Arab/Arabia

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The Qur‘an: an Encyclopedia

Arabia as an entity during the period of the jahiliyya (period of ignorance) just prior to the start of Islam was very much a marginal area in the region. In contrast with the rest of the Middle East, it was largely pastoral as opposed to agricultural, and had no very large cities and fixed population centres. The Arabian peninsula was certainly not isolated; it was frequented by traders and also people passing through to get to other places. In particular, its position between the Byzantine and Sassanian empires made it of frequent interest to these competing powers. It was not only trade that became important, but undoubtedly preachers from the neighbouring monotheistic faiths sought followers among the largely pagan Arabs, at the same time as the Arabs themselves learned from their neighbours about the very different lifestyles of people in the major centres of civilization.

Within the Arab world clashes and less severe conflicts often took place between the different clans and family groups that traversed the area looking for pasture and habitable resting places, perhaps an inevitable aspect of nomadic and pastoral life. The solidarity of these clans was an important survival mechanism in a region where both the climate and the people could be hostile. The groupings were patriarchal and familial links within them were significant sources of prestige and wealth. But not all the peninsula was pastoral in nature; two important regions—Yemen in the south and the Nabatean kingdom in the north-west—were more settled, and they tried to exercise influence over the wilder parts of the area. One of the interesting features of this situation was that the kingdoms and empires that surrounded Arabia were always fragile and their influence transitory. For one thing the Nabateans and their centres at Petra and Palmyra were destroyed by the Romans and incorporated into the Roman Empire, while Yemen seems to have lost control of much of the trade that used to travel through its territory. The Sassanians in the east did not show much interest in the region and it is not difficult to understand their lack of enthusiasm. There were hardly significant assets to be gained from mastery of a difficult terrain with fractitious inhabitants, as it was presented in the literature of the time.

Mecca was traditionally a place of pilgrimage and also a place where disputes were settled and where a community that spent its time largely on the move could gather together with other families and clans and settle whatever differences they had, and make whatever deals they were interested in, albeit usually temporary, within an environment that fostered conditions appropriate to a truce. The Arabs were enthusiastic about their language but even this proved to be more a source of conflict than harmony, since they met at Mecca to compete poetically. The local worship at Mecca was of idols, and there were also significant Jewish and Christian tribes and communities there, and doubtless other representative religions also. The Quraysh was the tribe in control of Mecca, its rites and rules, and so acquired a strong influence, insofar as any group had influence at all over the region as a whole.

The historical role of Mecca is a controversial topic. For a long time it was accepted that Mecca was an ancient city that had been on the route of important caravan traffic across the Hijaz. Research by Patricia Crone (1987) quite brilliantly suggests this is not the case at all, or at least that there is no evidence that this is the case. Whatever the truth of the matter, there can be little doubt about the status of Mecca at the time of the Prophet and the message of Islam. The relative decline of the surrounding empires had created a power vacuum in the region, and Mecca and its rulers, the Quraysh, became important in establishing a place and a structure for society to regulate its disputes, celebrate its achievements and carry out its religious duties. These latter were largely in the form of worshipping local and highly personalized deities, and Mecca had long been associated with such rituals.

The pastoral lifestyle of most of the transient clans and tribes probably did not produce much in the way of surplus wealth, and we know from accounts of tribal life that a good deal of expense was involved merely in protecting each community from hostile competitors, or common thieves and marauders. What wealth was created, however, would naturally find its outlet in Mecca, where goods would be stored for the eventual arrival of Arab groups with the resources in money or barter for exchange to take place. While rudimentary jewellery and clothes would be produced in the region, more sophisticated products were available as imports from more settled regions on the periphery. Grain, dates and weapons in particular were bought, and in return the migratory Arabs could offer some livestock, in particular camels, and the funds they had acquired through working with caravans, breeding and selling camels, and providing protection for travellers across the desert and wild places of Arabia. Since cash is highly portable, it was probably an important part of the purchasing power of the Arabs and played a large part in making Mecca such an important marketing centre.

The city is located on the sandy, narrow valley of the Wadi Ibrahim and is surrounded by hills ranging in height from 200 to 500 ft. The 3,000-ft Jabal Khandama is located nearby.

