Misplaced Pages

#892107

119-485: According to Muslim scholars Bakkah is an ancient name for Mecca , the most holy city of Islam . (The word Mecca is only used once in the Quran in verse 48:24 ("And it is He who withheld their hands from you and your hands from them within [the area of] Makkah after He caused you to overcome them. And ever is Allāh, of what you do, Seeing.")) Most Muslims believe Mecca and Bakkah are synonyms, but to Muslim scholars there

238-508: A great degree of local autonomy. In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State , which held Mecca until 1813, destroying some of the historic tombs and domes in and around the city. The Ottomans assigned the task of bringing Mecca back under Ottoman control to their powerful Khedive (viceroy) and Wali of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha . Muhammad Ali Pasha successfully returned Mecca to Ottoman control in 1813 . In 1818,

357-554: A great quantity of alms for the support of those who were staying in Mecca and Medina". While in Mecca, prayers were made for (not to) the King of Iraq and also for Salaheddin al-Ayyubi , Sultan of Egypt and Syria at the Ka'bah. Battuta says the Ka'bah was large, but was destroyed and rebuilt smaller than the original. According to Ibn Battuta, the original Kaaba, prior to the conquest of Makkah by

476-438: A number of expressions to convey his skepticism or caution. Beside a frequent note that only God knows whether a particular statement is true or not (p. xix), Guillaume suggests that Ibn Isḥāq deliberately substitutes the ordinary term "ḥaddathanī" (he narrated to me) by a word of suspicion "zaʿama" ("he alleged") to show his skepticism about certain traditions (p. xx). Michael Cook laments that comparing Ibn Ishaq with

595-572: A reference to Mecca, similar to the Quran at Surah 3:96 In the Sharḥ al-Asāṭīr , a commentary on the Samaritan midrashic chronology of the Patriarchs, of unknown date but probably composed in the 10th century CE, it is claimed that Mecca was built by the sons of Nebaioth , the eldest son of Ismāʿīl or Ishmael . Thamudic inscriptions Some Thamudic inscriptions which were discovered in

714-517: A source. Thus can be reconstructed an 'improved' " edited " text, i.e., by distinguishing or removing Ibn Hisham's additions, and by adding from al-Tabari passages attributed to Ibn Ishaq. Yet the result's degree of approximation to Ibn Ishaq's original text can only be conjectured. Such a reconstruction is available, e.g., in Guillaume's translation. Here, Ibn Ishaq's introductory chapters describe pre-Islamic Arabia , before he then commences with

833-617: A state like that of eaten straw. Economy 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 Shaam and Iraq . Historical accounts also provide some indication that goods from other continents may also have flowed through Mecca. Goods from Africa and

952-655: A stone as it has been identified in the Islamic tradition, but rather he interprets the sentence hinting at the possible Levantine location of Bakkah. Another theory, coined as the Mecca–Petra Theory—or simply the Petra Theory—by the development of it from Dan Gibson , suggests that the original location of Bakkah is Petra , a historical city which was located in Arabia Petraea , which is also situated in

1071-465: A synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the Kaaba . The form Bakkah is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96 , while the form Mecca is used in 48:24 . In South Arabic , the language in use in the southern portion of

1190-478: A threat to Mecca, as in 575 CE they protected it from a Yemeni invasion, led by its Christian leader Abraha . The tribes of southern Arabia asked the Persian king Khosrau I for aid, in response to which he came south to Arabia with foot-soldiers and a fleet of ships near Mecca. By the middle of the 6th century, there were three major settlements in northern Arabia , all along the south-western coast that borders

1309-565: A valley of bakha trees which served as a battlefield between Israel and Philistia . In this interpretation, the psalm gives glory to the Tribe of Levi and praises their inheritance of priesthood ("whose strength is in thee") over an inheritance of land. Another Jewish interpretation states that the psalm is a celebration of pilgrimage to the Temple (at this time, the First Temple), and that

SECTION 10

#1732798265893

1428-567: A year-round population of scholars, pious Muslims who wished to live close to the Kaaba, and local inhabitants who served the pilgrims. Due to the difficulty and expense of the Hajj, pilgrims arrived by boat at Jeddah, and came overland, or joined the annual caravans from Syria or Iraq. Mecca was never the capital of any of the Islamic states . Muslim rulers did contribute to its upkeep, such as during

1547-520: Is al-Mubtadaʾ wa al-Baʿth wa al-Maghāzī —the Kitab al-Mubtada and Kitab al-Mab'ath both survive in part, particularly al-Mab'ath , and al-Mubtada otherwise in substantial fragments. He is also credited with the lost works Kitāb al-kh̲ulafāʾ , which al-Umawwī related to him (Fihrist, 92; Udabāʾ, VI, 401) and a book of Sunan (Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa, II, 1008). In hadith studies , ibn Isḥaq's hadith (considered separately from his prophetic biography)

1666-528: Is 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea , in a narrow valley 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its metropolitan population in 2022 was 2.4   million, making it the third-most populated city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh and Jeddah. Around 44.5% of the population are Saudi citizens and around 55.5% are Muslim foreigners from other countries. Pilgrims more than triple

1785-407: Is a distinction: Bakkah refers to the Kaaba and the sacred site immediately surrounding it, while Mecca is the name of the city in which they are both located. According to Lisān al-'Arab of Ibn Manẓūr, the site of the Kaaba and its surroundings was named Bakkah due to crowding and congestion of people in the area. The Arabic verb bakka (بَكَّ), with double "k", means to crowd like in a bazaar. This

