It is said in the Koran (sur. xiv. 40) that Mecca lies in a sterile valley, and the old geographers observe that the whole Haram or sacred territory round the city is almost absolutely without cultivation or date palms, while fruit trees, springs, wells, gardens, and green valleys are found immediately beyond. Mecca in fact lies in the heart of a mass of rough hills, intersected by a labyrinth of narrow valleys and passes, and projecting into the Tihâma or low country on the Red Sea, in front of the great mountain wall that divides the coast lands from the central plateau, though in turn they are themselves separated from the sea by a second curtain of hills forming the western wall of the great Wâdy Marr. The inner mountain wall is pierced by two and only two great passes, and the valleys descending from these embrace on both sides the Mecca hills. The north-western pass, through which the Nejd traffic descends to the coast, and which also affords the easiest though longest route from Jidda and Mecca to Tâif and thence through the true Hijâz to Yemen, is the Derb el-Seil or torrent path down the well-watered Wâdy Marr. This Wâdy skirts the complex of Mecca hills on the north-west from Zeima by Wâdy Fâtima (where it is joined by the great coast road from Medina and Syria) to Hadda on the Mecca and Jidda road, a distance of perhaps 50 miles. Main roads converge to Mecca from the three points of the Wâdy just named, the distance of the city from the last two being about 20 miles. From this side the most prominent of the Mecca hills is the northern “Mountain of Light” (J. Nur). The other pass, which affords a shorter mule road to Tâif and the southern highlands, but is not practicable for ordinary baggage camels, descends from the summit of J. Kara, and leads through the great W. Na'man, the Wâdy of the Hodheil, to the plain beneath ‘Arafa, the most easterly of the holy sites connected with Mecca. From this point a tolerably level route skirts the Mecca hills on the south, passing very close to Mecca under the opposite side of J. el-Thaur, is joined or crossed by several roads from the south, including the great lowland Yemen road, and ultimately falls into the road from Mecca to Hadda, a little beyond the pillars that define the Haram. The broad valleys through which this southern road leads are not so well watered as W. Marr, but have several fertile spots and a good deal of laud cultivable after rain. From this description the importance of the situation of Mecca will be easily understood. It commands both the great routes connecting the lowlands with central Arabia, and thus has the advantage overTâif, its former commercial rival, which lies indeed on the inland mountain road from Yemen to Nejd behind Mount Kara, but has no ready connexion with the Tihâma. Mecca, on the contrary, though apparently secluded in its hills from the main valleys—it is in fact not visible from any point till one is quite close to the town—lies in the focus of all the great roads from north to south or from the coast inland, with the single exception of the mountain road behind Kara; and the low passes that intersect the Mecca hills form a series of practicable short cuts connecting all the chief points of the circle of valleys already described.

Holding this position, and situated in a narrow and barren valley quite incapable of supporting an urban population, Mecca must have been from the first a commercial town. In the palmy days of South Arabia it was probably a station on the great incense route, and thus Ptolemy may have learned the name, which he writes Makoraba. At all events, long before Mohammed we find Mecca established in the twofold quality of a commercial centre and a privileged holy place, surrounded by an inviolable territory (the Haram), which was not the sanctuary of a single tribe but a place of pilgrimage, where religious observances were associated with a series of annual fairs at different points in the vicinity. The combination of commerce with religion was no unusual thing in Arabia. Of old the incense trade had its religious features, and indeed in the unsettled state of the country commerce was possible only under the sanctions of religion, and through the provisions of the sacred truce which prohibited war for four months of the year, three of these being the month of pilgrimage, with those immediately preceding and following. The first of the series of fairs in which the Meccans had an interest was at 'Okâz on the easier road between Mecca and Tâif, where there was also a sanctuary, and from it the visiters, drawn from tribes far and near, moved on to points still nearer Mecca (Majanna, and finally Dhu’l-Majâz, on the flank of J. Kabkab behind 'Arafa) where further fairs were held, culminating in the special religious ceremonies of the great feast at 'Arafa, Kuzah (Mozdalifa), and Mecca itself. The system of intercalation in the lunar calendar of the heathen Arabs was designed to secure that the feast should always fall at the time when the hides, fruits, and other merchandise were ready for market, and the Meccans, who knew how to attract the Bedouins by profuse and systematic hospitality, bought up these wares in exchange for imported goods, and so became the leaders of the international trade of Arabia. Their caravans traversed the length and breadth of the peninsula. Syria, and especially Gaza, was their chief goal, and we read that the Syrian caravan intercepted, on its return, at Bedr represented capital to the value of <£20,000, an enormous sum for those days.