Although Mecca is often represented in Islamic iconography, it is not an important political or economic site in Saudi Arabia, its status being largely limited to its religious role. Mecca is defined by its physical difficulties. It is in a barren region and can produce no food of its own. This led to an early dependence on imports, initially from Egypt, and on water from the Zamzam well outside the city and elsewhere. Water has been a continual problem, and many large projects have been carried out to solve this problem, all usually failures. Even when adequate supplies were established, the local bedouin often interfered with the supply for financial reasons. During the hajj water often became a crucial issue, and sometimes was sold to the hajjis at exorbitant rates. The Meccans provided food, drink and accommodation to the pilgrims, they provided animals to be sacrificed, barbers to shave them and all the facilities that were required for the visitors to perform the necessary rites in accordance with Islamic law. It is hardly surprising that in the Islamic world the Meccans are sometimes regarded as having as their main motive fleecing the pilgrims, and there is a long tradition of their purchasing goods and services for eventual resale to the pilgrims at a substantial profit. On the other hand, it has to be said that they have a short period of only a few weeks a year to earn what is in effect their annual income, so they do need to be shrewd in their treatment of the visitors. It has become something of a theme of many hajjis that they are shocked by the rapacity of the Meccans, who are after all their co-religionists and who are fortunate to live permanently in the holy city.

Mecca is a very ancient city, and its origins are surrounded by historical controversy. It lies in a sort of corridor between two ranges of hills, and has been prone to flooding when the infrequent rain falls. According to many historians, its position was initially favourable for trade, a good deal of traffic going north to Syria as did merchandise for the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Iraq in the north-east and Yemen in the south. There is taken to be evidence that Mecca attracted much of the trade passing through Syria and the Mediterranean, and between South Arabia and the Indian Ocean, especially when there was conflict between the Persians and the Byzantines in the pre-Islamic period, and there often were such conflicts.

The climate is extremely dry, with very occasional but heavy rain (hence the floods) and the area is incapable of any significant agriculture. The wells were very important for the city’s water supply, and one of the roles of the early political groups in the area was to oversee and safeguard those supplies. The lack of physical resources in Mecca was compensated for by an apparent sophistication of the city as a service centre, a role that continues up to this day. In particular, Mecca was a commercial force in the region, both financing and investing in enterprises along the trade routes through the town. This standard view has recently been challenged by historians, who point to the absence of any solid evidence to support such a view of the city (Crone, 1987).

Of great significance is the fact that the Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 CE. The is scathing about the merchant culture of Mecca, and calls on its inhabitants to embrace the One God and abandon their overwhelming materialism. Their polytheism was linked to their desire for wealth, since they made money out of the visitors who came to worship the gods then based in the main shrine, the Initially the message fell on stony ground, and Muhammad left for Yathrib (Medina) in 622, a far more sympathetic environment for him, and over the next few years there was continual struggle between the Muslim forces of Medina and the Meccan authorities. In the end the Muslims overcame the Meccans, and the the central religious shrine in Mecca, was cleansed of its association with idols, eventually becoming the qibla or direction of prayer for Muslims. Of particular importance was the area around the which was soon surrounded by a mosque, the masjid al-haram, thus formalizing the territory as holy space.

Over the next few centuries Mecca frequently suffered invasion and destruction by different religious and tribal groups. The pilgrimage was often disrupted or rendered impossible, and the Meccans sometimes flirted with a degree of independence under the Sharif (literally ‘noble’ and linked with being a descendant of the Prophet) clan, which came to a head in the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was embroiled in World War I and could not defend the Holy Places properly. But another local ruler, from the family of who came from the Nejd to the east of the Mecca and Medina region, overcame the Hussayns of the Sharif clan and brought Mecca and Medina under authority. They brought a Wahhabi orientation to the city, and this has had a long-lasting effect on its cultural and physical life. The previously high status of the Sharifs has now disappeared, with business people, mutawwifun (guides) and religious teachers becoming the dominant force in town.

