Mecca

Mecca, also known as Makkah, is a Muslim holy city in Arabia located in Hij?z, some forty-six miles inland from the Red Sea port of Jidda. The holy city surrounds the Ka?bah, a rectangular building called the "House of God" (bayt all?h). The Ka?bah had been known as a sacred sanctuary long before Islam appropriated it as the qiblah (the source of orientation in prayer) for its followers. The Qur?an speaks about "the House" (al-bayt), "a place of visitation for the people and a sanctuary," and attributes the "raising of the foundations" of the Ka?bah to Abraham and his son Ishmael (Qur?an 2:125–127). The Arab tribes in Mecca traced their genealogy to Ishmael, but their legend connected the city and its sanctuary with Adam, for whom God built the original Ka?bah. Abraham "raised the foundations" of the shrine after its destruction in the Flood. Today the Ka?bah is taller and more firmly built than the original edifice, which was described in early sources as "made of loose stones above a man's height." The Ka?bah determines the ritual direction, the focal point toward which all devotional acts and sacred buildings in Islam are oriented. Today, Muslims in the United States and throughout the world observe this ritual orientation.

Mecca is not situated in an agricultural area. In ancient times it had access to sufficient underground water for its inhabitants and was protected from invasion by surrounding hills. Later it came to possess the respected shrine to which the Arab tribes would make pilgrimage. The generations following Abraham had introduced idolatrous, polytheistic practices in the shrine, contrary to the pure monotheism of Abraham. The annual fairs took the form of pilgrimages, which brought prosperity by combining religious rituals with opportunities for trade. In due course Mecca became the most important trading center in Arabia. Trade routes connected it northward to Syria, northeastward to Iraq, southward to the Yemen, and westward to Tidda, the Red Sea port. Some generations before Muhammad, who died in 632, a tribe called the Quraysh, under the leadership of Qusayy, took over the springs there and the shrine. The Quraysh rebuilt and roofed the Ka?bah, draping it with a black cloth known as kiswah. To protect the tribes that came for trade and pilgrimage, the Meccans established four sacred truce months during which fighting was prohibited. Mecca provided a point of convergence for the Arabs, who maintained their solidarity through worship at the Ka?bah. A common cult had emerged to provide the collective practice of circling the Ka?bah a fixed number of times and touching the Black Stone in one corner. In the Ka?bah a great many sacred tokens of all the clans of Mecca were gathered to share in its sacredness. Nearby there was a sacred well, called zamzam. The space around the sanctified area, extending all around Mecca, was regarded as ?aram, an area in which fighting was taboo even when it was not a truce month.

Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570. The Meccan moral, social, and spiritual conditions were ripe for a reformer to make a lasting impact in the region. When he emerged as a prophet in 610, the Meccans initially rejected his monotheism as a challenge to their polytheistic cults, which had made Mecca an important commercial and financial center. But many Meccans, caught up in the materialism and weakening interpersonal relations of the era, found Muhammad's message increasingly relevant. In 622 Mu?ammad was forced to leave his native city and to migrate to Medina, also known as Madina. This journey was called the hijra. In 630 Mecca opened its gates to Muhammad, who was able to take it without bloodshed. The Ka?bah was cleansed of the pre-Islamic sacred objects, but the Black Stone was retained. In 632, just before his death that year, Muhammad performed the ?ajj, in which he established the Islamic rituals that are emulated by Muslims even today. As the spiritual significance of Mecca increased, its commercial and political significance declined. Today all Muslims, in the United States and elsewhere, have a duty to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if their circumstances permit it.

Mecca has witnessed numerous struggles for supremacy among Muslim rulers of different dynasties, who at one time or another intervened in Meccan affairs to control its growing wealth through endowments and to acquire the prestige of being the protectors of the "House of God." The last in the line of the rulers were the Su??d, who gained complete control of Mecca and Medina in December 1925. In Mecca, Wahh?b? forces, in accord with their opposition to anything that smacked of idolatry, destroyed a number of domed tombs, the reputed birthplace of the Prophet, and two houses revered as those of Khad?ja (Muhammad's first wife) and Ab? Bakr (the first caliph). Despite the iconoclastic attitudes of the Su??dis, the entire institution of the annual pilgrimage has continued to provide the regime with a religious prestige and acceptance. Maintenance of order and peace during the pilgrimage season has been one of their major achievements. The main mosque and other religious buildings have been expanded and renovated extensively since the Su??dis took over Mecca.

The requirement of the pilgrimage and the desire of the pious to live and die near the "House of God" have given Mecca a unique position among the Muslim holy cities. The population is a highly mixed one. Much of the city's life is dominated by the pilgrimage and the ceremonies connected with the various holy sites in or around the city. Religious occasions form part of the rhythm of participation in the life of the city. Besides the proper ?ajj season, there are numerous occasions for the performance of the ?umra (the lesser pilgrimage) throughout the year, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. The pilgrimage service industry has grown over the centuries and is highly specialized. The guides (mutawwif?n) for the intending pilgrims from different parts of the Muslim world work closely with particular ethnic groups through the various arrangements that must be made with great precision to supply the material needs and facilitate the performance of the prescribed rites. Today Mecca has been modernized, and its complex infrastructure has evolved to meet the requirements of a city whose fixed population is three hundred thousand residents but that swells to some two million during the primary pilgrimage period.

To Muslims throughout history, Mecca has furnished a focus in their spiritual quest and has reenacted its symbolic presence in all sacred buildings of Islam—in the United States and throughout the world. The Ka?bah is the center as well as the orientation of Muslim devotion to God, the "Lord of the House."

See alsoAllah; Imam; Islam; Mosque; Mullah; Qur>Ú^an.

Bibliography

Far?h?n?, Mu?ammad ?usayn ?usyan?. A Sh??ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885 –1886: The Safarnameh of M?rz? Mu?ammad Hosayn Farahan?, edited, translated, and annotated by Hafez Farmayan and Elton L. Daniel. 1990.

Long, David E. The Hajj Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Makkah Pilgrimage. 1979.

"Makkah." In Encylopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. VI.

Peters, F. E. Jerusalem and Mecca: The Typology of the HolyCity in the Near East. 1986.

Peters, F. E. Mecca and the Hijaz: A Literary History ofthe Muslim Holy Places. 1994.

Abdulaziz A. Sachedina