The victory of Mohammedanism made a vast change in the position of Mecca. The merchant aristocracy became satraps or pensioners of a great empire; but the seat of dominion was removed beyond the desert, and though Mecca and the Hijâz strove for a time to maintain political as well as religious predominance, as will be related under Mohammedan Empire, the struggle was vain, and terminated on the death of Ibn Zubeyr, the Meccan prétendant to the caliphate, when the city was taken by Hajj<ij (G92 A.D.). On the other hand, the sanctuary and feast of Mecca received a new prestige from the victory of Islâm. Purged of elements obviously heathenish, the Ka'ba (Caaba) became the holiest site, and the pilgrimage the most sacred ritual observance of Mohammedanism, drawing worshippers from so wide a circle that the confluence of the petty traders of the desert was no longer the main feature of the holy season. The pilgrimage retained its importance for the commercial wellbeing of Mecca; to this day the Meccans live by the Hajj—letting rooms, acting as guides and directors in the sacred ceremonies, as contractors and touts for land and sea transport, as well as exploiting for their own advantage the many benefactions that flow to the holy city; while the surrounding Bedouins derive a chief part of their support from the cameltransport it demands and from the subsidies and gifts by which they are engaged to protect or abstain from molesting the pilgrim caravans. But the ancient “fairs of heathenism” were given up, and the traffic of the pilgrim season, sanctioned by the Prophet in sut', ii. 194, was concentrated at Minâ and Mecca, where most of the pilgrims still have something to buy or sell, so that Minâ, after the sacrifice of the feast day, presents the aspect of a huge international fancy fair. In the Middle Ages this trade was much more important than it is now. Ibn Jubair in the 12 th century describes the mart of Mecca in the eight days following the feast as full of gems, unguents, precious drugs, and all rare merchandise from India,'Irâk, Khorâsân, and every part of the Moslem world.

Mecca, as has been already indicated, lies in a narrow sandy valley running approximately from north to south between the Red Mountain on the west and the loftier chain of J. Abu Kobeys on the east. These ranges, which are partly built on and rise several hundred feet above the valley, so enclose the city that the ancient walls only barred the valley at three points, where three gates led into the town. In the time of Ibn Jubair the gates still stood though the walls were ruined, but now the gates have only left their names to quarters of the town. At the northern or upper end was the Bàb el Ma' là, or gate of the upper quarter, whence the road continues up the valley towards Minâ and 'Arafa as well as towards Zeima and the Nejd. Beyond the gate, in a place called the Hajιin, is the chief cemetery, said to be the resting-place of many of the companions of Mohammed. Here a cross-road, running over the hill to join the main Medina road from the western gate, turns off to the west by the pass of KadA, the point from which the troops of the Prophet stormed the city (a.h. 8). Here too the body of Ibn Zubeyr was hung on a cross by Hajjâj. The lower or southern gate, at the Masfala quarter, opened on the Yemen road, where the rain-water from Mecca flows off into an open valley. Beyond, there are mountains on both sides; on that to the east, commanding the town, is the great castle, a fortress of considerable strength. The third or western gate, Bâb el-Omra (formerly also Bâb el-Zâhir, from a village of that name), lay almost opposite the great mosque, and opened on a road leading westwards round the southern spurs of the Red Mountain. This is the way to Wâdy Fâtima and Medina, the Jidda road branching off from it to the left. Considerable suburbs now lie outside the quarter named after this gate; in the Middle Ages a pleasant country road led for some miles through partly cultivated land with good wells, as far as the boundary of the sacred territory and gathering place of the pilgrims at Tanim, near the mosque of 'Aisha. This is the spot on the Medina road now called the'Omra, from a ceremonial connected with it which will be mentioned below.