1904-639: Is advised to engage the Philistines in battle when he hears the sound of marching in the tops of the bakha trees. Muslims see the mention of a pilgrimage to the Valley of Bakha in the passage as a reference to Mecca, similar to the Quran in 3:96. Some also draw connections of the passage "they make it a place of springs" to the Book of Genesis ' account of how Hagar the Egyptian has a well revealed to by God in

2023-418: Is commonly recorded to have only been used twice throughout all of Biblical Hebrew; both instances, one of which is plural (הַבְּכָאִים [habəxɔim] , habekha'im ), are dated to the same era and associate considerably with the land of Israel, while Bakkah is a hapax legomenon of the Quran that directly associates with a Bronze Age location, which is traditionally located in the southern region of

2142-530: Is generally thought to be "good" ( ḥasan ) (assuming an accurate and trustworthy isnad , or chain of transmission) and himself having a reputation of being "sincere" or "trustworthy" ( ṣadūq ). However, a general analysis of his isnads has given him the negative distinction of being a mudallis , meaning one who did not name his teacher, claiming instead to narrate directly from his teacher's teacher. Others, like Ahmad ibn Hanbal , rejected his narrations on all matters related to fiqh . Al-Dhahabī concluded that

2261-600: Is just a few kilometers outside the main sites of the Hajj, Mina, Muzdalifah and Arafat. Mecca is not served by any airport, due to concerns about the city's safety. It is instead served by the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah (approx. 70 km away) internationally and the Ta'if Regional Airport (approx. 120 km away) for domestic flights. The city today is at the junction of

2380-493: Is not to be confused with another unrelated Arabic verb bakā (بَكَىٰ) (single k) which is the past tense of yabkī (يَبْكِي), to cry. Islamic tradition identifies Bakkah as the ancient name for the site of Mecca. An Arabic word, its etymology , like that of Mecca, is obscure. One meaning ascribed to it is "narrow", seen as descriptive of the area in which the valley of the holy places and the city of Mecca are located, pressed in upon as they are by mountains. Widely believed to be

2499-567: Is the official transliteration used by the Saudi government and is closer to the Arabic pronunciation. The government adopted Makkah as the official spelling in the 1980s, but it is not universally known or used worldwide. The full official name is Makkah al-Mukarramah ( Arabic : مكة المكرمة , lit.   'Makkah the Honored';). Makkah is used to refer to the city in

SECTION 20

#1732798265893

2618-522: Is where Hagar ( Hājar ) and Ishmael ( Ismā'īl ) settled after being taken by Abraham ( Ibrāhīm ) to the wilderness, a story comparable to the Book of Genesis (21:14-21). Genesis tells that Abraham gave Hagar food and a skin of water, but that Hagar and Ishmael ran out of water to drink in the outskirts of Beersheba . In Arab tradition, Hagar runs back and forth between Safa and Marwa —two elevated points—seven times to search for help before sitting down in despair, at which point an angel appeared and hit

2737-597: The Jabal al-Nur ("Mountain of Light"), just outside the city, is where Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad. Visiting Mecca for the Ḥajj is an obligation upon all able Muslims. The Great Mosque of Mecca , known as the Masjid al-Haram , is home to the Ka'bah , believed by Muslims to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael . It is Islam's holiest site and

2856-641: The Abraj Al Bait , the world's fourth-tallest building and third-largest by floor area , towering over the Great Mosque. The Saudi government has also carried out the destruction of several historical structures and archaeological sites , such as the Ajyad Fortress . However, many of the demolitions have officially been part of the continued expansion of the Masjid al-Haram at Mecca and

2975-488: The Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad , the b and m were interchangeable. The Quranic passage using the form Bakkah says: "Surely the first House ˹of worship˺ established for humanity is the one at Bakkah—a blessed sanctuary and a guide for ˹all˺ people." Other references to Mecca in the Quran ( 6:42 , 42:7 ) call it Umm al-Qura , meaning "mother of all settlements". In Islamic tradition, Bakkah

3094-682: The Banu Tamim . Other regional powers such as the Abyssinians , Ghassanids, and Lakhmids were in decline leaving Meccan trade to be the primary binding force in Arabia in the late 6th century. Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570 CE, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with it ever since. He was born into the faction of Banu Hashim in the ruling tribe of Quraysh . It was in the nearby mountain cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nour that Muhammad began receiving divine revelations from God through

3213-634: The Battle of the Trench in 627 CE, the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad's forces (as the trench surrounding Muhammad's forces protected them from harm and a storm was sent to breach the Quraysh tribe). In 628 CE, Muhammad and his followers wanted to enter Mecca for pilgrimage, but were blocked by the Quraysh. Subsequently, Muslims and Meccans entered into the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah , whereby

3332-514: The Desert of Paran . Unlike Arab tradition, Genesis accounts that Hagar set a dying Ismael underneath a bush and then sat down a bowshot distance's away as to not watch him die, and when he began to cry, God called from Heaven to Hagar to take Ismael and continue traveling, where then he opened her eyes, revealing a well. The Islamic tradition holds that a spring gushed forth from the spot where Hagar had laid Ishmael, and this spring came to be known as

3451-475: The First World War . This plan was later carried out by the Saudi government, which connected the two holy cities of Medina and Mecca with the modern Haramain high-speed railway system which runs at 300 km/h (190 mph) and connects the two cities via Jeddah, King Abdulaziz International Airport and King Abdullah Economic City near Rabigh within two hours. The haram area of Mecca, in which

