| abstract
| - MECCA (Arab. Makkah),' the chief town of the Hejaz in Arabia, and the great holy city of Islam. It is situated two camel marches (the resting-place being Bahra or Hadda), or about 45 m. almost due E., from Jidda on the Red Sea. Thus on a rough estimate Mecca lies in 2 1° 25' N., 39° 50' E. It is said in the Koran (Sur. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the old geographers observe that the whole Haram or sacred territory round the city is almost without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens and green valleys are found immediately beyond. Mecca in fact lies in the heart of a mass of rough hills, intersected by a labyrinth of narrow valleys and passes, and projecting into the Tehama or low country on the Red Sea, in front of the great mountain wall that divides the coast-lands from the central plateau, though in turn they are themselves separated from the sea by a second curtain of hills forming the western wall of the great Wadi Marr. The inner mountain wall is pierced by only two great passes, and the valleys descending from these embrace on both sides the Mecca hills. Holding this position commanding two great routes between the lowlands and inner Arabia, and situated in a narrow and 1 A variant of the name Makkah is Bakkah (Sur. iii. 90; Bakri, 155 seq.). For other names and honorific epithets of the city see Bakri, ut supra, Azraqi, p. 197, Yaqut iv. 617 seq. The lists are in part corrupt, and some of the names (Kutha and `Arsh or `Ursh, "the huts") are not properly names of the town as a whole. barren valley incapable of supporting an urban population, Mecca must have been from the first a commercial centre. 2 In. the palmy days of South Arabia it was probably a station on the great incense route, and thus Ptolemy may have learned the name, which he writes Makoraba. At all events, long before Mahomet we find Mecca established in the twofold quality of a commercial centre and a privileged holy place, surrounded by an inviolable territory (the Haram), which was not the sanctuary of a single tribe but a place of pilgrimage, where religious observances were associated with a series of annual fairs at different points in the vicinity. Indeed in the unsettled state of the country commerce was possible only under the sanctions of religion, and through the provisions of the sacred truce which prohibited war for four months of the year, three of these being the month of pilgrimage, with those immediately preceding and following. The first of the series of fairs in which the Meccans had an interest was at Okaz on the easier road between Mecca and Taif, where there was also a sanctuary, and from it the visitors moved on to points still nearer Mecca (Majanna, and finally Dhul-Majaz, on the flank of Jebel Kabkab behind Arafa) where further fairs were held, 3 culminating in the special religious ceremonies of the great feast at `Arafa, Quzah (Mozdalifa), and Mecca itself. The system of intercalation in the lunar calendar of the heathen Arabs was designed to secure that the feast should always fall at the time when the hides, fruits and other merchandise were ready for market, 4 and the Meccans, who knew how to attract the Bedouins by hospitality, bought up these wares in exchange for imported goods, and so became the leaders of the international trade of Arabia. Their caravans traversed the length and breadth of the peninsula. Syria, and especially Gaza, was their chief goal. The Syrian caravan intercepted, on its return, at Badr (see Mahomet) represented capital to the value of X20,000, an enormous sum for those days.' The victory of Mahommedanism made a vast change in the position of Mecca. The merchant aristocracy became satraps or pensioners of a great empire; but the seat of dominion was removed beyond the desert, and though Mecca and the Hejaz strove for a time to maintain political as well as religious predominance, the struggle was vain, and terminated on the death of Ibn Zubair, the Meccan pretendant to the caliphate, when the city was taken by Hajjaj (A.D. 692). The sanctuary and feast of Mecca received, however, a new prestige from the victory of Islam. Purged of elements obviously heathen, the Ka`ba became the holiest site, and the pilgrimage the most sacred ritual observance of Mahommedanism, drawing worshippers from so wide a circle that the confluence of the petty traders of the desert was no longer the main feature of the holy season. The pilgrimage retained its importance for the commercial well-being of Mecca; to this day the Meccans live by the Hajj - letting rooms, acting as guides and directors in the sacred ceremonies, as contractors and touts for land and sea transport, as well as exploiting the many benefactions that flow to the holy city; while the surrounding Bedouins derive support from the camel-transport it demands and from the subsidies by which they are engaged to protect or abstain from molesting the pilgrim caravans. But the ancient "fairs of heathenism" were given up, and the traffic of the pilgrim season, sanctioned by the Prophet in Sur. H. 194, was concentrated. at Mina and Mecca, where most of the pilgrims still have something to buy or sell, so that Mina, after the sacrifice of the feast day, presents the aspect of a huge international fancy 2 Mecca, says one of its citizens, in Wagidi (Kremer's ed., p. 196, or Muh. in Med, p. too), is a settlement formed for trade with Syria in summer and Abyssinia in winter, and cannot continue to exist if the trade is interrupted. 