The is said to have been built by God for Adam, and to be modelled on the divine residence itself. Abraham is taken to have rebuilt it after its destruction during the Flood, and today it is considerably larger than it was originally, when it was said to be made up of loose stones and not that much taller than an average human being. It is made of black meteoric stone and is covered with a large cloth, and is quite simply decorated with writing and embroidery. The today stands in the midst of an open courtyard, the masjid al-haram, or ‘sanctuary’. It is a cubical flat-roofed building, 50 ft in height, from a narrow marble base on mortared bases of a local blue-grey stone. The entire structure is draped with a black silk covering, called a kiswa, upon which passages from the are embroidered in gold. Opposite the northwestern wall of the is an area of special sanctity called the Hijr, which Muslim tradition identifies as the burial place of Hagar and Ishmael. In Muhammad’s time, the Hijr was a place used for discussion, prayer and, significantly, for sleep and visions. The the Zamzam well, the Hijr and the hills of Safa and Marwa are now all enclosed in a vast structure called the haram al-sharif or ‘Noble Sanctuary’. Ringed by seven towering minarets and sixty-four gates, this truly monumental building has 160,000 yards of floor space and is capable of holding more than 1.2 million pilgrims at the same time.

In Islam the hajj pilgrimage is a fundamental obligation to be performed at least once by all male and female adults whose health and finances permit. The pilgrimage takes place each year between the 8th and 13th days of Dhu al-Hijja, the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar. When the pilgrim is about seven miles from Mecca, he or she enters the state of holiness and purity known as ihram and dons special garments consisting of two white seamless sheets that are wrapped around the body. Entering the great Mosque in Mecca, the pilgrim first walks seven times around the shrine in a counterclockwise direction; this ritual is called turning, or tawaf.

Next, entering the shrine, the pilgrim kisses the sacred stone. The stone is mounted in a silver frame in the wall, 4 ft above the ground, in the south-east corner. It is of an oval shape about 12 inches in diameter and is composed of seven small stones (possibly basalt) of different sizes and shapes joined together with cement. During the next few days the pilgrim walks a ritualized route to other sacred places in the Mecca vicinity (Mina, Muzdalifah, Arafat, the Mount of Mercy and Mount Namira) and returns to the on the final day. Once a believer has made the pilgrimage to Mecca they may add the title al-hajji to their name. Pilgrims use a variety of signs to indicate they have made the hajj, including painting pictures of the upon the walls of their homes, and there is a good deal of iconography involving the and the mosque surrounding it in Muslim homes.

The history of Mecca has been tempestuous. The different factions in the Islamic world fought each other for control of Mecca, often in Mecca itself, and the city and its population have suffered at the hands of the invaders. On the other hand, Mecca was generally a long way away from the main centres of power and authority, and so perhaps was not as affected by political and military upheaval as the other important cities such as Damascus, Cairo and Baghdad. Muslim politicians would often seek influence in Mecca by financing supporters within the city, as a means of religious legitimation of their policies in general, a policy which not unnaturally greatly increased the wealth of the leading families. Since the different political groupings would each have their own representatives, a good deal of wealth circulated.

At some stage around the tenth century walls were constructed around the city, and lasted for a few centuries. The city is said to have been around 40 acres in 661, 350 acres in 1924 and is well over 2,000 acres today. The intimate nature of the old city has certainly become seriously diminished, and serious attention to other buildings such as the houses of Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife, or his Companions, is discouraged and certainly not made a focal point. There has also been a certain amount of destruction of ancient buildings associated with those close to the Prophet. This marks an attempt to discourage visits to them by Muslims such as the who may regard them as holy sites, something which goes very much against the Wahhabi interpretation of such places as merely buildings and inappropriate places for worship for monotheists. In response, in recent years there has been something of a local campaign to safeguard and preserve ancient buildings.

Mecca, and indeed the Hejaz as a whole, was declared open only to Muslims ever since the caliphate of (634–44 CE). Jeddah was and is open to non-Muslims, and was an important commercial centre, but the exclusion from Mecca did presumably leave the commerce in the hands of the local Muslims. On the other hand, it also limited the scope of Mecca to diversify outside its sacred role, since any large commercial undertaking might involve those of other faiths. This was a significant issue even before globalization. As a sacred city Mecca suffered several serious problems. The religious endowments (waqf) on which the colleges and mosques relied for their regular running expenses frequently collapsed due to the distance of the city from the centres of power, and hence the facility with which such funding could be curtailed. In any case, waqf finance is always rather uncertain, relying as it does on using the income produced by one enterprise to finance another, and the records suggest that although often considerable funds were officially directed to Mecca, far less seems to have actually arrived. The expenditure was often on prestige projects, those with religious relevance, and so did not add to the ability of Mecca to generate income by itself. The distance between donor and beneficiary also meant that there was little control as to how the money was spent, and the returns in Mecca itself were often feeble.

