In its modern period, Mecca has seen tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure.

Because of this, Mecca has lost many thousand-year-old buildings and archaeological sites.

As a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Muslim world, although non-Muslims remain prohibited from entering the city.

" Mecca " is the familiar form of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city, and the word has additionally come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people.

Also the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who flourished between 60 BCE and 30 BCE writes about the isolated region of Arabia in his work Bibliotheca historica describing a holy shrine that Muslims see as referring to the Kaaba at Mecca " And a temple has been set-up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians ".

Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with the city ever since.

It has been reported that there now are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of Muhammad.

Every adult, healthy, sane Muslim who has the financial and physical capacity to travel to Mecca and can make arrangements for the care of his / her dependants during the trip, must perform the Hajj once in a lifetime.

As mentioned above, because of the Wahhabist hostility to reverence being paid to historic and religious buildings, Mecca has lost most of its heritage in recent years and few buildings from the last 1500 years have survived Saudi rule.

As a result of the vast numbers of pilgims coming to the city each year ( many of whom remain permanently ), Mecca has become by far the most diverse city in the Muslim world.

In contrast to the rest of Saudi Arabia, and particularly Nejd, Mecca has, according to the New York Times, become " a striking oasis " of free thought and discussion and, also, of " unlikely liberalism " as " Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken much Islamic debate ".

The school system in Mecca has many public and private schools for both males and females.

One Islamic tradition has it that the Prophet alighted in Hebron during his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and the mosque in the city is said to conserve one of his shoes.

* Raynald of Chatillon has seven ships freighted over the isthmus of Suez, which he then uses to pillage the shores of the Red Sea, as far as the gates of Mecca.

* Craig retroazimuthal aka Mecca or Qibla — also has vertical meridians

Another version attributed to ' Urwa has only one round of fitna, which begins after Muhammad has converted the entire population of Mecca, so that the Muslims are too numerous to perform ritual prostration ( sūjud ) all together.

To the southwest of Rockville, Mecca has a population of 335.

) Dubbed the " Upscale Tech Mecca " of Southern Arizona by the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, Oro Valley is home to over 10 high tech firms and has a median household income nearly 50 % higher than the U. S. median .< ref >

Federally, Mecca is located in California's 45th congressional district, which has a Cook PVI of R + 3 and is represented by Republican Republican Mary Bono Mack.

Johnson has worked with Modest Mouse, Beck, Heavenly, The Microphones, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Blow, Jens Lekman, Mecca Normal, The Gossip and Built to Spill, Fifth Column, among many others.

The title Haji ( alternative spelling Hajji ) indicates that he has completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

During his first trip he had encountered a holy man, Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadili, who prophesied that he would only reach Mecca by travelling through Syria.

The twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter is more specific as it only considers polytheists in the Sacred Mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca:

In modern-day Saudi Arabia, the Grand Mosque and all of Mecca are open only to Muslims.

There is only one Mecca.

Similarly to Mecca, entrance to the sacred core of Medina ( but not the entire city ) is restricted to Muslims only ; non-Muslims are permitted neither to enter nor cross through the city center.

Like Mecca, the city of Medina only permits Muslims to enter, although the haram ( area closed to non-Muslims ) of Medina is much smaller than that of Mecca, with the result that many facilities on the outskirts of Medina are open to non-Muslims, whereas in Mecca the area closed to non-Muslims extends well beyond the limits of the built-up area.

* The proper nouns Iram ( Q 89: 7, Iram of the Pillars ), Bābil ( Q 2: 102, Babylon ), Bakka ( t ) ( Q 3: 96, Bakkah ), Jibt ( Q 4: 51 ), Ramaḍān ( Q 2: 185, Ramadan ), ar-Rūm ( Q 30: 2, Ancient Rome ), Tasnīm ( Q 83: 27 ), Qurayš ( Q 106: 1, Quraysh ), Majūs ( Q 22: 17, Magi ), Mārūt ( Q 2: 102, Harut and Marut ), Makka ( t ) ( Q 48: 24, Mecca ), Nasr ( Q 71: 23 ), ( Ḏū ) an-Nūn ( Q 21: 87 ) and Hārūt ( Q 2: 102, Harut and Marut ) occur only once in the Qurʾān.

