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The Holiest Cities of Islam

“And this is a Book which We have sent down full of blessings and confirming what [was revealed] before it: that thou mayest warn the Mother of Cities [Umm al-qura—Mecca] and its surroundings. Those who believe in the hereafter believe herein and they are constant in their prayers.”

—Qur’an, vi: 92, trans. Yusuf Ali, modified

“Medina is best for them if they only knew. No one leaves it through dislike of it without God putting in it someone better than he in place of him, and no one will remain there in spite of its hardship and distress without my being an intercessor on his behalf on the day of resurrection.”

—Saying (hadith) of the Prophet of Islam, in Muhammad ibn Abd Allah Khatib al-Tibrizi, Mishkat al-Masabih, trans. James Robson, Lahore: Muhammad Ashraf, 1981, pp. 586–7

Two events, which in fact are two aspects of the same reality, cast the cities of Mecca (Makkah) and Medina (Madinah) in a short period upon the pages of world history. These events were the birth in AD 570, the maturity and prophethood of Muhammad ibn Abd Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—and the descent of the Qur’anic revelation upon him during a 23-year period from 610 until his death in 632. These events of cosmic proportions established Islam, the last plenary religion of humanity, upon the earth, thereby transforming not only the history of Arabia or of the Mediterranean basin and the Persian and Byzantine Empires, but also of lands as far away as France and the Philippines and, ultimately, the whole of the globe. The revelation of the Noble Qur’an, the verbatim Word of God for Muslims, began in Mecca where the Blessed Prophet was born and continued in Medina where he died. The very landscape of these two cities still reverberates with the grace (barakah) of the revelation and echoes the presence of that most perfect human being who was chosen by God to receive His last message and thereby to bring to completion the cycle of prophecy which had begun with Adam himself.

Mecca the Blessed (al-Makkat al-mukarramah) and Medina the Radiant (al-Madinat al-munawwarah), as they are known to Muslims, became intertwined by the very events of the Islamic revelation. Mecca, the city where the primordial Temple and House of God, the Ka’bah, is situated, was where the Prophet was born and raised while Medina became his city by virtue of his migration there in AD 622, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The very name Medina, which in Arabic means simply “city”, is, in fact, the abbreviation of Madinat al-nabi, “the City of the Prophet”, which replaced the older name of Yathrib after the Blessed Prophet migrated to that city where he established the first Islamic community and the first mosque.

The testimony whereby a person embraces Islam is simply “la ilaha illa’Llah” (there is no divinity but Allah) and “Muhammadun rasul Allah” (Muhammad is the messenger of God), “Allah” being simply the Arabic word for God considered in His absolute Oneness beyond all hypostatic differentiations. These two formulas are inseparable in Islamic life and are seen by Muslims as being inwardly united. One may say that such is also the case of Mecca and Medina, the two holy centers of Islam, whose significance is inseparable in the religious life and thought of Muslims. Mecca is primarily the city of God by virtue of the Kab’ah and may be said to correspond to “la ilaha illa’Llah”, while Medina, where the Mosque of the Prophet and his tomb are to be found, is of course primarily the city of the Prophet and corresponds to “Muhammadun rasul Allah”. And in the same way that five times a day the call to prayer (al-adhan), heard from minarets and rooftops as well as in streets and houses throughout the Islamic World, announces the two testimonies of faith together, the barakah and significance of those holy cities remain organically united. At the same time, their influence, and the second by virtue of the first, has over the centuries dominated not only the heartland of Islam in Arabia but all Islamic lands near and far, and love for them is cherished in the hearts of men and women of all different races and climes where there has been a positive response to the call to unity (al-tawhid) of the Islamic message.

Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, a hundred years ago. In this photograph, the sacred spring Zamzam is located in a peak-roofed building adjacent to the Ka‘bah. Today, the buildings in close proximity to the Ka‘bah have been demolished and access to the spring of Zamzam has been moved underground.

The Arabian Peninsula

The peninsula of Arabia is located at the crossroad of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, its northern regions neighboring the Mediterranean world, its eastern realms Persia, and its southern shores Africa, with which it has always enjoyed close links in trade, migration of ideas and also people, as it has with its other neighbors. The southern region of the peninsula, home to ports through which goods were brought from the Indian Ocean, has always been more green than the north and was the home of many ancient civilizations. Its people, who considered themselves descendants of Qahtan, became known for the wonderful plants and perfumes that they cultivated. The frankincense and myrrh of southern Arabia were so well known in the Roman Empire that the Romans called this region Arabia Odorifera. It is sufficient to think of the Queen of Sheba and her world to recall the great regard that peoples of antiquity held for the high civilizations of southern Arabia.

