MECCA

In Arabic Makka, city in southern Hijaz, about 70 miles from the coast of the Red Sea, the holy city of Islam and birthplace of muḤammad.

The city lies in a slight depression in the surrounding low hills. The region is oppressively hot, almost completely infertile, and devoid of rainfall, though infrequent winter storms of great violence with their concomitant torrents (sayl, pl. suyûl ) present a serious threat to the lower parts of the city. The earliest history of Mecca is altogether obscure; no doubt its foundation is due to the presence of water (the sacred spring of Zamzam) and its position at the hub of a number of important trade routes joining Yemen and thereby Abyssinia and India in the south to Palestine, Syria, and Iraq in the north. According to tradition, a certain Quṣayy is said to have installed the tribe Quraysh as masters of the town over the Khuzâ’a. At the time of Muḥammad the city existed entirely on trade, although because of the presence of the Ka’aba (sacred Black Stone) it already formed an important religious center for the pagan Arabs. Under the reign of the umayyads there was much building in the city, the great mosque (al-masjid al-harām ) being completed under al-Walīd I, while a number of dikes were constructed in order to protect the Ka’aba from the danger of the sayl. During the period of the ’abbĀsids (750-960) the city was ruled by governors appointed from Baghdad, but even from the time of al-Ma’mūn (813-833) the whole region around Mecca and Medina and Tā’if fell into near anarchy. It was subjected to the raids of the 'Alids [see ‘alĪ (‘alĪ ibn abĪ ṬĀlib)] some of whom managed to make themselves rulers of the holy city for brief periods. In 930 it was plundered by the Karmatians (al-Qarāmiṭa ), who carried off the Black Stone, returning it finally in 950. With the rise of the Būyids in Baghdad (945) and the

Fāṭimids in Egypt (969), the 'Alids, taking on the title of sharīf, became the rulers of Mecca, with varying degrees of dependence upon Egypt. Under the rule of ‘Ajlān (1346-75) the Sharīfs gave up the Zaydī creed (see shĪ'tes) to follow the orthodox Shāfi‘ī system thereafter. There was again a major political change with Sultan Selîm's conquest of Egypt (1517); the relative dependence of Mecca upon Constantinople and Egypt then varied with the relative strengths of the two. The city was taken by the wahhĀbis in 1803 but was freed by Muḥammad ‘Alī in 1813. In 1916 the last of the Sharīfs, Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī, made himself ruler of the independent kingdom of the Hijaz but was forced to flee when the Wahhābi ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn Sa’ūd took the city in October 1924; he was there proclaimed king of Hijaz in 1926. In the following year the sultanate of the Nejd became the Kingdom of saudi arabia, with the ruler of the combined kingdoms residing at Riyadh.

[r. m. frank/eds.]