MECCA

islam's holiest city and the third largest city in saudi arabia.

Situated about 45 miles east of the Red Sea port of Jeddah in the rocky foothills of the Hijaz Mountains, Mecca has a hot, arid climate, and lack of water and other resources have kept its population and economic fortunes heavily dependent on outside factors. The estimated two million pilgrims who visit the city each year during the hajj season have a vital impact on the local economy. Many of Mecca's inhabitants work in the large service industry that caters to the hajjis, providing transport, security, food, lodging, medical care, and other services. Because many pilgrims from around the world have settled in the city, its population is the most ethnically varied in Saudi Arabia. According to a 2000 estimate there were 1.3 million inhabitants. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter the city and its environs.

In the sixth century c.e. Mecca became an important market town and stopping point along the caravan routes connecting Yemen with Syria. A square stone structure called the Kaʿba, believed to have been built by Ibrahim (Abraham), also gave the city religious importance. The city is paramount in the history of Islam because it was the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, the site of many of his revelations from God, the focal point of daily prayer and the main center of pilgrimage. The Kaʿba became the center of the Islamic pilgrimage ritual, and the Grand Mosque eventually was built up around it. The sacred precinct of Mecca extends as far as 14 miles outward from the Kaʿba in an irregular circle. Inside it, a number of prohibitions apply, including bans on fighting, cursing, hunting, and uprooting plants.

Despite its continuing religious significance, Mecca lost its political importance in the seventh century (the first century of Islam) when the capital of the caliphate moved first to Medina and later outside Arabia altogether. Thus Mecca became a provincial backwater ruled by governors appointed from afar. But as central authority weakened, local sharifs claiming descent from the prophet Muhammad were able to assert their control and remain substantially in power from about 965 to 1924, but never with full independence. From 1517, the sharifs fell under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire but remained effective local rulers, sharing power with the Turkish governors of Jidda. From 1916 to 1924, Mecca was part of the short-lived Kingdom of the Hijaz proclaimed by the last sharif, but then was conquered and incorporated into Saudi Arabia.

see also hijaz; islam; kaʿba; muhammad; qurʾan.

Bibliography

De Gaury, Gerald. Rulers of Mecca. London: Harrap, 1951.

Peters, F. E. The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Peters, F. E. Mecca: A Literary History of the Muslim Holy City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Sabini, John. Armies in the Sand: The Struggle for Mecca and Medina. New York; London: Thames and Hudson, 1981.

Wolfe, Michael, ed. One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage. New York: Grove Press, 1997.

khalid y. blankinship
updated by anthony b. toth