As for the northern part of the peninsula, it was adjacent to the great Semitic civilizations of Mesopotamia, the influence of whose art is to be seen in the artifacts found in the north. Later, there were also close contacts with the Persian and Byzantine Empires. In the centuries between the rise of Christianity and the advent of Islam, there were, in fact, local kingdoms in the north such as the Nabataean and the Ghassanid which exercised influence upon certain aspects of the cultures of Arabia, the latter having been Christian.

Map of the center of Medina, dated 1790, when the city was surrounded by ramparts with the Mosque of the Prophet at its heart. The ramparts seen here, 2,300 meters long with four gates, were completed in 948/1541.

The heartland of Arabia, consisting of Hijaz and Najd, continued, however, to be dominated mostly by Arab nomads who had remained on the margin of the major historical developments to their north and were not greatly influenced by either Judaism or Christianity despite the presence of members of both communities in the cities of Arabia. As far as Hijaz, the sacred land in which Mecca and Medina are located, is concerned, it is the name of the western region of the Arabian peninsula, consisting of a fairly narrow tract of land about 1,400 kilometers long east of the Red Sea with the Tropic of Cancer running through its center. The land is called Hijaz, meaning “barrier”, because its backbone, the Sarat Mountains, running parallel to the Red Sea, separates the flat coastal area called Tihamah from the highlands of Najd. The Sarat Mountains consist of volcanic peaks and natural depressions, creating a stark and rugged environment dominated by intense sunlight and with little rain. And it is in one of the natural depressions of this mountain range that is to be found the sacred city of Mecca, the hub of the earth and its center for the descendants of Ismail (the biblical Ishmael).

Arabia is dominated by deserts that before modern times could not be crossed except with the help of camels which, therefore, became indispensable to the life of its people. The population centers have always been situated around wells and springs in the desert which have created the oases for which certain desert areas are well known. The majority of the population of Arabia consisted of nomads, although cities such as Mecca existed in Arabia even before the rise of Islam. It was, however, only during the twentieth century that the vast majority of the nomads of Arabia became sedentarized and attempts were made to use the vast underground water sources of the peninsula to create agriculture for the settled nomads. Throughout history, the Arabs, the descendants of lshmael (Ismail), were mostly nomads of Semitic stock. Something essential of the spiritual dimension of Semitic nomadism was, in fact, adopted by Islam and has therefore become a basic aspect of the spiritual universe of all Muslims.

Mecca’s Early Sacred History

From the Islamic point of view, Mecca, the Ka’bah and the environs of the holy city are associated with the very origin of humanity and Islam’s sacred history which, being based on the chain of prophecy, begins with Adam himself. The spiritual anthropology of Islam stated in the Qur’an begins with the creation of Adam and Eve in Paradise, their subsequent fall, which is not, however, associated with original sin in the Christian sense, and their search for each other on earth. Traditional sources mention that Adam descended in the island of Sarandib, or present-day Sri Lanka, and Eve in Arabia. Adam then set out to find Eve and finally encountered her at the plain of Arafat, so central to the rite of the annual pilgrimage to this day. Here, the two halves of primordial man, in the sense of anthropos and not only the male, became united again, and therefore it is here that one must search for the origin of the human family. It was also in this area in Mecca, then called Becca (Bakkah or “narrow valley”), that Adam built the first temple, the Ka’bah, as the earthly reflection of the Divine Throne and the prototype of all temples. Adam is said to have died and been buried in Mecca and Eve in Jeddah by the sea which still bears her name, Jiddah, meaning “maternal ancestor” in Arabic. The area of Mecca with the Ka’bah at its heart is therefore associated with primordiality, essential to Islam which considers itself as the reassertion of primordial monotheism and addresses what is primordial in the human soul, hence its also being called din al-hanif (the primordial religion) and din al-fitrah (the religion of one’s primordial nature).

Nor are the main later stages of Islamic sacred history separated from the area of Mecca. According to tradition, when the flood occurred, the body of Adam, which had been interred in Mecca, began to float on the water while the ark of Noah circumambulated around it and the Ka’bah seven times before setting out north where it landed after the flood. A thousand years later, the great patriarch of monotheism, Abraham, or Ibrahim, came to Mecca with his Egyptian wife Hagar (Hajar) and their child Ishmael (Ismail). It was he who discovered the mount left after the flood underneath which lay God’s first temple built by Adam. And it was there that Abraham set out to rebuild the Ka’bah, which in its present form owes its origin to him.

Prayers in the evening of Laylat al-Qadr, normally celebrated on the 27th day of Ramadan.

