The Hajj is a pilgrimage that occurs during the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah to the holy city of Mecca.

Following its origin in Mecca and Medina, the Islamic world expanded to include people of the Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization.

The first year was the Islamic year beginning in AD 622 during which the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, known as the Hijra, occurred.

Another name for Mecca, or the wilderness and mountains surrounding it, according to Arab and Islamic tradition, is Faran or Pharan, referring to the Desert of Paran mentioned in the Old Testament.

Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Hijaz and the site where Ishmael settled was Mecca.

Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants.

The Persian intervention prevented Christianity from spreading eastward into Arabia, and Mecca and the Islamic prophet Muhammad who was at the time a six year boy in the Quraysh tribe " would not grow up under the cross.

According to Islamic tradition, the history of Mecca goes back to Abraham ( Ibrahim ) who built the Kaaba with the help of his elder son Ishmael in around 2000 BCE when the inhabitants of what was then known as Bakkah had fallen away from the original monotheism of Abraham through the influence of the Amelkites.

It was in Mecca, in the nearby mountain cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nour, that, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad is said to have begun receiving divine revelations from God through the Archangel Gabriel in 610 AD, and began to preach his form of Abrahamic monotheism against Meccan paganism.

As the Islamic Empire grew, Mecca continued to attract pilgrims not just from Arabia, but now from all across the Muslim world and beyond, as Muslims came to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Mecca was never the capital of any of the Islamic states but Muslim rulers did contribute to its upkeep.

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 honorary and informal Islamic title Hadji ( Turkish: Hacı ) in Piri's ( Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri ) and his father's ( Hadji Mehmed Piri ) names indicate that they had completed the Hajj ( Islamic pilgrimage ) by going to Mecca during the dedicated period of Hadjj and fulfilling the required rituals.

At other times, the region existed in relative obscurity and isolation, although from the 7th century the cities of Mecca and Medina had the highest spiritual significance for the Islamic world, Mecca being the destination for the Hajj annual pilgrimage.

Eventually, the largest school of Islamic scholarship applied this term to all non-Muslims living in Islamic lands outside the sacred area surrounding Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

* July 16 – Year one of the Islamic calendar begins, during which the Hijra occurs – Muhammad and his followers emigrate from Mecca to Medina in September.

* 622: Year one of the Islamic calendar begins, during which the Hijra occurs — Muhammad and his followers emigrate from Mecca to Medina in September.

It is the second holiest city in Islam after Mecca and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, Year 1 of the Islamic calendar is based on the year of the emigration ( or Hijra ()) of Muhammad and his original followers ( Muhajirun ) from Mecca to the city of Medina in 622 AD / 1 AH.

In 622 AD / 1 AH, Muhammad and around 70 Meccan Muhajirun believers left Mecca for sanctuary in Yathrib, an event that transformed the religious and political landscape of the city completely ; the longstanding enmity between the Aus and Khazraj tribes was dampened as many of the two Arab tribes and some local Jews embraced Islam.

In 1981 Iran supported an attempt to overthrow the Bahraini government, in 1983 expressed political support for Shi ' ites who bombed Western embassies in Kuwait, and in 1987 Iranian pilgrims rioted at poor living conditions and treatment during the Hajj ( pilgrimage ) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and were consequently massacred.

Coffeehouses in Mecca soon became a concern as places for political gatherings to the imams who banned them, and the drink, for Muslims between 1512 and 1524.

At the Cairo Conference of March 1921, the British set the parameters for Iraqi political life that were to continue until the 1958 revolution ; they chose a Hashemite, Faisal ibn Husayn, son of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali former Sharif of Mecca as Iraq's first King ; they established an Iraqi army ( but kept Assyrian Levies under direct British command ); and they proposed a new treaty.

His ancestors held political authority in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina since the 10th century.

At last, she fled to Mecca and appealed to the political contender to the Umayyads Abdallah ibn Zubayr, who, however, succeeded in inducing her to consent to a confirmation of the marriage.

On an economic and political level, Uli st a precedent by making the Hajj to Mecca during his reign.

Medina is home to the three oldest mosques in Islam, namely Al-Masjid an-Nabawi ( The Prophet's Mosque ), Masjid Quba ' or Quba Mosque ( the first mosque in Islam's history ), and Masjid al-Qiblatain ( The Mosque of the Two Qiblahs-the mosque where the direction of Muslim prayer, or qiblah, was switched from Jerusalem to Mecca ).

However, the Arab historian Abu al-Hasan ' Alī al-Mas ' ūdī, citing ' traditional ' Arab history, relates that the Amalekites did indeed exist at this early period having originated in the region of Mecca before the time of Abraham.

Oral history of the Oyo-Yoruba recounts the coming of the Oba Oduduwa from the east, sometimes understood by some sources as the " vicinity " of Mecca, but more likely signifying the region of Ekiti and Okun sub-communities in northeastern Yorubaland / central Nigeria.

A hardcover 268-page book with 170 photos and featuring 30 interviews with town elders, There's No Place Like Rome chronicles the history of Rome from its hardscrabble agricultural start to its transformation as a recreational Mecca.

In particular, the Mahdi abolished the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence ( Arabic: madhahib, مذاهب ), rejected all authoritative texts in the history of tafsir or Qur ' anic exegesis, changed the Sha ' hada, or profession of faith, to include the phrase, " Muhammad al-Mahdi is the Khalifa of the Prophet of God ," and revised the five pillars of Islam by replacing the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca with the obligation to undertake jihad, and adding a sixth pillar, which was belief in the Mahdiyya.

The first results of his extensive studies in Oriental literature, Arabic language and history, manifested themselves in 1847, when he published a translation from Abdelwahid al-Marrakushi, born 1185, resident in South Spain between 1208 and 1217, leaving then for Egypt and visiting Mecca in 1221, dated 1224, Kitab al-mujib fi talkhis akhbar ahl al-Maghrib under the title The history of the Almohads, preceded by a sketch of the history of Spain from the time of the conquest till the reign of Yusuf ibn Tashfin, and of the history of the Almoravids, printed again in 1881 and reprinted in 1968.

After completing his pilgrimage to Mecca, he died in Medina in 1871 while visiting the city, and was buried in the Jannatul Baqi, a historical graveyard in Medina where many prominent personalities from Islamic history are interred.

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.

During its brief history the race had several sponsors, and these included Mecca Bookmakers, Tennent's and the Daily Record.

Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim who was reported to have built various major mosques throughout the Mali sphere of influence ; his gold-laden pilgrimage to Mecca made him a well-known figure even in European history writing.

He went to Mecca for the Hajj and there he devoted his time to furthering his studies in Islamic theology, history, philosophy and Sufism from different scholars in Arabia.

Locally referred to as " The Mecca " of cricket, it has hosted many important and exciting cricket games between local, regional, and international teams during its more than 120 year history.

" Broad Street today is the Mecca of visitors as it has been through all its long history ," Newark merchants boasted, " they come in hundreds of thousands now when once they came in hundreds.

) is known in the Islamic traditions as the first person in history to be murdered for having adopted the faith of Islam, in pre-Hijra Mecca.

But in that case we should expect some hint of the occurrence in the circumstantial biographies of the Prophet, and in the works on the history of Mecca ; and we find no such thing.