Mecca: Difference between revisions

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'''Mecca''', also known as ''Makkah al-Mukarramah'' (مكة المكرمة, lit. "the Blessed Mecca"), is a city located in the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula and is described by Islamic scriptures as the birthplace of [[Muhammad]] (b. 570), the founder of [[Islam]]. Mecca is host to the [[Kaaba]], the holiest Islamic mosque (and central pagan shrine prior to Muhammad's conquest of Mecca), and thus the site of the annual Islamic pilgrimage called the [[Hajj]] which physically and financially able Muslims are required to attend at least once in their lifetimes (one of the [[Five Pillars]] of Islam). Practicing Muslims face Mecca as they [[Salah|pray]] towards the Kaaba (their ''qibla'', or direction of prayer) five times a day (another one of the Five Pillars of Islam).

==According to Islamic scriptures==

==Early history==

Very little is known through archaeological and historically relied-upon channels about the early and pre-Islamic history of Mecca, as the city is neither referred to unambiguously by any document prior to the rise of Islam, nor is there any architecture in Mecca that has been determined to have persisted from the life of Muhammad at the beginning of the seventh century.<ref>Robert Schick, ''Archaeology and the Quran'', Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an</ref> Indeed, even while contemporary Romans produced detailed descriptions of Arabia at large and Western Arabia (the Hijaz) in particular, no references can be found to anything that could be described as a pilgrimage or trade-center at Mecca.  

Among other factors, because geographical descriptions provided of Mecca in Islamic scriptures fail to map reliably onto the geography of the actual city of Mecca, because ample archaeological evidence demonstrates that for roughly a century after Muhammad's death Muslim prayed toward Petra as their ''qibla'', and because studies have demonstrated the prevalence of Syriac words in the Qur'an, many critical scholars have been led to hypothesize that the Mecca we know today may not have been the Mecca known by early Muslims. Mounting evidence suggests that the city Muhammad lived in, preached in, and came to conquer, may in fact have been Petra, located in Syria. This interpretations collides heavily with the explicit statements of Islamic scriptures and conforms more readily with Islamic scriptures' implicit, geographical descriptions of Mecca, as well as with the archaeological evidence available to us today.

96. Lo! <b>the first Sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Becca, a blessed place, a guidance to the peoples;</b>

===Hadith===