3570-820: The Ghassanids and the Himyarites of the south supports the Arabic sources tradition that associates Quraysh as a branch of the Ma'add and Muhammad as a direct descendant of Ma'ad ibn Adnan . Historian Patricia Crone has cast doubt on the claim that Mecca was a major historical trading outpost. However, other scholars such as Glen W. Bowersock disagree and assert that Mecca was a major trading outpost. Crone later on disregarded some of her theories. She argues that Meccan trade relied on skins, hides, manufactured leather goods, clarified butter, Hijazi woollens, and camels. She suggests that most of these goods were destined for

3689-549: The Hejaz . A literal translation is "Valley of the Bakha", although the translations into Biblical Greek assumed it to be the similar-sounding word בכה ("bakhah"), "crying", and translates it as ἐν τῇ κοιλάδι τοῦ κλαυθμῶνος ("Valley of Mourning", "Valley of Weeping"). Tom Holland and Patricia Crone , both revisionist scholars of early Islamic history , postulate that Mecca and Bakkah might not be different spelling variations of

Bakkah - Misplaced Pages Continue

3808-591: The Isrā'īlīyāt . Furthermore, early literary critics, like ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī and ibn al-Nadīm , censured ibn Isḥāq for knowingly including forged poems in his biography, and for attributing poems to persons not known to have written any poetry. The 14th-century historian al-Dhahabī , using hadith terminology , noted that in addition to the forged ( makdhūb ) poetry, Ibn Isḥāq filled his sīra with munqaṭiʿ (broken chain of narration ) and munkar (suspect narrator) reports. Guillaume notices that Ibn Isḥāq frequently uses

3927-485: The Ka'bah . The Quran refers to the city as Bakkah in Surah Al Imran (3), verse 96: "Indeed the first House [of worship] , established for mankind was that at Bakkah". This is said to have been the name of the city at the time of Ibrahim and it is also transliterated as Baca, Baka, Bakah, Bakka, Becca and Bekka , among others. It was a name for the city in the ancient world. Makkah

4046-770: The Masoretic Text of the psalm, including ones outside of English. The name עמק הבכא ( Emek haBakha ) is also used for the loosely-related Valley of Tears , located in the Golan Heights which received its name during the Yom Kippur War . The word Bakha ( Biblical Hebrew : *𐤁𐤊𐤀 [bɔxɔ] ) is pronounced in terminal stress, unlike Bakkah , which is penultimately stressed. Although both Bakha and Bakkah are of Semitic origin, they are composed of different abjad letters: b-kh-' (Bet-Kaph-Aleph) for Hebrew, and b-k-h (Bet-Kaph-He) for Arabic. Bakha

4165-591: The Negus of Axum . It gained widespread fame, even gaining attention from the Byzantine Empire . Abraha attempted to divert the pilgrimage of the Arabs from the Ka'bah to al-Qullays, effectively converting them to Christianity. According to Islamic tradition, this was the year of Muhammad 's birth. Abraha allegedly sent a messenger named Muhammad ibn Khuza'i to Mecca and Tihamah with a message that al-Qullays

4284-665: The Prophet's Mosque in Medina and their auxiliary service facilities in order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Muslims performing the pilgrimage ( hajj ). Non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the city . Under the Saudi government, Mecca is governed by the Mecca Regional Municipality, a municipal council of 14 locally elected members headed by the mayor (called Amin in Arabic) appointed by

4403-736: The Red Sea , but piracy had been increasing. Another previous route that ran through the Persian Gulf via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was also being threatened by exploitations from the Sassanid Empire , and was 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

4522-679: The Saudi government . In 2015, the mayor of the city was Osama bin Fadhel Al-Barr; as of January 2022 , the mayor is Saleh Al-Turki. The City of Mecca amanah , which constitutes Mecca and the surrounding region, is the capital of the Mecca Province, which includes the neighbouring cities of Jeddah and Ta'if , even though Jeddah is considerably larger in population than Mecca. Prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud has been

4641-729: The Siege of Kut . The British intelligence agent T.E. Lawrence conspired with the Ottoman governor, Hussain bin Ali , the Sharif of Mecca to revolt against the Ottoman Empire and it was the first city captured by his forces in the 1916 Battle of Mecca . Sharif's revolt proved a turning point of the war on the eastern front. Hussein declared a new state, the Kingdom of Hejaz , declaring himself

4760-659: The Sîrah or biography of the Prophet, the rest was once considered a lost work , but substantial fragments of it survive. He died in Baghdad in A.H. 150. Ibn Isḥaq collected oral traditions about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. These traditions, which he orally dictated to his pupils, are now known collectively as Sīratu Rasūli l-Lāh ( Arabic : سيرة رسول الله "Life of the Messenger of God") and survive mainly in

4879-606: The Umayyad caliphs remembered their prophet". In 1864 the Heidelberg professor Gustav Weil published an annotated German translation in two volumes. Several decades later the Hungarian scholar Edward Rehatsek prepared an English translation, but it was not published until over a half-century later. The best-known translation in a Western language is Alfred Guillaume 's 1955 English translation, but some have questioned

Bakkah - Misplaced Pages Continue

4998-514: The Well of Zamzam . When Muslims on hajj run between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, it is to commemorate Hagar's search for help and the resulting revelation of the well of Zamzam. In addition to the Islamic tradition that Hagar and Ishmael settled in Bakkah, the Quran relates that Abraham came to Mecca to help his son Ishmael build the Kaaba adjacent to the well of Zamzam. Ibn Ishaq ,

5117-626: The archangel Jibreel in 610 CE, according to Islamic tradition. Advocating his form of Abrahamic monotheism against Meccan paganism, and after enduring persecution from the pagan tribes for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated ( hijrah ) in 622 CE with his companions, the Muhajirun , to Yathrib (later renamed Medina ). The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims is accepted to have begun at this point. Overall, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam failed and proved to be costly and unsuccessful. During

