Mecca (pronounced /ˈmÉ›kÉ™/), sometimes spelled Makkah (English: /ˈmækÉ™/; Arabic: مكة‎ Makka and in full: Arabic: مكّة المكرمة‎ transliterated Makkah al-Mukarrama [mækːæt ælmukarːamæ]) is the holiest meeting site of the Islamic religion. The city is modern, cosmopolitan and whilst being closed to non-Muslims is nonetheless ethnically diverse.[1][2][3][4] Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants. In the 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad proclaimed Islam in the city which was by then an important trading center. After 966, Mecca was led by local sharifs, until 1924, when it came under the rule of the Saudis.[5] In its modern period Mecca has seen a great expansion in size and infrastructure. The modern day city is the capital of Saudi Arabia's Mecca Province, in the historic Hejaz region. With a population of 1.7 million (2008), the city is located 73 km (45 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (910 ft) above sea level.

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Mecca (pronounced /ˈmÉ›kÉ™/), sometimes spelled Makkah (English: /ˈmækÉ™/; Arabic: مكة‎ Makka and in full: Arabic: مكّة المكرمة‎ transliterated Makkah al-Mukarrama [mækːæt ælmukarːamæ]) is the holiest meeting site of the Islamic religion. The city is modern, cosmopolitan and whilst being closed to non-Muslims is nonetheless ethnically diverse. Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants. In the 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad proclaimed Islam in the city which was by then an important trading center. After 966, Mecca was led by local sharifs, until 1924, when it came under the rule of the Saudis. In its modern period Mecca has seen a great expansion in size and infrastructure. The modern day city is the capital of Saudi Arabia's Mecca Province, in the historic Hejaz region. With a population of 1.7 million (2008), the city is located 73 km (45 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (910 ft) above sea level. According to Islamic tradition, the history of Mecca goes back to Abraham who built the Kaaba with the help of his son Ishmael in around 2000 BCE when the inhabitants of Mecca had fallen away from monotheism through the influence of the Amelkites.[16] The Kaaba was used as a repository for the idols and tribal gods of Arabia's tribes. Mecca's most important god was Hubal, placed there by the ruling Quraysh tribe and remaining until the 7th century AD. Ptolemy may have called the city "Macoraba", though this identification is controversial. In the 5th century, the Quraysh took control of Mecca, and became skilled merchants and traders. In the 6th century they joined the lucrative spice trade as well, since battles in other parts of the world were causing trade routes to divert from the dangerous sea routes to the relatively more secure overland routes. The Byzantine Empire had previously controlled the Red Sea, but piracy had been on the increase. Another previous route, that from the Persian Gulf via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was also being threatened by exploitation from the Sassanid Empire, as well as being disrupted by the Lakhmids, the Ghassanids, and the Roman–Persian Wars. Mecca's prominence as a trading center surpassed the cities of Petra and Palmyra. By the middle of the 6th century, there were three major settlements in northern Arabia, all along the south-western coast that borders the Red Sea, in a habitable region between the sea and the great desert to the east. This area, known as the Hejaz, featured three settlements grown around oases, where water was available. In the center of the Hejaz was Yathrib, later renamed Medina. 250 mi (400 km) south of Yathrib was the mountain city Ta’if, north-west of which lay Mecca. Although the area around Mecca was completely barren, Mecca was the wealthiest of the three settlements with abundant water via the Zamzam Well and a position at the crossroads of major caravan routes. The harsh conditions of the Arabian peninsula meant a near-constant state of conflict between the local tribes, but once a year they would declare a truce and converge upon Mecca in an annual pilgrimage. This journey was intended for religious reasons, to pay homage to the shrine, and to drink from the Zamzam Well. 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 the tribes a sense of common identity and made Mecca an important focus for the peninsula. Camel caravans, said by Muslims to have first been used by Muhammad's great-grandfather, were a major part of Mecca's 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 Syria and Iraq.[24] Islamic tradition claims that goods from other continents also flowed through Mecca. Supposedly[citation needed] goods from Africa and the Far East passed through on 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 passage for caravans giving them water and pasture rights. Mecca became the center of a loose confederation of client tribes[citation needed], including the tribes of the Banu Tamim. Other regional powers such as the Abyssinian, Ghassan, and Lakhm were in decline leaving Meccan trade to be the primary binding force in Arabia in the late 6th century. Muhammad in Mecca Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with Mecca ever since. Muhammad was born in a minor faction, the Hashemites, of the ruling Quraysh tribe. Islamic tradition states that he began receiving divine revelations there in 610 AD, and began to preach monotheism against Meccan animism. After enduring persecution for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated (see Hijra) in 622 with his followers to Yathrib (later called