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100-647: Established in 1574, the post ranked among the most important in the Ottoman Empire until the early 19th century, especially after the stewardship of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the supervision of all waqfs (charitable foundations) in the Empire came under his purview. The wealth thus amassed, the proximity to the sultan, and the role the harem ladies played in court intrigues (" Sultanate of Women ") meant that its occupant had considerable political influence; several kızlar aghas were responsible for

200-508: 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,

300-554: 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

400-720: A pension ( asatlık , literally "document of liberty") and from 1644 on were exiled to Egypt or the Hejaz . Starting in the late 17th century, many former holders were appointed to head the eunuchs who guarded the Tomb of Muhammad in Medina. As a result, serving kizlar aghas often took care to prepare for a comfortable retirement in Egypt by buying property and establishing vakifs of their own there. Thus they became local grandees and were involved in patronizing trade and agriculture. Thus, and given

500-624: 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

600-553: A robe of office ( hil'at ) from the sultan. Alongside the lands belonging to the office, the kizlar agha usually received a personal fief ( hass ). In the Topkapi Palace, the kizlar agha had his own spacious apartment near the Aviary Gate, while the other eunuchs under his supervision lived together in cramped and rather squalid conditions in a three-storey barracks. When they were dismissed, the chief black eunuchs received

700-576: A special role as the nazir "administrator" of the waqfs designated for the upkeep of the two holy cities ( al-Haramayn ) of Islam, Mecca and Medina , being responsible for their supply as well as for the annual ritual sending of gifts ( sürre ) to them. Vakifs designated for the upkeep of the Muslim holy places had been established by members of the Ottoman court since early times, and their administration entrusted to special departments already since

800-617: 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

900-478: 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

1000-615: A tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure, with newer, modern buildings such as 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

1100-567: 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

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1200-478: Is Islam's holiest site and 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

1300-490: Is focused on the history of the Ottoman Empire until the 17th century and on Islamic law , in particular on the system of Ottoman law , until the 17th century. He is considered as "perhaps the leading, and...certainly the most productive, of the painfully few Ottoman historians currently working in British universities." He is noted for his opposition to Paul Wittek 's " Ghaza thesis ". This biography article of

1400-600: 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

1500-715: Is revered in Islam as the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . The Hira cave atop 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

1600-535: Is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia ; it is the holiest city according to Islam . It 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

1700-567: 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

1800-682: 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

1900-634: 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

2000-644: The Bureau of the Leases of the Holy Cities ( mukataa-i haremeyn kalemi ), which supervised the vakifs of the Asian and African provinces. A special treasury, the haremeyn dolabi , contained the revenue from the vakifs , and the kizlar agha held a weekly divan or council to examine the accounts. Most of the office's holders, like most black eunuchs in general, were of Habeşi , slaves were traditionally drawn from

2100-475: 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

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2200-820: 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

2300-485: 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

2400-591: 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

2500-494: The Nilotic groups inhabiting Ethiopia 's southern hinterland as well as Omotic groups. Black slaves, usually purchased as boys from Nubia , then castrated and inducted into the palace service, had begun to be employed as the guards of the women of the sultan's harem since the time of Murad III's predecessor, Selim II ( r.  1566–1574 ), and continued to be so employed until the Ottoman Empire's end. Since İslam religion

2600-736: 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

2700-610: 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

2800-626: 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

2900-411: The de facto sole intermediary between the closed world of the harem and the outer, male quarters of the palace (the selamlik ), controlling its provisioning as well as the messages to and from. In addition, he was the only individual allowed to carry the grand vizier's communications to the sultan and had a recognized role in public ceremonies. Among his duties in the palace was also the supervision of

3000-421: 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

3100-507: The "chief black eunuch" quickly eclipsed the "chief white eunuch" or kapı ağası "agha of the gate", who had hitherto been the head of the palace personnel, and rose to become, in the words of the Orientalist C. E. Bosworth , "in practice the principal officer of the whole palace". At the height of the post's power in the 17th and 18th centuries, the kızlar ağası was a vizier of the first rank ("with three horsetails ") and came third in

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3200-416: 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

3300-578: 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

3400-627: 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

3500-424: 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

3600-528: 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,

3700-529: The Kizlar Agha Uzun Süleyman Agha murdered the powerful Valide Sultan Kösem on behalf of her rival and daughter-in-law, Turhan . The often pernicious involvement of the chief black eunuchs in politics led to at least one attempt, by Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha in 1715, to curb their influence by prohibiting the recruitment and castration of black slaves, but this was never carried out due to his death soon after. Indeed,

3800-646: The Ottoman palace had been dominated by the white eunuchs, chiefly drawn from the Christian populations of the Balkans or the Caucasus . The 16th century, however, saw a rapid rise of the population of the Topkapi Palace , including among eunuchs, whose numbers rose from 40 under Selim I ( r.  1512–1520 ) to over a thousand under Murad III. While black eunuchs had served alongside white eunuchs in