5236-421: The local tribes , but once a year they would declare a truce and converge upon Mecca in an annual pilgrimage. Up to the 7th century, this journey was intended for religious reasons by the pagan Arabs to pay homage to their shrine, and to drink Zamzam . However, it was also the time each year that disputes would be arbitrated, debts would be resolved, and trading would occur at Meccan fairs. These annual events gave

5355-416: The 1st century BCE in his work Bibliotheca historica , describing a holy shrine: "And a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians". Claims have been made this could be a reference to the Ka'bah in Mecca. However, the geographic location Diodorus describes is located in northwest Arabia, around the area of Leuke Kome , within the former Nabataean Kingdom and

5474-582: The 8th-century Arab Muslim historian, relates that during the renovation of Kaaba undertaken by the Quraysh before Islam, found an inscription in one of the corners of the foundation of the building that mentions Bakkah. Composed in Syriac , it was incomprehensible to the Quraysh until a Jew translated it for them as follows: "I am Allah, the Lord of Bakka. I created it on the day I created heaven and earth and formed

5593-578: The Arab tribes of Quraysh, Kinanah, Khuza'a and Hudhayl united in the defense of the Ka'bah and the city. A man from the Himyarite Kingdom was sent by Abraha to advise them that Abraha only wished to demolish the Ka'bah and if they resisted, they would be crushed. Abdul Muttalib told the Meccans to seek refuge in the hills while he and some members of the Quraysh remained within the precincts of

5712-457: The Far East passed through en 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

5831-424: The Kaaba. Abraha sent a dispatch inviting Abdul-Muttalib to meet with Abraha and discuss matters. When Abdul-Muttalib left the meeting he was heard saying: "The Owner of this House is its Defender, and I am sure he will save it from the attack of the adversaries and will not dishonor the servants of His House." Abraha eventually attacked Mecca. However, the lead elephant, known as Mahmud, is said to have stopped at

5950-421: The Kinana tribe and destroy the Ka'bah. Ibn Ishaq further states that one of the men of the Quraysh tribe was angered by this, and going to Sana'a, entering the church at night and defiling it; widely assumed to have done so by defecating in it. Abraha marched upon the Ka'bah with a large army, which included one or more war elephants , intending to demolish it. When news of the advance of his army came,

6069-458: The Levant instead of the modern location of Mecca. The major point of the theory is that the qibla of early mosques face Petra more accurately than Mecca. Others have challenged the notion of comparing modern readings of qibla directions to early mosques’ qiblas as they claim early Muslims could not accurately calculate the direction of the qibla to Mecca and so the apparent pinpointing of Petra by some early mosques may well be coincidental. Surely

SECTION 50

#1732798265893

6188-401: The Prophet, contained images of angels and prophets including Jesus (Isa in Islamic tradition), his mother Mary (Maryam in Islamic tradition), and many others - Ibn Battuta however states these were all destroyed by the Prophet in the year of victory. Battuta describes the Ka'bah in his time as an important part of Mecca due to the fact that many people make the pilgrimage to it. Battuta describes

6307-404: The Quran and ahadith . Another name used historically for Mecca is Tihāmah . According to an Islamic suggestion, another name for Mecca, Fārān , is synonymous with the Desert of Paran mentioned in the Old Testament at Genesis 21 :21. Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Tihamah coastal plain and the site where Ishmael settled

6426-478: The Quran in Surah Al-Fath (48), verse 24. The word Mecca in English has come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people, and because of this some English-speaking Muslims have come to regard the use of this spelling for the city as offensive. Nonetheless, Mecca is the familiar form of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city. Macoraba, another ancient city name mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy Felix' Arabia Felix ,

6545-468: The Quraysh and their allies promised to cease fighting Muslims and their allies and promised that Muslims would be allowed into the city to perform the pilgrimage the following year. It was meant to be a ceasefire for 10 years; however, just two years later, the Banu Bakr , allies of the Quraish, violated the truce by slaughtering a group of the Banu Khuza'ah, allies of the Muslims. Muhammad and his companions, now 10,000 strong, marched into Mecca and conquered

6664-409: The Red Sea, in a habitable region between the sea and the Hejaz mountains to the east. Although the area around Mecca was completely barren, it was the wealthiest of the three settlements with abundant water from the renowned Zamzam Well and a position at the crossroads of major caravan routes. The harsh conditions and terrain of the Arabian peninsula meant a near-constant state of conflict between

6783-424: The Roman army, which is known to have required colossal quantities of leather and hides for its equipment. Mecca is mentioned in the following early Quranic manuscripts: The earliest Muslim inscriptions are from the Mecca- Ta'if area. Islamic narrative In the Islamic view, the beginnings of Mecca are attributed to the Biblical figures , Adam , Abraham , Hagar and Ishmael . It was Adam himself who built

6902-409: The Roman province of Arabia Petraea . Ptolemy lists the names of 50 cities in Arabia, one going by the name of Macoraba. There has been speculation since 1646 that this could be a reference to Mecca. Historically, there has been a general consensus in scholarship that Macoraba mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE is indeed Mecca, but more recently, this has been questioned. Bowersock favors

7021-422: The Saud were defeated again but survived and founded the Second Saudi State that lasted until 1891 and led on to the present country of Saudi Arabia. In 1853, Sir Richard Francis Burton undertook the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina disguised as a Muslim. Although Burton was certainly not the first non-Muslim European to make the Hajj ( Ludovico di Varthema did this in 1503), his pilgrimage remains one of

