mecca

     

Coorinates: 21°25′00″N 39°49′00″E / 21.416667, 39.816667

Trivia about mecca

  • Thousands of pilgrims gather annually in Cairo & Damascus to join caravans to make the hajj to this holy city
  • Explorer Sir Richard Burton disguised himself as an Afghani to make a pilgrimage to this city & sketch its Kaaba
  • In 622 Muhammad fled this city; in 630 he came back with 10,000 followers & captured it
  • The result of a 624-630 war allowed Muhammad to establish this as the holy city of Islam
  • Muslims are required to pray 5 times a day while facing this holy city
  • This site of the Great Mosque & the Kaaba was the capital of the kingdom of Hejaz
  • Qiblah is the term for the direction Muslims face when praying towards this city
  • (Alex Trebek reports from inside a Jerusalem landmark.) The beautiful Dome of the Rock is one of the oldest surviving Islamic monuments, & it also boasts some of the oldest mihrabs which are niches, all of them designed to point to this holy city
  • The miraculous revelation of the Koran began in a cave on Mt. Hira near this holy city
  • A hajji is a Muslim who's made a pilgrimage to this city
  • This Saudi Arabian holy city was called Macoraba by the ancients
  • In 1853 Richard Burton -- the other one -- visited this city in disguise & made a sketch of the Kaaba
  • In 1324 Mali's ruler Mansa Musa made a 4,000-mile pilgrimage to this city, taking a reported 12,000 slaves
  • Isra Wa Al-Miraj commemorates Muhammad's night journey from this city to Jerusalem & his ascent into heaven
  • If a Muslim calls himself "Haji", it means he's visited there
  • The name of this Saudi Arabian city has come to mean any place to which people of a common interest are drawn
  • The sacred Muslim site seen here can be found in this city (the Kaaba)
  • In this holy Saudi Arabian city, you'll find a sacred well said to have been used by Hagar, Ishmael's mother
  • A male Muslim who completes the pilgrimage to this city can be called Hajji; a female can be addressed as Hajjah
  • Pilgrimage to this city is run on a quota system; 3,000 people a year from the Gaza Strip get to go
  • Amman,Mecca,Damascus
  • The great mosque that encloses the Ka'aba is in this city
  • Pilgrimage participants plan to arrive in this city before the sixth day of Dhul-Hijjah
  • The Kaaba in the courtyard of this city's Al-Haram Mosque is said to have been built by the Hebrew patriarch Abraham
  • In 930 A.D. Karmathian Muslim rebels stormed & destroyed this holy city, carrying off the sacred black stone
  • Adult Muslims are required to travel at least once to this city, birthplace of Muhammad
  • Perhaps you could stay at the Holiday Inn Riyadh-Minhal before busing to the Hajj in this city