by Life magazine

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah, by Richard Burton

Category:Populated places in Saudi Arabia Category:Holy cities Category:Shi'a holy cities Category:Red Sea Category:Islamic holy places Category:Cities in the Ottoman Empire Category:Hajj Category:Populated places in Makkah Province