7140-409: The Sharif of Mecca was overthrown by the Saud family, and Mecca was incorporated into Saudi Arabia. Under Saudi rule, much of the historic city has been demolished as a result of the Saudi government fearing these sites might become sites of association in worship besides Allah ( shirk ). The city has been expanded to include several towns previously considered to be separate from the holy city and now

7259-415: The Sharif of the state and Mecca his capital. News reports in November 1916 via contact in Cairo with returning Hajj pilgrims, stated that with the Ottoman Turkish authorities gone, the Hajj of 1916 was free of the previous massive extortion and monetary demands made by the Turks who were agents of the Ottoman government. Saudi Arabian conquest and modern history Following the 1924 Battle of Mecca ,

SECTION 60

#1732798265893

7378-413: The Sons of Korah. In the earlier psalms, they are seen as lamentations from being away from Zion and in the presence of enemies, who give taunts about the psalmist being away from Zion and being rejected by God, and cries about the weakness of the soul deficient in faith are given. Linking with Psalms 84, the same psalmist would praise the presence of God which is at Zion, and yearns to be there as well. As

7497-419: The Valley of Bakha, also transliterated as Baka or Baca , is mentioned in Psalms 84 , in the following passage: Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. those Who passing through the valley of the Bakha, they make it a spring; Also blessing the first rain will give. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. The composition of

7616-438: The boundary around Mecca and refused to enter. It has been theorized that an epidemic such as by smallpox could have caused such a failed invasion of Mecca. The reference to the story in Quran is rather short. According to the 105th Surah of the Quran, Al-Fil , the next day, a dark cloud of small birds sent by Allah appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces, and smashed them to

7735-428: The capital and found patrons in the new regime. He became a tutor employed by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur , who commissioned him to write an all-encompassing history book starting from the creation of Adam to the present day, known as "al-Mubtadaʾ wa al-Baʿth wa al-Maghāzī" (lit. "In the Beginning, the mission [of Muhammad], and the expeditions"). It was kept in the court library of Baghdad. Part of this work contains

7854-401: The capital to Damascus in Syria and the Abbasid Caliphate to Baghdad , in modern-day Iraq, which remained the center of the Islamic Empire for nearly 500 years. Mecca re-entered Islamic political history during the Second Fitna , when it was held by Abdullah ibn az-Zubayr and the Zubayrids. The city was twice besieged by the Umayyads in 683 CE and 692 CE, and for some time thereafter,

7973-400: The century before Ibn Ishaq is something we can only guess at." Cook's fellow revisionist Patricia Crone complains that Sīrat is full of "contradictions, confusions, inconsistencies and anomalies," written "not by a grandchild, but a great grandchild of the Prophet's generation", that it is written from the point of view of the ulama and Abbasid , so that "we shall never know ... how

8092-405: The city figured little in politics, remaining a city of devotion and scholarship governed by various other factions. In 930 CE, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians , a millenarian Shi'a Isma'ili Muslim sect led by Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349 CE. One of the most famous travelers to Mecca in the 14th century

8211-424: The city. The pagan imagery was destroyed by Muhammad's followers and the location Islamized and rededicated to the worship of Allah alone. Mecca was declared the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage ( Hajj ), one of the Islamic faith's Five Pillars . Muhammad then returned to Medina, after assigning ' Attab ibn Asid as governor of the city. His other activities in Arabia led to

8330-413: 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 28 million and 29 million years ago. Paleontologists involved in the research hope to find further fossils in the area. The early history of Mecca is still largely shrouded by a lack of clear sources. The city lies in the hinterland of

8449-432: The courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah . Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through

8568-485: The direction of prayer ( qibla ) for all Muslims worldwide. Muslim rulers from in and around the region long tried to take the city and keep it in their control, and thus, much like most of the Hejaz region, the city has seen several regime changes . The city was most recently conquered in the Saudi conquest of Hejaz by Ibn Saud and his allies in 1925. Since then, Mecca has seen a tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure, with newer, modern buildings such as

8687-558: The early Islamic history, he later postulates the region of Mamre as a possible location, currently located in the West Bank . He identifies Mamre as an ancient Arabic pilgrimage site, citing a mid-7th century account by a Nestorian chronicler that parallels the Quranic description. He also proposes “Maqam Ibrahim,” two words mentioned in the Quran along with Bakkah, which can be translated as "the place where Abraham stood," not being

8806-406: The entry of non-Muslims is forbidden, is much larger than that of Medina. 1979 Grand Mosque seizure Ibn Ishaq Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar al-Muttalibi ( Arabic : أَبُو عَبْدُ ٱلله مُحَمَّد ٱبْن إِسْحَاق ٱبْن يَسَار ٱلْمُطَّلِبيّ , romanized :  Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʾIsḥāq ibn Yasār al-Muṭṭalibī ; c.  704 –767), known simply as Ibn Ishaq ,

8925-533: The first God's house in Mecca according to a heavenly prototype but this building was destroyed in the Noahic Flood . The civilization of Mecca is believed to have started after Ibrāhīm (Abraham) left his son Ismāʿīl (Ishmael) and wife Hājar (Hagar) in the valley at Allah 's command. Some people from the Yemeni tribe of Jurhum settled with them, and Isma'il reportedly married two women, one after divorcing

9044-482: The first House ˹of worship˺ established for humanity is the one at Bakkah—a blessed sanctuary and a guide for ˹all˺ people. In it are clear signs and the standing-place of Abraham. Whoever enters it should be safe. Pilgrimage to this House is an obligation by Allah upon whoever is able among the people. And whoever disbelieves, then surely Allah is not in need of ˹any of His˺ creation. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for