Leaving his wife and child with some water and dates, Abraham left Mecca on God’s command. Hagar suckled her son and they drank the remaining water. Soon, however, both faced great thirst and the child began to cry. Hagar began to run between two mounds named Safa and Marwah looking for water, repeating the journey seven times until an angel appeared to her, striking the ground with his wing, with the result that the spring of Zamzam, which Muslims consider as a “tributary” of the water of Paradise, gushed forth. Henceforth, Mecca was to be blessed with a source of water which has continued to this day. It was because of the Zamzam that the Jurhum tribe from northern Yemen came to settle in Mecca where they adopted Ishmael (Ismail), taught him Arabic and made him one of their own.

Muslim historians also believe that it was at Mount Thabir, situated north of the Mecca valley, that Abraham, upon returning to Mecca, took Ishmael (Ismail) to be sacrificed for God. In the Islamic version of the binding of the son of Abraham, the son himself was perfectly resigned to the Will of God as was the father. “So when they both surrendered [to Allah] and he had flung him upon his forehead We called out to him: ‘O Abraham! Thou hast already fulfilled the vision.’ Lo! Thus do We reward the good.... Then We ransomed him with a tremendous sacrifice. And we left for him among the later folk (the salvation): ‘Peace be upon Abraham!’” (Qur’an, xxxvii: 103–9). This great episode of sacred history, shared in different versions by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is thus again associated by the Muslim mind with the area of Mecca.

It was after this event and the departure and return of Abraham to Mecca that the most lasting mark of the Patriarch in Mecca was created. Upon his return, Abraham discovered that his wife Hagar had died. Then he called upon his son Ishmael (Ismail), who is called “the father of the Arabs” and was the ancestor of the Prophet of Islam, to help him in the construction of the House of God, bayt al-atiq or the “Ancient House” as the Arabs called it. The Divine Peace (al-sakinah) descended in the form of a wind which brought a cloud in the shape of a dragon that revealed to them the site of the old temple. Abraham and Ishmael (Ismail) dug the ground until they discovered with awe the ancient temple built by Adam. A stone came to light on which there was the following inscription: “I am the God of Becca. I have created compassion and love as my two appellations. Whoever attains these virtues shall meet Me. And whoever removes himself from these virtues is removed from Me.” Already Allah, whose Name is inseparable from the qualities of compassion and mercy in Islam and who was to reveal “Bismi’Llah al-Rahman al-Rahim” (In the Name of God, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful) as the formula of consecration in the Noble Qur’an, had spoken. And He had spoken at the place that was to become inseparable from the celebration of His Names of Rahman and Rahim from the time of the advent of Islam.

Abraham or Ibrahim, known in Islam also as Khalil Allah or Friend of God, built the Ka’bah as a sign of his perfect faith in his Friend. Thus does the Qur’an address him: “Associate naught with Me and purify My house for those who make the round (thereof) and those who stand and those who bow and make prostration. And proclaim unto mankind the Pilgrimage” (Qur’an, xxii: 26–7).

He made the first pilgrimage with his son Ishmael (Ismail), and in the presence of the archangel Gabriel performed all the elements which constitute the rite of Hajj today. Under Divine Command, he established a rite which was revived by the Prophet of Islam and which is inseparable from the reality of Mecca and its meaning for Muslims the world over to this day. Abraham was to leave Mecca to die in Palestine in al-Khalil, but he left an important part of himself and his heritage in Mecca. And so Abraham raised his hands in prayer and said according to the Noble Qur’an: “Our Lord, I have settled a part of my offspring in an infertile vale near Thy Sacred House, our Lord! That they may establish proper worship” (Qur’an, xiv: 37). Henceforth, Mecca became inseparable from Abrahamic monotheism, and despite the rise of Arabian paganism in later centuries in that city, it was finally here that the religion of the One was re-established in its final form with the advent of Islam. Mecca’s sacred history links it therefore inalienably to the message and heritage of Abraham, whose progeny continued to live there. Eventually, they gained power over the city and finally, as a result of their indulgence in idolatry, lost that power because of the revelation of the message of the One to one of their own, namely, Muhammad— may blessings and peace be upon him—who destroyed the idols and renewed fully the monotheism of his ancestor Abraham.

The wilderness stretching to the north of Medina forms a striking contrast to the desert area lying at the center and east of the Arabian peninsula. The Hijaz region, in which both Mecca and Medina are located, has mountains extending both north and south, some continuing to be volcanically active.

The Protohistory of Arabia and the Holy Cities

Already in an inscription of the Assyrian King Salmanazar II, dating from 854 BC, there is reference to the “Arabs”, probably meaning “desert dwellers”. The Arabs were Semites who, with the help of camels, were able to navigate the Arabian peninsula around 1000 BC while creating settlements such as Aram and Eberin in the north of the peninsula. Divided into tribes, they guarded jealously their genealogy and tribal customs, and until the advent of Islam their allegiance was first and foremost to their tribe while intertribal skirmishes and warfare characterized their lives. Some of these tribes remained in a particular region while others, such as the Amaliq, mentioned in the Bible as the Amalekites, were to be found throughout the Arabian peninsula.