The physical position of the city resulted in frequent floods, and the flimsy construction of the original buildings did not survive such regular periods of destruction. The religious significance of the city meant that it was often attacked by those seeking to impose their views on the Islamic world, and the pilgrimage trains to and from the city were far from secure. Finally, the various rulers of the city have sought to copy the Prophet in restoring what they took to be the appropriate rituals. In Islamic tradition, Abraham initially set up the to worship God but it was subsequently used by polytheists to worship false gods. Meanwhile Muhammad instituted pilgrimages, the hajj, which only takes place once a year, and the minor which can take place at any time, to replace pagan pilgrimages. Subsequent rulers have all altered the city physically in order to make it fit in better with their conception of its sacred role. Few were as radical as the Qarmatians, who in 929 massacred many of the inhabitants and removed the stone to Bahrain.

Throughout all the changes in policy, however, there do not appear to have been any radical changes to the itself, which is now much as it was when the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraysh, constructed the building in 605. On the other hand, the buildings around the have been continually altered, and often have simply fallen down. Different rulers put up palaces near the shrine and financed religious institutions as ways of projecting their authority. Changes in regime would frequently lead to change in the buildings and what went on in them, and the new projects must have injected considerable funds into the city. They also must have put a lot of strain on communications, since virtually all building materials had to be imported over difficult and lengthy distances. Again, one can only assume that this boosted the local economy, renewing the nature of Mecca as a dynamic service centre well able to absorb and benefit from large-scale public and private works.

The great oil wealth has radically changed the city in the period since World War II. The mosque at the centre of the city itself has been greatly enlarged. One of the major influences of the Saudi regime on Mecca has been on the secondary sites, those associated with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, rather than the itself. From pre-Islamic times there had apparently been many holy sites in the vicinity of Mecca, and the Prophet’s tribe, the Quraysh, had control over some of these and the provision of water. One of their motivations for hostility to Muhammad was their fear of losing this valuable monopoly, since they thought that the pilgrimage trade might be destroyed by the new religion of Islam. As it turns out, the pilgrimages were only strengthened by Islam, and the various groups and families who controlled different parts of the holy city and its environs benefited greatly over the centuries, although of course the groups who actually enjoyed this power also changed over time. The secondary sites were particular popular with Muslims, who stayed on in Mecca after either the hajj or pilgrimage, captivated as they were by the holiness of the environment. There have been less of these kinds of inhabitants recently due to the Saudi hostility to the secondary sites and their increased policing of those visiting the country on pilgrimage visas.

As the guardians of the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, the Saudis have a difficult task in facilitating the safe arrival and departure of so many pilgrims over such a comparatively brief period. In recent decades the majority of pilgrims have arrived by air, further changing the nature of the hajj from its previous status as an activity that was physically strenuous even prior to arrival in the city. Although the hajj brings in considerable funds, it also requires considerable expenditure, yet the changing of money, the provision of animals for sacrifice and just the incursion of up to 2 million people from every corner of the Islamic world have an effect on Mecca which is difficult to quantify. Undoubtedly much of the city lives for the hajj, surviving through the rest of the year on the income which it earns in this relatively brief period. Some of the facilities, such as hospitals, lie idle for most of the year, only really being used during the hajj.

Many plazas have been constructed near the central mosque, roads built and widened, and a lot of attention has been paid to parking and other forms of transport, such as tunnels for pedestrians between the different areas which are part of the hajj itinerary. The buildings have often been demolished and rebuilt on a grander scale, inevitably with a certain loss of charm, and the widespread introduction of electricity has made the city yet one more modern site.

There is a considerable foreign presence in the exclusively Muslim city due to the large number of educational institutions that have been set up and which flourish there. For believers this would obviously be an excellent place to study and live, and many of the residents come from the variety of Islamic communities that exist all over the world. This multicultural domestic influx gives the city a cosmopolitan atmosphere all year round, not only during the pilgrimages.

There have until recently been no elections in Saudi Arabia, and the city government was appointed centrally. However, at the time of writing (2005), the first election of a local nature has taken place, albeit limited to a male electorate.

Crone, P. (1987) Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Peters, F.E. (1986) Jerusalem and Mecca: The typology of the holy city in the Near East, New York: New York University Press.

——(1994) The Hajj: The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the holy places, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

OLIVER LEAMAN

This is the complete article, containing 3,853 words (approx. 13 pages at 300 words per page).