Makkah (Mecca)

from Encyclopedia Britannica

History

Ancient Mecca was an oasis on the old caravan trade route that linked the Mediterranean world with South Arabia, East Africa, and South Asia. The town was located about midway between Maʾrib in the south and Petra in the north, and it gradually developed by Roman and Byzantine times into an important trade and religious centre. It was known to Ptolemy as Macoraba.

According to Isl�mic tradition, Abraham and Ishmael, his son by Hagar, built the Kaʿbah as the house of God. The central point of pilgrimage in Mecca before the advent of Isl�m in the 7th century, the cube-shaped stone building has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. During biblical times, the city was ruled by a series of Yemeni tribes. Under the Quraysh, it became a type of city-state, with strong commercial links to the rest of Arabia, Ethiopia, and Europe. Mecca became a place for trade, for pilgrimage, and for poetry festivals.

The city gained its religious importance with the birth of Muḥammad about 570. The prophet was forced to flee from Mecca in 622, but he returned eight years later and took control of the city. He purged Mecca of idols, declared it a centre of Muslim pilgrimage, and dedicated it to All�h. Since then, the city has remained the major religious centre of Isl�m. As the ancient caravan route fell into decline, Mecca lost its commercial significance and has since lived mainly on the annual pilgrimages and the gifts of Muslim rulers.

Mecca remained virtually independent, although it acknowledged the power of Damascus andlater of the ʿAbb�sid caliphate of Baghdad, Iraq. In 1269 it came under the control of the Egyptian Maml�k sultans. In 1517 dominion over the holy city passed to the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople (now Istanbul). The local city rulers were chosen from the shar�fs, or descendants of Muḥammad, who retained a strong hold on the surrounding area. With the fall of Turkish power after World War I, control of Mecca was contested between the shar�fs and the �l Saʿ�d (the Wahh�b�s) of central Arabia. King Ibn Saʿ�d entered the city in 1925, and it became part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the capital of Makkah m�naṭiq id�r�yah.

Under the �l Saʿ�d, a puritanical moral code and law and order were enforced, and the facilities for pilgrims were improved. With the exploitation of Saudi Arabia's oil resources since World War II, Mecca has had a high level of economic development.

i cant wait to perform hajj and step foot in the holy lands. the only place on earth that people from all over the world come together as brothers and sisters wer ur race and culture does not matter and people see you as what you really are. human beings.

i cud not help but realise the shiny whit araound the kabe while the rest of the photo is dull. wats da reason for that?

Azimuth said "parks" and "green areas" and not what you described as "forest"! Common sense, any city needs a park, a green one of course. This will beautify the city and allows for grounds for recreational activies and sports. Afterall, the government is not poor.

ramin you mean when they came as pilgrims and then started acting like revolting?

destroying cars and making fire in the streets and waving the iranian flags

and stopping many other pligrims from passing which caused many injuries and deaths?

yea sure you can do what you like, but its part of the five pillars of Islam, that a muslim must do Haj once in his life time.

Actually it is not something you pay for just to go and circle around the Ka'abah and throw stones. It is actually something you go to to experience unity and equality. Where all people are dressed in simple two white cloth. No wonder that Malcom X has changed his views after his pilgrimate from a fanatic of the Nation of Islam of one race, to join the effort in raising the notion that white and black can live toagher and all races, and revenge is always bad. Malcom X learned in his Hajj, where he sat with the white Albanians, the black Nigerians, the South Asians, the East Asians, the Arab, the Turks..etc

that is an experience that worth paying for Hajj. You don't pay for your Hajj to go around Ka'ba and just throw the stones, you pay to feel it, to experience it, and to have a chance for a rebirth.