All About the Long History of Sacred City Mecca

VIVA – Mecca is an old city in the Saudi Arabia plains. Mecca has always been a stopover for trading caravans traveling between Syria and Palestine-Yemen.

As quoted from the book Guidance for Hajj and Umrah, published by the Indonesian Ministry of Religion, Mecca in the Sabean language is called Makuraba which means a sacred place. 

In language, Mecca as called as Bakkah which means crying. As-Shuyuthi said that Mecca is the whole of the forbidden land, while Bakkah is the name of the Baitullah and the place of tawaf which includes the Grand Mosque.

Mecca is the city where Prophet Muhammad SAW was born and the place where the first verse of the Qur'an was revealed. For Muslims, Mecca is the first holy city, a place where prayers are efficacious, a place full of blessings, where Muslims gather to perform Hajj and Umrah.

Thanks to the existence of the Kaaba, Allah SWT sanctified the entire area of ????Mecca and then referred to as the forbidden land which was established through the Prophet Ibrahim AS

The plains of Saudi Arabia is a subtropical area, with summer and winter. The air temperature is very extreme with lowest humidity. Summer falls between May-October and winter falls between November-April.

In winter, the air temperature in Mecca reaches minus 15 degrees Celsius. In summer the air temperature can reach 45-50 degrees Celsius.

Cool air temperatures occur in the month of transition between seasons, either from winter to summer or vice versa. This season is referred to as syita (winter) and shaif (summer) both of which are written in verses of the Qur’an.

"(namely) their habit of traveling in winter and summer." According to the Qur’an, Surah Quraish 106:2.

Mecca is a dry and barren valley located 330-meters above sea level and surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. Today, the City of Mecca has been expanded and become a metropolitan city. The length of the area reaches 127-kilometers with an area of ????approximately 550-square kilometers.

Mecca is the center of all land on earth which is located exactly in the middle of the earth. Some of the barren mountains around Mecca were destroyed and then used as tunnels for roads, settlements, and the expansion of the Grand Mosque (Masjidil Haram).

Therefore, Mecca is filled with high-rise buildings in the form of residential houses, offices, restaurants, shops, supermarkets and hotels for the accommodation of pilgrims or Umrah pilgrims.

According to al-Fakihi, there are more than 18 places of pilgrimage in Mecca that the Prophet Muhammad SAW had visited. However, due to the modernization of the city, many of these places are unknown right now.

The places of pilgrimage that are currently visited are limited to places that are easily accessible and have historical value, such as the Kaaba, the Grand Mosque, the house where the Prophet was born, Ma'la's tomb, Jin Mosque, Thuwa dzi Mosque, Jabal Nur and Jabal Tsur.