9163-616: The first, on Ibrahim's advice. At least one man of the Jurhum helped Ismāʿīl and his father to construct or according to Islamic narratives, reconstruct, the Ka'bah ('Cube'), which would have social, religious, political and historical implications for the site and region. Muslims see the mention of a pilgrimage at the Valley of the Bakha in the Old Testament chapter Psalm 84 :3–6 as

9282-545: The following sources: According to Donner, the material in ibn Hisham and al-Tabari is "virtually the same". However, there is some material to be found in al-Tabari that was not preserved by ibn Hisham. For example, al-Tabari includes the controversial episode of the Satanic Verses , while ibn Hisham does not. Following the publication of previously unknown fragments of ibn Isḥaq's traditions, recent scholarship suggests that ibn Isḥaq did not commit to writing any of

9401-642: The ground with his heel (or his wing) and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground. However, the account in Genesis focuses more about the outcasting of Hagar, the mother of Ishmael and an Egyptian slave to Sarah (Abraham's wife and half sister in Genesis), from Abraham (who remains in Beersheba) due to Ismael provoking Sarah on the day of Isaac 's weaning , and she travels alone with Ismael, who she later gets an Egyptian wife for during their stay at

9520-412: The identity of the former, with his theory being that "Macoraba" is the word " Makkah" followed by the aggrandizing Aramaic adjective rabb (great). The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus also enumerated many cities of Western Arabia, most of which can be identified. According to Bowersock, he did mention Mecca as "Geapolis" or "Hierapolis", the latter one meaning "holy city" potentially referring to

9639-433: The later commentator Al-Waqidi — who based his writing on Ibn Ishaq but added much colorful but made-up detail — reveals how oral history can be contaminated by the fiction of storytellers ( qussa ). "We have seen what half a century of story-telling could achieve between Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, at a time when we know that much material had already been committed to writing. What the same processes may have brought about in

9758-548: The middle part of western Arabia of which there are sparse textual or archaeological sources available. This lack of knowledge is in contrast to both the northern and southern areas of western Arabia, specifically the Syro-Palestinian frontier and Yemen, where historians have various sources available such as physical remains of shrines, inscriptions, observations by Greco-Roman authors, and information collected by church historians. The area of Hejaz that surrounds Mecca

9877-576: The most famous and documented of modern times. Mecca was regularly hit by cholera outbreaks . Between 1830 and 1930, cholera broke out among pilgrims at Mecca 27 times. Hashemite Revolt and subsequent control by the Sharifate of Mecca In World War I , the Ottoman Empire was at war with the Allies . It had successfully repulsed an attack on Istanbul in the Gallipoli campaign and on Baghdad in

9996-524: The narratives surrounding the life of Muhammad (in Guillaume at pp. 109–690). Notable scholars like the jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal appreciated his efforts in collecting sīra narratives and accepted him on maghāzī , despite having reservations on his methods on matters of fiqh . Ibn Ishaq also influenced later sīra writers like Ibn Hishām and Ibn Sayyid al-Nās . Other scholars, like Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya , made use of his chronological ordering of events. The most widely discussed criticism of his sīra

10115-716: The outskirts of Beersheba, presumably on the way to Bakkah. In Judaism and in Christianity , there are other interpretations of the psalm. One Jewish interpretation is based on how the psalm is composed by Levites, a tribe of Israel which are not given inherited land amongst the other tribes, but rather travel—particularly as shepherds—between the lands of the other tribes ("They go from strength to strength") and have priesthood responsibilities as their inheritance ("every one of them in Zion appeareth before God"), and as they travel, they bring pasture to desolated lands, such as

10234-582: The people of the city as being humble and kind, and also willing to give a part of everything they had to someone who had nothing. The inhabitants of Mecca and the village itself, he says, were very clean. There was also a sense of elegance to the village. Under the Ottomans In 1517, the then Sharif of Mecca, Barakat bin Muhammad, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained

10353-478: The population number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage , observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah . With over 10.8 million international visitors in 2023, Mecca was one of the ten most visited cities in the world. Mecca is generally considered "the fountainhead and cradle of Islam ". Mecca is revered in Islam as the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . The Hira cave atop

10472-446: The population was closer to 10,000 individuals, a figure extrapolated from data taken from historical records about the Battle of Badr and other military expeditions , emigrants to both Abyssinia and Madinah , and Muhammad’s own household. Al-Ateeqi, a researcher from Kuwait who has written extensively about the early history of Mecca, also makes deductions about the numbers of women, children, servants, and slaves living in Mecca at

10591-518: The presence of God, where prayers are offered. Still, many Jews and Christians utilize the alternative translation of bakha into tears , which has been practiced since Greek translations and continued throughout Latin and English translations. In this—unlike בכה ( bakhah ), which is translated to cry —בכא ( bakha ) would translate to tears , as a Biblical Hebrew counterpart to the common Modern Hebrew word for tears , דמעות ( dema'oth ). This still exists with modern translations which strongly reference

10710-409: The provincial governor of the province since 16 May 2007. Mecca has been referred to by many names. As with many Arabic words, its etymology is obscure. Widely believed to be a synonym for Makkah , it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes

10829-529: The psalm is credited to the Sons of Korah , a Levite clan which regularly performed musical compositions for David and in the First Temple . The same Hebrew word בכא ( bakha ) is associated with a battle accounted in 2 Samuel 5:23–24 and in 1 Chronicles 14:13–16 which took place on the Valley of Rephaim , about 4–7 kilometers southwest of the present-day Old City of Jerusalem . In the accounts, David

