MECCA (Arab, Makkah), the chief town of the Hejaz in Arabia and the great holy city of Islam. It is situated about 45 m. due E. of Jidda, its Red Sea port, and about half way be tween the Gulf of Akaba and Bab-el-Mandeb. The city lies in a hollow among the hills which form part of the uptilted western edge of the ancient Arabian plateau. To the west the land falls steeply to the low coastal strip bordering the Red sea. The basin in which the city lies is about 2 m. long and m. broad, and forms part of a north to south valley. The high lands around include Jebel Kada, Jebel Laala, Jebel Gaygain, Jebel Kuda and Jebel Khandama. These vary in height, but are all over 1,5o0 feet. Jebel Khandama is the highest, being about 3,00o ft. above sea level. Minor heights, the lower spurs of the former, actually overlook the city. 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 sanctuary around the city is almost without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens and green valleys are found immediately beyond. But Mecca owed its early importance to the fact that it was a great focus of routes for the caravan trade of the desert. 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 Mohammed 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 a city with the nomad hordes without, commerce was possible only under the sanction 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, 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 early 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, 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 MOHAMMED.) The great desert market had received merchants from many lands, while in the ancient Ka`ba were installed deities representative, possibly, of the various groups of visiting merchants. It is said that at the time of the Prophet the Ka`ba contained, among others, an image of the Virgin and the Child Jesus. As so often happens in great marts, ideas as well as merchandise were exchanged, and with time there grew up the idea that these minor deities had much in common : the universal overcame the local. To this ancient and sacred mart came Mohammed, with his vision of the unity of God, learnt, it seems, from the Hebrew prophets, and here the vision took shape, to be carried to the ends of the earth by the swords of his followers.
The victory of Mohammedanism 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 re moved beyond the desert, and though Mecca and the Hejaz strove for a time to maintain political as well as religious pre dominance, 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 pre-Islamic, the new re ligion became grafted on the life of the city, the Ka`ba became the holiest site, and the pilgrimage the most sacred ritual ob servance of Mohammedanism, 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.