In addition, the term is commonly used to refer to certain other holy sites, such as the Haram ash-Sharif in Jerusalem — though over the protests of some, such as Ibn Taymiya, who declared that the only places which could be legitimately called "" were Mecca, Medina, and probably also the valley of Wajj in Ta ' if ( but definitely not either Jerusalem or Hebron ).

It is estimated that only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims.

He was born in Mecca ( in present-day Saudi Arabia ), the only son of Faisal I, the first King of Iraq.

As Ghazi was the only son of Faisal I, he was left to take care of his grandfather, Hussein bin Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, while his father was busy in his campaigns and travels.

There is only one Mecca.

At one point the direction of the Qibla was toward Bayt al-Maqdis ( Jerusalem ) ( and is therefore called the First of the Two Qiblas ), however, this only lasted for seventeen months, after which the Qibla became oriented towards the Kaaba in Mecca.

* Saudi Arabia, on 10 June 1916 the Grand Sharif of Mecca assumed the title of King of the Hejaz ; from 29 October 1916 " King of the Arabs and Commander of the Faithful ; from 6 November 1916 recognized by the allied powers only as King of the Hejaz, Commander of the Faithful, Grand Sharif and Emir of Mecca ; also assumed the title of Caliph on 11 March 1924 ; from 3 October 1924: King of the Hejaz and Grand Sharif of Mecca ; 22 September 1932 Hejaz and Nejd united as Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, full style: Malik al-Mamlaka al -' Arabiyya as-Sa ' udiyya (" King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "); from 1986 prefixed to the name: Khadim al-Haramayn ash-Sharifayn (" Servant ( i. e. Protector ) of the Two Exalted Holy Places and Medina ").

In January 624, the Muslims ambushed a Meccan caravan near Nakhlah, only forty kilometers outside of Mecca, killing one of the guards and formally inaugurating a blood feud with the Meccans.

A wealthy merchant, during the early years of Islam he protected Muhammad while he was in Mecca, but only became a convert after the Battle of Badr in 624 CE ( 2 AH ).

The locations shown in the documentary include not only each of the immigrants ' countries of origin, but also many places in the United States where the immigrants settled or traveled, including Chicago ( the Palestinian and Nigerian immigrants ), the Silicon Valley of California ( the Indian immigrants ), Garden City, Kansas and Mecca, California ( the Mexican immigrants ), and Florida, Georgia and Montana ( the Dominican immigrants ).

He set up a construction company and came to Abdul Aziz ibn Saud's attention through construction projects, later being awarded contracts for major renovations at Mecca, where he made his initial fortune from exclusive rights to all mosque and other religious building construction not only in Saudi Arabia, but as far as Ibn Saud's influence reached.

Rain usually falls in Mecca in small amounts between November and January.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, apart from a small number of urban trading settlements, such as Mecca and Medina, located in the Hejaz in the west of the peninsula, most of what was to become Saudi Arabia was populated by nomadic tribal societies or uninhabitable desert.

Wejh surrendered within 36 hours, and the Ottomans abandoned their advance toward Mecca in favor of a defensive position in Medina with small detachments scattered along the Hejaz railway.

Some writers concentrated solely on history like al-Ya ' qubi and al-Tabari, whilst others focused on a small portion of history such as ibn al-Azraq, with a history of Mecca, and ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur, writing a history of Baghdad.

In the ten years between the Hijra ( the flight of the small Muslim community from Mecca to Medina ) to the death of Muhammad, Islam had grown by leaps and bounds.

Al-Safa and Al-Marwah ( Safa and Marwah ) (, ) are two small mountains now located in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia between which Muslims travel back and forth seven times during the ritual pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah.

Az Zaimah () is a small village between Mecca and Taif in Saudi Arabia, about 20 km northwest of Taif.

The town and district form a small ethnographical island in Al Qadarif, having been founded in the 18th century by a colony of Takruri from Darfur, who, finding the spot a convenient resting-place for their fellow-pilgrims on their way to Mecca and back, obtained permission from the Emperor of Ethiopia to make a permanent settlement there.

* Al-Safa and Al-Marwah-Two small mountains in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which constitute a part in the ritual pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah.

After it closed in 1993, building work was undertaken to remove some of the upper floors and the redeveloped site houses a Mecca bingo hall, with the ground floor space being subsequently occupied by Woolworths Group and a variety of small unit retailers.