3900-511: 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

4000-572: 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

4100-595: 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 ,

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4200-638: 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

4300-571: 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

4400-588: 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

4500-409: 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

4600-422: 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

4700-409: 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

4800-415: 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 ,

4900-424: The black eunuchs assigned to the court would naturally fill this newly established role. These elite black slaves were selected for the sultan by Egyptian pasha and Mamluk beys. Another reason for the use of black eunuchs is believed to be the cultural and geographical differences between the Kizlar agha and the harem he guarded. The rationale being that it would help to mitigate sexual contact between guardians and

5000-438: 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

5100-401: 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,

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5200-405: 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

5300-424: 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

5400-413: 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

5500-434: The continued expansion of the Masjid al-Haram at Mecca and 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

5600-455: The downfall of grand viziers and the accession of sultans. Soon after its creation and until its abolition, close to the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate , the post came to be occupied by Black African eunuch slaves , and hence is also referred to as the Chief Black Eunuch . The post of the kızlar ağası was created in the reign of Murad III ( r.  1574–1595 ) in 1574, with the Habeshi Mehmed Agha as its first occupant. Until then,

5700-460: The downfall of Sultan Ahmed III in 1730, his influence was such that he was responsible for the elevation of grand viziers and the direction of foreign affairs. In 1731, Grand Vizier Kabakulak Ibrahim Pasha tried to force Beshir's retirement to stop him from interfering in state affairs, but through the influence of the valide sultan, Beshir secured Ibrahim's dismissal instead. Beshir died in 1747 at an advanced age. His successor, also called Beshir,

5800-465: The education of imperial princes until they entered puberty, when they were enrolled in the palace school . Within the imperial harem, it is unclear why East Africans were predominantly recruited as opposed to eunuchs of Caucasian lineage. It is argued that since the male harem already consisted of white eunuchs prior to the establishment of the female harem, combined with the heavy ingress of Habeşi slaves upon said harem's establishment in Topkapi Palace,

5900-401: The entry of non-Muslims is forbidden, is much larger than that of Medina. 1979 Grand Mosque seizure Colin Imber Colin Imber is a lecturer in Turkish studies at Manchester University , UK. He completed his Oriental studies at Cambridge University , where he defended his doctorate on "The Ottoman Fleet in the Age of Sultan Suleiman I (1520-1566)". His research interest

6000-405: The eunuch imams who led harem prayers, the harem's treasurer ( haznedar ağası ), or the müsendereci , who supervised the work of the other eunuchs. The senior-most eunuchs were known as hasıllı , from an Arabic word meaning "product". From these senior posts a eunuch could be selected and appointed to the post of kizlar agha by imperial decree ( hatt-ı hümayun ) and the ceremonial receipt of

6100-420: 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

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6200-403: 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

6300-405: The grand viziers' attempts to lessen the power of the kizlar aghas, unsuccessful attempts were made in the reigns of Mustafa III ( r.  1757–1774 ) and Abdul Hamid I ( r.  1774–1789 ) to remove the waqfs from his jurisdiction. Finally, in 1834, Mahmud II deprived the post of the supervision of the waqfs and granted it to a new Ministry of Waqfs . This began a long process whereby

6400-410: The harem of the Ottoman capitol, an exiled Kizlar Agha would still maintain influence as they joined a network of other previously exiled Kizlar agha whom the new acting Kizlar agha would be aware of. In Ottoman legal theory, the sultan was supposed to conduct affairs of state exclusively via the grand vizier, but in reality this arrangement was often circumvented. As the Ottomanist Colin Imber writes,

6500-515: The harem. Jane Hathaway, a researcher specializing in Ottoman history, also posits that these displaced elite slaves were preferred over free subjects due to concerns about free subject's loyalty - the East African slave's dependence on their new rulers and lack of familial ties would ensure that no regional bias was present. Most Kizlar Agha did not remain in service of the harem up to their deaths. They would be dismissed and exiled to Cairo, removed from central political influence. Although removed from

6600-412: 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

6700-442: The important role Egypt played in the provisioning of the two holy cities, for which the kizlar aghas were particularly responsible while in office, the aghas and their agents ( wakils ) came to play a very important role in the economy of Egypt under Ottoman rule . The careers of a great number of kizlar aghas are known from the Hamiletü’l-kübera of the late 18th-century Ottoman statesman and historian Ahmed Resmî Efendi , listing

6800-426: The kizlar agha gradually acquired a sweeping jurisdiction over the various waqfs of the Empire: already in May 1598, he acquired control of the foundations allocated to the upkeep of the imperial mosques in the capital, followed soon after by vakifs in both Constantinople and other parts of the Empire, often entrusted to his care by the ladies of the palace. Among the possessions that fell to the kizlar agha in this way

6900-496: The kizlar agha's political power, although exercised behind the scenes, was very considerable, influencing imperial policy and at times controlling the appointments to the grand vizierate, or even intervening in dynastic disputes and the succession to the throne. The Kizlar Agha Hacı Mustafa Agha secured the succession of Mustafa I ( r.  1617–1618, 1622–1623 ) on the throne in 1617, and backed Osman II 's ( r.  1618–1622 ) attempts at military reform; while in 1651