It was a branch of this tribe, known as the Abil, that founded the city of Yathrib, later to be known as Medina. Blessed by much underground water, the plain of Yathrib, lying between the ranges of the Sarat Mountains, became the site of a prosperous community. But its people disobeyed God and so were punished by natural calamities such as pestilence, and also the Prophet Moses sent an army to punish them. Centuries later, Jews, probably fleeing from Nebuchadnezzar, migrated to Yathrib and formed the community whose descendants the Prophet of Islam was to meet upon his migration to that city.

According to Arab custom going back to the earliest known historical period, it was forbidden to fight in the vicinity of the Ka’bah. Another branch of the Amaliq, taking advantage of the fact that the descendants of Ishmael (Ismail), the custodians of the Ka’bah, would not engage them in battle there, attacked them and drove them out. The descendants of Ismail took refuge in the gorges around Mecca as nomads, some wandering to other parts of Arabia and others remaining close to the House of God erected by their ancestors Abraham and Ishmael (Ismail). Gradually, Mecca grew in stature as the chief sanctuary of Arabia, and tribes would come from every corner of the peninsula to pray in and around the Ka’bah, which had by now become defiled, from the Islamic point of view, with idols of various tribes, the original significance of the structure as the House of the One God eclipsed and forgotten by the majority save the few who, however, remained attached to Abrahamic monotheism and whom Islam calls the hunafa or “primordialists”. It was also as a result of the presence of these idols that Jews ceased to visit the Ka’bah. The structure of the Ka’bah remained unchanged, however, and it was rebuilt exactly as it was before by the Amaliq after a flood inundated and destroyed it. What changed over the centuries was that floods brought sedimentation from adjacent hills, which raised the ground around the Ka’bah to such an extent that the original mound upon which Abraham had built the Ka’bah was no longer visible.

It was the victory of the Jurhum tribe from the Yemen over the Amaliq and their conquest of Mecca that accentuated polytheism in the Sacred City. But they were, in turn, defeated by the Khuza’ah, an Arab tribe of Ismailite descent, which had migrated to the Yemen and then returned north. The Amaliq did not leave Mecca, however, without seeking to ravage it, including among their actions the burial of the spring of Zamzam. In entering Mecca, the Khuza’ah continued to protect the city as a center of pilgrimage for the Arab tribes, and themselves brought the famous idol Hubal, which they placed within the Ka’bah and which they made the chief idol of Mecca.

The Quraysh, the Hashimites and the Birth of the Prophet

Around the fourth or fifth Christian century, another Ismailite tribe, the Quraysh, one of whose members was to be chosen as the final prophet of God, began to gain ascendance in Mecca. One of their members, Qusayy, married the daughter of the chief of the Khuza’ah tribe and later became the ruler of Mecca and custodian of the Ka’bah. He ruled over both the Quraysh who lived near the sanctuary and those farther away. He was a capable ruler and it is said that it was he who built the city of Mecca in the form of concentric circles around the Ka’bah with the inhabitants of each circle being determined by their social rank, with those of higher rank living closer to the “Ancient House”. This original plan of the city lasted into the historical period and traces could be found until the advent of the urban development of recent decades.

The grandson of Qusayy was named Hashim, after whom the clan of the Prophet, the Hashimite, is named. Hashim was also a competent ruler and succeeded in making Mecca prosperous by expanding trade routes through the city. He married Salma, one of the most influential women of Yathrib of the tribe of Khazraj, and from this union was born Shaybah. Brought up originally by his mother in Yathrib, he was taken to Mecca upon the death of his father by his uncle Muttalib. Since he was riding behind his uncle in entering the city, he was called in error Abd al-Muttalib (the slave of Muttalib), a name with which he came to be identified. This remarkable figure of great spiritual stature and statesmanship finally became the ruler of Mecca.

Once, while sleeping by the area adjacent to the Ka’bah known as Hijr Ismail, he dreamt that he should dig for the spring of Zamzam buried long before by the Amaliq. The dream occurred twice, and so Abd al-Muttalib began to circumambulate the Ka’bah. After completing this ancient ritual, he saw a number of birds strutting to a place a hundred yards away from the Ka’bah. And so he began to dig in that spot to which he was led by the sign from Heaven. Soon, the long-lost spring of Zamzam gushed forth as if foretelling of the reassertion of primordial monotheism and the reconsecration of the Ka’bah to the One in the near future. The tribe of Hashim was given the right of supervision over the water of the Zamzam, a privilege whose significance can hardly be overemphasized.