10948-472: The psalmist desires to be in the Temple—the Presence of God—and details steps of the way to Jerusalem, where it is located. On the way, the pilgrims may pass through the Valley of Bakha, which could be synonymous with the Valley of Rephaim, as it is a valley where bakha trees grow according to 2 Samuel 5:22–24 . Here, the phrase "also blessing the first rain will give" refers to the beginning of winter in

11067-403: The psalmist is away, he writes about the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem, where dry and desolate places like the Valley of Bakha may be encountered, but it will be enlightened by the pilgrims, and treated it as if they were places of springs; finding refuge through hardship—the rains are the responses by God through faith during the troubling times. After the pilgrimage, the pilgrims are congregated in

11186-448: The region of Israel—the first rains—suggesting that the pilgrimage is for the festival of Sukkot , when prayers of rain are offered. If this is the case, the psalm may be based on Psalms 122 , which is also traditionally a psalm about a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Sukkot, which is credited to David. Another interpretation, which is used by Jews and Christians, links the psalm as a successor to Psalms 42–43 , which are also credited to

11305-528: The reigns of ' Umar (r. 634–644 CE) and ' Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656 CE) when concerns of flooding caused the caliphs to bring in Christian engineers to build barrages in the low-lying quarters and construct dykes and embankments to protect the area around the Kaaba. Muhammad's return to Medina shifted the focus away from Mecca and later even further away when ' Ali , the fourth caliph, took power and chose Kufa as his capital. The Umayyad Caliphate moved

11424-433: The reliability of this translation. In it Guillaume combined ibn Hisham and those materials in al-Tabari cited as ibn Isḥaq's whenever they differed or added to ibn Hisham, believing that in so doing he was restoring a lost work. The extracts from al-Tabari are clearly marked, although sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the main text (only a capital "T" is used). Ibn Isḥaq wrote several works. His major work

11543-876: The same area, a view commonly held by historical and modern Islamic authors, but rather Bakkah existed in another place. Holland, in his 2012 book In the Shadow of the Sword , states that Bakkah must have been located somewhere near Byzantine Empire 's southern frontier, citing Mecca before Islam being absent in Byzantine records of Hejaz , Quran mentioning Byzantine military expeditions and Quranic imagery (such as Mušrikūn having cattle and gardens of vines, olives, and pomegranates) being vastly different from desert regions of Mecca and being more in line with wetter Syria - Levant region. Although he asserts that it's not possible to ascertain where Bakkah had exactly stood during

11662-508: The sanctuary of the Kaaba . Patricia Crone , from the Revisionist school of Islamic studies on the other hand, writes that "the plain truth is that the name Macoraba has nothing to do with that of Mecca [...] if Ptolemy mentions Mecca at all, he calls it Moka, a town in Arabia Petraea ". Procopius ' 6th century statement that the Ma'ad tribe possessed the coast of western Arabia between

11781-467: The south Jordan contained names of some individuals such as ʿAbd Mekkat ( عَبْد مَكَّة ‎ , "Servant of Mecca"). There were also some other inscriptions which contained personal names such as Makki ( مَكِّي , "Makkan, of Makkah"), but Jawwad Ali from the University of Baghdad suggested that there's also a probability of a tribe named "Makkah". Sometime in the 5th century, the Ka'bah

11900-456: The sun and the moon, and I surrounded it with seven pious angels. It will stand while its two mountains stand, a blessing to its people with milk and water." The name Bakkah is woven into the kiswa , the cloth covering the Kaaba that is replaced each year before the Hajj . The Valley of the Bakha ( Hebrew : עֵמֶק הַבָּכָא Emeq haBakha , Hebrew pronunciation: [ʔemek habaχa] ), or

12019-443: The surname, or " nisbat ", al-Muṭṭalibī . His three sons, Mūsā, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Isḥāq, were transmitters of "akhbār", i.e. they collected and recounted written and oral testaments of the past. Isḥāq married the daughter of another mawlā and from this marriage Ibn Isḥāq was born. No facts of Ibn Isḥāq's early life are known, but it is likely that he followed in the family tradition of transmission of early akhbār and hadith . He

12138-480: The text of Ibn Ishaq, according to Guillaume (at p. xvii). Interpolations made by Ibn Hisham are said to be recognizable and can be deleted, leaving as a remainder, a so-called " edited " version of Ibn Ishaq's original text (otherwise lost). In addition, Guillaume (at p. xxxi) points out that Ibn Hisham's version omits various narratives in the text which were given by al-Tabari in his History . In these passages al-Tabari expressly cites Ibn Ishaq as

12257-641: The time, pointing out that some wealthy individuals, such as Abdullah ibn Jud’an , had as many as 100 slaves. The first clear reference to Mecca in non-Islamic literature appears in 741 CE, long after the death of Muhammad, in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, though here the author places the region in Mesopotamia rather than the Hejaz. Possible earlier mentions are not unambiguous. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus writes about Arabia in

12376-577: The traditions now extant, but they were narrated orally to his transmitters. These new texts, found in accounts by Salama al-Ḥarranī and Yūnus ibn Bukayr, were hitherto unknown and contain versions different from those found in other works. The original text of the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh by Ibn Ishaq did not survive. However, much of the original text was copied over into a work of his own by Ibn Hisham ( Basra ; Fustat , died 833 AD, 218 AH). Ibn Hisham also "abbreviated, annotated, and sometimes altered"