3 The details are variously related. See Biruni, p. 328 (E. T., p. 324);: Asma`i in Yaqut, iii. 705, iv. 416, 421; Azraqi, p. 129 seq.; Bakri, p. 661. Jebel Kabkab is a great mountain occupying the angle between W. Naman and the plain of Arafa. The peak is due north of Sheddad, the hamlet which Burckhardt (i. 115) calls Shedad. According to Azraqi, p. 80, the last shrine visited was that of the three trees of Uzza in W. Nakhla. So we are told by Biruni, p. 62 (E. T., 73). 5 Wagidi, ed. Kremer, pp. 20, 21; Muh. in Med. p. 39. fair.' In the middle ages this trade was much more important than it is now. Ibn Jubair (ed. Wright, p. 118 seq.) in the r 2th century describes the mart of Mecca in the eight days following the feast as full of gems, unguents, precious drugs, and all rare merchandise from India, Irak, Khorasan, and every part of the Moslem world. The hills east and west of Mecca, which are partly built over and rise several hundred feet above the valley, so enclose the city that the ancient walls only barred the valley at three points, where three gates led into the town. In the time of Ibn Jubair the gates still stood though the walls were ruined, but now the gates have only left their names to quarters of the town. At the northern or upper end was the Bab el Ma`la, or gate of the upper quarter, whence the road continues up the valley towards Mina and Arafa as well as towards Zeima and the Nejd. Beyond the gate, in a place called the Hajun, is the chief cemetery, commonly called el Ma'la, and said to be the resting-place of many of the companions of Mahomet. Here a cross-road, running over the hill to join the main Medina road from the western gate, turns off to the west by the pass of Kada, the point from which the troops of the Prophet stormed the city (A.H. 8). 2 Here too the body of Ibn Zubair was hung on a cross by Hajjaj. The lower or southern gate, at the Masfala quarter, opened on the Yemen road, where the rain-water from Mecca flows off into an open valley. Beyond, there are mountains on both sides; on that to the east, commanding the town, is the great castle, a fortress of considerable strength. The third or western gate, Bab elOmra (formerly also Bab el-Zahir, from a village of that name), lay almost opposite the great mosque, and opened on a road leading westwards round the southern spurs of the Red Mountain. This is the way to Wadi Fatima and Medina, the Jidda road branching off from it to the left. Considerable suburbs now lie outside the quarter named after this gate; in the middle ages a pleasant country road led for some miles through partly cultivated land with good wells, as far as the boundary of the sacred territory and gathering place of the pilgrims at Tanim, near the mosque of Ayesha. This is the spot on the Medina road .now called the Omra, from a ceremonial connected with it which will be mentioned below. The length of the sinuous main axis of the city from the farthest suburbs on the Medina road to the suburbs in the extreme north, now frequented by Bedouins, is, according to Burckhardt, 3500 paces. 3 About the middle of this line the longitudinal thoroughfares are pushed aside by the vast courtyard and colonnades composing the great mosque, which, with its spacious arcades surrounding the Ka`ba and other holy places, and its seven minarets, forms the only prominent architectural feature of the city. The mosque is enclosed by houses with windows opening on the arcades and commanding a view of the Ka`ba. Immediately beyond these, on the side facing Jebel Abu Kobais, a broad street runs south-east and north-west across the valley. This is the Mas'a (sacred course) between the eminences of Safa and Merwa, and has been from very early times one of the most lively bazaars and the centre of Meccan life. The other chief bazaars are also near the mosque in smaller streets. The general aspect of the town is picturesque; the streets are fairly spacious, though ill-kept and filthy; the houses are all of stone, many of them well-built and four or five storeys high, with terraced roofs and large projecting windows as in Jidda - a style of building which has not varied