7000-462: The late 15th century. Initially under the overall supervision of the Kapi Agha, in 1586 Murad III transferred the responsibility to the kizlar agha. Control of the waqfs was, in the words of Bernard Lewis , a major "source of power and profit" for the kizlar agha, and the foundation of the office's political influence: its conferment by Murad III marked the start of the office's ascendancy, and its eventual removal by Mahmud II marked its end. As part of

7100-420: The long tenure of Hacı Beshir Agha that followed in 1717–1746 is recognized as perhaps the apogee of the post's power and influence. Beshir Agha was a notable patron of the " Tulip Era " culture then flourishing in the empire, being was engaged in "intellectual and religious pursuits" that according to historian Jateen Lad "contributed to the Ottoman brand of Hanafi Islam and Sunni orthodoxy in general". After

7200-733: The mayor (called Amin in Arabic) appointed by 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

7300-548: 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

7400-576: 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

7500-650: The occupants of the office from Mehmed Agha (1574–90) until Moralı Beshir Agha (1746–52). The work is complemented by select biographies in the Sicill-i Osmani by the late 19th-century scholar Mehmed Süreyya Bey, while information on the history and evolution of the office in the institutional framework of the Ottoman palace is contained in Tayyarzade Ahmed Ata's Tarih-i Ata (1876). Mecca Mecca ( / ˈ m ɛ k ə / ; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah , commonly shortened to Makkah )

7600-433: The palace, by 1592, for reasons that are unclear, both a separation of roles as well as the ascendancy of the black eunuchs over the white ones had become established: white eunuchs were restricted to the supervision of the male pages ( iç oğlan (" Inner [Palace] Boy"]] ), while black eunuchs took over the far more prestigious supervision of the private apartments of the sultan and the palace women ( harem ). Consequently,

7700-582: 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

7800-456: The population are Saudi citizens and around 55.5% are Muslim foreigners from other countries. Pilgrims more than triple 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

7900-446: 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

8000-409: 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

8100-467: The purview of the kizlar agha. The administration of the waqfs was exercised through two subordinates, the chief secretary ( yazici ) and the inspector of waqfs ( müfettiş ), and was divided into two fiscal departments: the Bureau of Accounts of the Holy Cities ( muhasebe-i haremeyn kalemi ), which by the late 18th century supervised the imperial mosques and the waqfs of Istanbul and European provinces, and

8200-448: The ranks, from nevbet kalfa ("watch substitute") to senior posts in the guard of the harem. Having completed their training and after a period of service, some were detached from guard duties and transferred to the attendance of the inhabitants of the harem: the sultan's personal attendants ( müsahip ağaları ), the seven eunuch servants plus a head eunuch ( baş ağa ) attached to each valide , principal wife ( kadın ), or prince ( şehzade ),

8300-471: 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

8400-622: 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

8500-467: 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

8600-458: The state hierarchy, next only to the Empire's chief minister, the grand vizier , and the chief religious authority, the Shaykh al-Islām . The post's power derived not only from its proximity to the sultan, but also from its association with the mothers of the sultans, the powerful valide sultanas , who often dominated politics (the so-called " Sultanate of Women " period). The kizlar agha was also

8700-412: The sultan "had closer contact with the pages of the privy chamber, the agha of the gate, the agha of the girls or with other courtiers than he did with the grand vizier, and these too could petition the sultan on their own or somebody else’s behalf. He might, too, be more inclined to take the advice of his mother, a concubine or the head gardener at the helm of the royal barge than of the grand vizier". Thus

8800-589: 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

8900-498: 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

9000-511: 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

9100-531: 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

9200-453: 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

9300-429: 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

9400-612: 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

9500-498: Was against the castration, the slaves preferred were castrated boys from Coptic Christians, Jews of Sudan and Egyptian extract. Also the people who castrated due to their crimes were accepted in this job as well. The eunuchs usually received flower names, and after a period of training in the palace school, they entered service in the harem. The eunuchs began at the post of ordinary recruit ( en aşağı , literally "the lowest", and acemi ağa , "the untrained"), and gradually advanced through

9600-501: 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

9700-510: 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

9800-450: 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

9900-487: Was executed in 1752. After that, the grand viziers curtailed the kizlar aghas' power. The 1830s reforms of Sultan Mahmud II ( r.  1808–1839 ) finally ended the political power of the kizlar aghas, and those who held the role were confined to their palace and ceremonial role, which continued until the abolition of the office following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. The kizlar agha also held

10000-405: Was the city of Athens . According to a—possibly semi-fictional—17th-century account, the administration of the city was originally granted to Basilica, one of Sultan Ahmed I 's ( r.  1603–1617 ) favourite concubines, who hailed from the city and who, having received many complaints of its maladministration, obtained its possession as a gift from the sultan. After her death, Athens came under

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