The length of the sinuous main axis of the city from the furthest suburbs on the Medina road to the suburbs in the extreme north, now frequented by Bedouins, is, according to Burckhardt, 3500 paces. About the middle of this line the longitudinal thoroughfares are pushed aside by the vast courtyard and colonnades composing the great mosque, which, with its spacious arcades surrounding the Ka'ba and other holy places, and its seven minarets, forms the only prominent architectural feature of the city. The mosque is enclosed by houses with windows opening on the arcades and commanding a view of the Ka' ba. Immediately beyond these, on the side facing J. Abu Kobeys, a broad street runs south-east and north-west across the valley. This is the Mas'à or sacred course between the eminences of Safà and Merwa, and has been from very early times one of the most lively bazaars and the centre of Meccan life. The other chief bazaars are also near the mosque in smaller streets. The rest of the town presents no points of individual interest, but its general aspect is picturesque; the streets are fairly spacious, though ill-kept and filthy; the houses are all of stone, many of them well-built and four or five stories high, with terraced roofs and large projecting windows as in Jidda—a style of building which has not varied materially since the 10th century (Mokaddasi, p. 71), and gains in effect from the way in which the dwellings run up the sides and spurs of the mountains. Of public institutions there are baths, ribâts or hospices for poor pilgrims from India, Java, &c., a hospital with fifty beds, a public kitchen for the poor, badly administered by the Turkish authorities. A settler from India has recently set up a theological school; but the old colleges around the mosque have long since been converted into lodgings. The minor places of visitation for pilgrims, such as the birth-places of the Prophet and his chief followers, are not notable. Both these and the court of the great mosque are observed to lie beneath the general level of the city, so that it is evident that the site of the town has been gradually raised by accumulated rubbish. The town in fact has little air of antiquity; genuine Arab buildings do not last long, especially in a valley periodically ravaged by tremendous floods when the tropical rains burst on the surrounding hills. The history of Mecca is full of the record of these inundations, unsuccessfully combated by the great dam drawn across the valley by the caliph Omar (Kutb el-Din, p. 76), and later works of El-Mahdi,

The fixed population of Mecca in 1878 was estimated by Assistant-Surgeon 'Abd el-Razzàk at 50,000 to 60,000; but the materials for an estimate are very inadequate where there is so large a floating population—and that not merely at the proper season of pilgrimage, the pilgrims of one season often beginning to arrive before those of the former season have all dispersed. At the height of the season the town is much overcrowded, and the entire want of a drainage system is severely felt. Fortunately good water is tolerably plentiful; for, though the wells are mostly undrinkable, and even the famous Zamzam water very unwholesome and tainted with sewage, the underground conduit from beyond 'Arafa, completed by Sultan Selim II. in 1571, supplies' to the public fountains a sweet and light water, containing, according to 'Abd el-Razzâk, a large amount of chlorides. The water is said to be free to townsmen, but is sold to the pilgrims at a rather high rate.

Mediaeval writers celebrate the copious supplies, especially of fine fruits, brought to the city from Tâif and other fertile parts of Arabia. These fruits are still famous; rice and other foreign products are brought by sea to Jidda; mutton is plentifully supplied from the desert. The industries of Mecca all centre in the pilgrimage; the chief object of every Meccan—from the notables and sheikhs, who use their influence to gain custom for the Jidda speculators in the pilgrim traffic, down to the cicerones, pilgrim brokers, lodging-house keepers, and semi-mendicant hangers on at the holy places—being to pillage the visiter in every possible way. Thus the fanaticism of the Meccan is an affair of the purse; the mongrel population (for the town is by no means purely Arab) has exchanged the virtues of the Bedouin for the worst corruptions of Eastern town life, without casting off the ferocity of the desert, and it is hardly possible to find a worse certificate of character than the three parallel gashes on each cheek, called Tashrit, which are the customary mark of birth in the holy city. The unspeakable vices of Mecca are a scandal to all Islâm, and a constant source of wonder to pious pilgrims. The slave trade, which still subsists and is very dear to the Arab heart, has connexions with the pilgrimage which are not yet thoroughly cleared up; but there is no doubt that under cover of the pilgrimage a great deal of kidnapping and importation of slaves goes on.