materially since the Toth century (Mukaddasi, p. 71), and gains in effect from the way in which the dwellings run up the sides and spurs of the mountains. Of public institutions there are baths, ribats, or hospices, for poor pilgrims from India, Java, &c., a hospital and a public kitchen for the poor. ' The older fairs were not entirely deserted till the troubles of the last days of the Ornayyads (Azraqi, p. 131). This is the cross-road traversed by Burckhardt (i. 109), and described by him as cut through the rocks with much labour. Istakhri gives the length of the city proper from north to south as m., and the greatest breadth from the Jiyad quarter east of the great mosque across the valley and up the western slopes as twothirds of the length. The mosque is at the same time the university hall, where between two pilgrim seasons lectures are delivered on Mahommedan law, doctrine and connected branches of science. A poorly provided public library is open to the use of students. The madrassehs or buildings around the mosque, originally intended as lodgings for students and professors, have long been let out to rich pilgrims. The minor places of visitation for pilgrims, such as the birthplaces of the prophet and his chief followers, are not notable.' Both these and the court of the great mosque lie beneath the general level of the city, the site having been gradually raised by accumulated rubbish. The town in fact has little air of antiquity; genuine Arab buildings do not last long, especially in a valley periodically ravaged by tremendous floods when the tropical rains burst on the surrounding hills. The history of Mecca is full of the record of these inundations, unsuccessfully combated by the great dam drawn across the valley by the caliph Omar (Kutbeddin, p. 76), and later works of Mandi.5 The fixed population of Mecca in 1878 was estimated by Assistant-Surgeon `Abd el-Razzaq at 50,000 to 60,000; there is a large floating population - and that not merely at the proper season of pilgrimage, the pilgrims of one season often beginning to arrive before those of the former season have all dispersed. At the height of the season the town is much overcrowded, and the entire want of a drainage system is severely felt. Fortunately good water is tolerably plentiful; for, though the wells are mostly undrinkable, and even the famous Zamzam water only available for medicinal or religious purposes, the underground conduit from beyond Arafa, completed by Sultan Selim II. in 1571, supplies to the public fountains a sweet and light water, containing, according to `Abd el-Razzaq, a large amount of chlorides. The water is said to be free to townsmen, but is sold to the pilgrims at a rather high rate.6 Medieval writers celebrate the copious supplies, especially of fine fruits, brought to the city from Taff and other fertile parts of Arabia. These fruits are still famous; rice and other foreign products are brought by sea to Jidda; mutton, milk and butter are plentifully supplied from the desert.' The industries all centre in the pilgrimage; the chief object of every Meccan - from the notables and sheikhs, who use their influence to gain custom for the Jidda speculators in the pilgrim traffic, down to the cicerones, pilgrim brokers, lodging-house keepers, and mendicants at the holy places - being to pillage the visitor in every possible way. The fanaticism of the Meccan is an affair of the purse; the mongrel population (for the town is by no means purely Arab) has exchanged the virtues of the Bedouin for the worst corruptions of Eastern town life, without casting off the ferocity of the desert, and it is hardly possible to find a worse certificate of character than the three parallel gashes on each cheek, called Tashrit, which are the customary mark of birth in the holy city. The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all Islam, and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims.8 The slave trade has connexions with the pilgrimage which are not thoroughly clear; but under cover of the pilgrimage a great deal of importation and exportation of slaves goes on. Since the fall of Ibn Zubair the political position of Mecca 4 For details as to the ancient quarters of Mecca, where the several families or septs lived apart, see Azraqi, 455 pp. seq., and compare Ya`qubi, ed. Juynboll, p. r oo. The minor sacred places are described at length by Azraqi and Ibn Jubair. They are either connected with genuine memories of the Prophet and his times, or have spurious legends to conceal the fact that they were originally holy stones, wells, or the like, of heathen sanctity. 