12495-498: The tribes a sense of common identity and made Mecca an important focus for the peninsula. The Year of the Elephant (570 CE) The " Year of the Elephant " is the name in Islamic history for the year approximately equating to 570–572 CE , when, according to Islamic sources such as Ibn Ishaq , Abraha descended upon Mecca, riding an elephant, with a large army after building a cathedral at San'aa , named al-Qullays in honor of

12614-511: The two most important highways in all of the Saudi Arabian highway system, Highway 40, which connects the city to Jeddah in the west and the capital, Riyadh and Dammam in the east and Highway 15, which connects it to Medina , Tabuk and onward to Jordan in the north and Abha and Jizan in the south. The Ottomans had planned to extend their railway network to the holy city, but were forced to abandon this plan due to their entry into

12733-531: The unification of the Arabian Peninsula under the banner of Islam. Muhammad died in 632 CE. Within the next few hundred years, the area under the banner of Islam stretched from North Africa into Asia and parts of Europe. As the Islamic realm grew, Mecca continued to attract pilgrims from all across the Muslim world and beyond, as Muslims came to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Mecca also attracted

12852-403: The valley of the Bakha make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. Mecca Mecca ( / ˈ m ɛ k ə / ; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah , commonly shortened to Makkah ) is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia ; it is the holiest city according to Islam . It

12971-572: The young Malik ibn Anas , famous for the Maliki School of Fiqh . Leaving Medina (or forced to leave), he traveled eastwards towards " al-Irāq ", stopping in Kufa , also al-Jazīra , and into Iran as far as Ray , before returning west. Eventually he settled in Baghdad . There, the new Abbasid dynasty , having overthrown the Umayyad dynasty , was establishing a new capital. Ibn Isḥaq moved to

13090-453: Was Mecca. Yaqut al-Hamawi , the 12th-century Syrian geographer, wrote that Fārān was "an arabized Hebrew word, one of the names of Mecca mentioned in the Torah." In 2010, Mecca and the surrounding 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

13209-418: Was Yasār ibn Khiyar (according to some ibn Khabbar, Kuman or Kutan), one of forty Christian or Jewish boys who had been held captive in a monastery at Ayn al-Tamr . After being found in one of Khalid ibn al-Walid 's campaigns, Yasār was taken to Medina and enslaved to Qays ibn Makhrama ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy. On his conversion to Islam, he was manumitted as " mawlā " (client), thus acquiring

13328-429: Was a Moroccan scholar and traveler, Ibn Battuta . In his rihla (account), he provides a vast description of the city. Around the year 1327 CE or 729 AH, Ibn Battuta arrived at the holy city. Immediately, he says, it felt like a holy sanctuary, and thus he started the rites of the pilgrimage. He remained in Mecca for three years and left in 1330 CE. During his second year in the holy city, he says his caravan arrived "with

13447-667: 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 Quraish tribe. and remained until the Conquest of Mecca by Muhammad . In the 5th century, the Quraish took control of Mecca, and became skilled merchants and traders. In the 6th century, they joined the lucrative spice trade , since battles elsewhere were diverting trade routes from dangerous sea routes to more secure overland routes. The Byzantine Empire had previously controlled

13566-501: Was also claimed to be Mecca. Some studies have questioned this association. Many etymologies have been proposed: the traditional one is that it is derived from the Old South Arabian root M-K-R-B which means "temple". Another name used for Mecca in the Quran is at 6:92 where it is called Umm al-Qurā ( أُمّ ٱلْقُرَى ‎ , meaning "Mother of all Settlements"). The city has been called several other names in both

13685-540: Was an 8th-century Muslim historian and hagiographer . Ibn Ishaq, also known by the title ṣāḥib al-sīra , collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . His biography is known as the Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah , and it has mainly survived through the recension of the work by Ibn Hisham . Born in Medina circa A.H. 85 (A.D. 704), ibn Isḥaq's grandfather

13804-510: Was both much better than other houses of worship and purer, having not been defiled by the housing of idols. When Muhammad ibn Khuza'i got as far as the land of Kinana , the people of the lowland, knowing what he had come for, sent a man of Hudhayl called ʿUrwa bin Hayyad al-Milasi, who shot him with an arrow, killing him. His brother Qays who was with him, fled to Abraha and told him the news, which increased his rage and fury and he swore to raid

13923-450: Was characterized by its remote, rocky, and inhospitable nature, supporting only meagre settled populations in scattered oases and occasional stretches of fertile land. The Red Sea coast offered no easily accessible ports and the oasis dwellers and bedouins in the region were illiterate. While one individual has suggested that Mecca’s population at the time of Muhammad was around 550, research published by Binimad Al-Ateeqi in 2020 shows that

14042-630: Was influenced by the work of ibn Shihab al-Zuhri , who praised the young ibn Ishaq for his knowledge of "maghāzī" (stories of military expeditions). Around the age of 30, ibn Isḥaq arrived in Alexandria and studied under Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb. After his return to Medina, based on one account, he was ordered out of Medina for attributing a hadith to a woman he had not met, Fāṭima bint al-Mundhir, the wife of Hishām ibn ʿUrwa . But those who defended him, like Sufyan ibn ʽUyaynah , stated that Ibn Ishaq told them that he did meet her. Also ibn Ishaq disputed with

14161-573: Was that of his contemporary Mālik ibn Anas . Mālik rejected the stories of Muhammad and the Jews of Medina on the ground that they were taken solely based on accounts by sons of Jewish converts. These same stories have also been denounced as "odd tales" (gharāʾib) later by ibn Hajar al-Asqalani . Mālik and others also thought that ibn Isḥāq exhibited Qadari tendencies, had a preference for Ali (Guillaume also found evidence of this, pp. xxii &xxiv), and relied too heavily on what were later called

#892107