Medina). The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims, however, continued: the two fought in the Battle of Badr, where Muslims defeated the Quraysh outside Medina; whilst the Meccans overcame the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud. Overall, however, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam were unsuccessful, and during the Battle of the Trench in 627, the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad. In 628, Muhammad and his followers peacefully[citation needed] marched to Mecca, attempting to enter the city for pilgrimage. Instead, however, both Muslims and Meccans entered into the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, whereby Muslims and Quraysh would cease fighting and Muslims would be allowed into the city the following year. Two years later the Quraysh violated the truce, but instead of continuing their fight, the city of Mecca shortly surrendered to Muhammad, who declared amnesty for the inhabitants and gave generous gifts to the leading Quraysh. The ancient tribal religious art, including that in the Kabaah, was destroyed or defaced by Muhammad's army and is now lost to history. Muhammad declared Mecca as the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage, one of the faith's five pillars. Muhammad returned to Medina, leaving behind Akib ibn Usaid to govern the city. Muhammad's other activities in Arabia led to the unification of the peninsula, putting an end to the wars that had disrupted life in the city for so long. Muhammad died in 632, but with the sense of unity that he had passed on to the Arabians, Islam began a rapid expansion, and within the next few hundred years stretched from North Africa well into Asia. As the Islamic Empire grew, Mecca continued to attract pilgrims not just from Arabia, but now from all across the Empire, as Muslims sought to perform the annual Hajj. Mecca also attracted 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. Medieval and pre-modern times Mecca was never capital of any of the Islamic states but Muslim rulers did contribute to its upkeep. During the reigns of Uthman Ibn Affan (c. 579-656) and Umar (c. 586-590-644 CE) 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 round the Kaaba. Muhammad's conquest of Medina shifted the focus away from Mecca, this focus moved still more when the Umayyad Caliphate took power choosing Damascus in Syria as their capital. The Abbasid Caliphate moved the capital to Baghdad, in modern-day Iraq, which remained the center of the Islamic Empire for nearly 500 years. Mecca re-entered Islamic political history briefly when it was held by Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr, an early Muslim who opposed the Umayyad caliphs and again when the caliph Yazid I besieged Mecca in 683.[26] For some time thereafter the city figured little in politics remaining a city of devotion and scholarship governed by the Hashemite Sharifs. In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abu Tahir Al-Jannabi and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349. In 1517, the Sharif, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained a great degree of local autonomy. Mecca in 1850 In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State (known as the Wahhabis), who held Mecca until 1813. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the Ottoman Empire, who had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517, the Ottomans were moved to action with the task of bringing Mecca back under Ottoman control being assigned to their powerful viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. Muhammad Ali Pasha successfully returned Mecca to Ottoman control following the in 1813. In 1818, the Wahhabis were again defeated, but some of the Al Saud clan survived and founded the Second Saudi State that lasted until 1891 and lead on to the present Saudi Arabia. Mecca was regularly afflicted with cholera epidemics. 27 epidemics were recorded during pilgrimages from the 1831 to 1930. More than 20,000 pilgrims died of cholera during the 1907–08. Saudi Arabia In June 1916, During the Arab Revolt, the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali revolted against the Ottoman Empire from Mecca and it was the first city captured by his forces following Battle of Mecca (1916). Sharif Hussein declared a new state, Kingdom of Hejaz, and declared Mecca as the capital of the new kingdom. Following the Battle of Mecca (1924), the Sharif of Mecca was overthrown by the Saudis, and Mecca was incorporated into Saudi Arabia. On November 20, 1979 two hundred armed Islamist dissidents led by Saudi preacher Juhayman al-Otaibi seized the Grand Mosque. They claimed that the Saudi royal family no longer represented pure Islam and that the mosque, and the Kaaba, must be held by those of the true faith. The rebels seized tens of thousands of pilgrims as hostages and barricaded themselves in the mosque. The siege lasted two weeks, and resulted in several hundred deaths and significant damage to the shrine, especially the Safa-Marwa gallery. While it was the Pakistani forces that carried out the final assault, they were assisted with weapons and planning by a small team of advisors from The French GIGN commando unit. On July 31, 1987, during an anti-US demonstration by pilgrims, 402 people were killed (275 Iranian pilgrims, 85 Saudis [including policemen], and 45 pilgrims from other countries) and 649 wounded (303 Iranian pilgrims, 145 Saudis [including policemen] and 201 pilgrims from other countries) after the Saudi police opened fire against the unarmed demonstrators. From Wikipedia.

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