5 Baladhuri, in his chapter on the floods of Mecca (pp. 53 seq.), says that `Omar built two dams. The aqueduct is the successor of an older one associated with the names of Zobaida, wife of Harun al-Rashid, and other benefactors. But the old aqueduct was frequently out of repair, and seems to have played but a secondary part in the medieval water supply. Even the new aqueduct gave no adequate supply in Burckhardt's time. In Ibn Jubair's time large supplies were brought from the Yemen mountains. 8 The corruption of manners in Mecca is no new thing. See the letter of the caliph Mandi on the subject; Wustenfeld, Chron. Mek., iv. 168. has always been dependent on the movements of the greater Mahommedan world. In the splendid times of the caliphs immense sums were lavished upon the pilgrimage and the holy city; and conversely the decay of the central authority of Islam brought with it a long period of faction, wars and misery, in which the most notable episode was the sack of Mecca by the Carmathians at the pilgrimage season of A.D. 930. The victors carried off the "black stone," which was not restored for twentytwo years, and then only for a great ransom, when it was plain that even the loss of its palladium could not destroy the sacred character of the city. Under the Fatimites Egyptian influence began to be strong in Mecca; it was opposed by the sultans of Yemen, while native princes claiming descent from the Prophet - the Hashimite amirs of Mecca, and after them the amirs of the house of Qatada (since 1202) - attained to great authority and aimed at independence; but soon after the final fall of the Abbasids the Egyptian overlordship was definitely established by sultan Bibars (A.D. 1269). The Turkish conquest of Egypt transferred the supremacy to the Ottoman sultans (1517), who treated Mecca with much favour, and during the 16th century executed great works in the sanctuary and temple. The Ottoman power, however, became gradually almost nominal, and that of the amirs or sherifs increased in proportion, culminating under Ghalib, whose accession dates from 1786. Then followed the wars of the Wahhabis (see Arabia and WAHHABis) and the restoration of Turkish rule by the troops of Mehemet `Ali. By him the dignity of sherif was deprived of much of its weight, and in 1827 a change of dynasty was effected by the appointment of Ibn `Aun. Afterwards Turkish authority again decayed. Mecca is, however, officially the capital of a Turkish province, and has a governor-general and a Turkish garrison, while Mahommedan law is administered by a judge sent from Constantinople. But the real sovereign of Mecca and the Hejaz is the sherif, who, as head of a princely family claiming descent from the Prophet, holds a sort of feudal position. The dignity of sherif (or grand sherif, as Europeans usually say for the sake of distinction, since all the kin of the princely houses reckoning descent from the Prophet are also named sherifs), although by no means a religious pontificate, is highly respected owing to its traditional descent in the line of Hasan, son of the fourth caliph `Ali. From a political point of view the sherif is the modern counterpart of the ancient amirs of Mecca, who were named in the public prayers immediately after the reigning caliph. When the great Mahommedan sultanates had become too much occupied in internecine wars to maintain order in the distant Hejaz, those branches of the Hassanids which from the beginning of Islam had retained rural property in Arabia usurped power in the holy cities and the adjacent Bedouin territories. About A.D. 960 they established a sort of kingdom with Mecca as capital. The influence of the princes of Mecca has varied from time to time, according to the strength of the foreign protectorate in the Hejaz or in consequence of feuds among the branches of the house; until about 1882 it was for most purposes much greater than that of the Turks. The latter were strong enough to hold the garrisoned towns, and thus the sultan was able within certain limits - playing off one against the other the two rival branches of the aristocracy, viz. the kin of Ghalib and the house of Ibn`Aun - to assert the right of designating or removing the sherif, to whom in turn he owed the possibility of maintaining, with the aid of considerable pensions, the semblance of his much-prized lordship over the holy cities. The grand sherif can muster a considerable force of freedmen and clients, and his kin, holding wells and lands in various places through the Hejaz, act as his deputies and administer the old Arabic customary law to the Bedouin. To this influence the Hejaz owes what little of law and order it enjoys. During the last quarter of the 19th century Turkish influence became preponderant in western Arabia, and the railway from Syria to the Hejaz tended to consolidate the sultan's supremacy. After the sherifs, the principal family of Mecca is the house of Shaibah, which holds the hereditary custodianship of the Ka`ba.
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