Since the fall of Ibn Zubeyr the political position of Mecca has always been dependent on the movements of the greater Mohammedan world. In the splendid times of the caliphs immense sums were lavished upon the pilgrimage and the holy ςity; and conversely the decay of the central authority of Islàm brought with it a long period of faction, wars, and misery, in which the most notable episode was the sack of Mecca, with circumstances of great barbarity, by the Carmathians at the pilgrimage season of 930 A.D. The victors carried off the “black stone,” which was not restored for twenty-two years, and then only for a great ransom, when it was plain that even the loss of the palladium could not destroy the sacred character of the city. Under the Fatimites Egyptian influence began to be strong in Mecca; it was opposed by the sultans of Yemen, while native princes claiming descent from the Prophet—the Hâshimite emirs of Mecca, and after them the emirs of the house of Katàda (since 1202)—attained to great authority and aimed at independence; but soon after the final fall of the Abbasids the Egyptian overlordship was definitively established by Sultan Bibars (1269 a.d.). The Turkish conquest of Egypt transferred the supremacy to the Ottoman sultans (1517), who treated Mecca with much favour, and during the 16th century executed great works in the sanctuary and temple. The Ottoman power, however, became gradually almost nominal, and that of the emirs or sherifs increased in proportion, culminating under Ghâlib, whose accession dates from 1786. Then followed the wars of the Wahhâbis (see Arabia, vol. ii. p. 260) and the restoration of Turkish rule by the troops of Mohammed 'Alf. By him the dignity of sherif was deprived of much of its weight, and in 1827 a change of dynasty was effected by the appointment of Ibn 'Auu. Since that time the Turkish authority has again decayed, though Mecca is still nominally the capital of a Turkish province, and lias a governor-general and a Turkish garrison, while Mohammedan law is administered by a judge sent from Constantinople. But, except within the larger towns, at which troops are stationed, the Turks are practically powerless, and the real sovereign of Mecca and the Hijàz is the sherif, who, as head of a princely family claiming descent from the Prophet, holds a sort of feudal position in the country. The dignity of sherif (or grand sherif, as Europeans usually say for the sake of distinction, since all the kin of the princely houses reckoning descent from the Prophet are also named sherifs), is often conceived as a religious pontificate, and anti-Turkish Arabs contend that if the sultan and the sherif were together in a mosque the latter would lead the prayers as imàm; but it is more correct to regard the sherif as the modern counterpart of the ancient emirs of Mecca already referred to, who were named in the public prayers immediately after the reigning caliph. This dignity long ran in the family of Hasan, son of the caliph'All, with which the present sherifs, in spite of changes of dynasty, still count kindred. The influence of the princes of Mecca has varied from time to time according to the strength of the foreign protectorate in the Hijàz or in consequence of feuds among the branches of the house; at present it is for most purposes much greater than that of the Turks. The latter are strong enough to hold the garrisoned towns, and thus the sultan is able within certain limits—playing off one against the other the two rival branches of the aristocracy, viz., the kin of Ghàlib and the house of Ibn'Aun—to assert the right of designating or removing the sherif, to whom in turn he owes the possibility of maintaining, with the aid of considerable pensions, the semblance of his much-prized lordship over the holy cities. The grand sherif can muster a considerable force of freedmen and clients, and his kin, holding wells and lands in various places through the Hijàz, act as his deputies and administer the old Arabic customary law to the Bedouins. To this influence the Hijàz owes what little of law and order it enjoys. After the sherifs the principal family of Mecca is the house of Sheyb, which holds the hereditary custodianship of the Ka' ba.

The Great Mosque and the Kaba.— Long before Mohammed the chief sanctuary of Mecca was the Ka'ba, a rude stone building, so named from its resemblance to a monstrous astragalus or die, of about 40 feet cube, though the shapeless mass is not really an exact cube or even exactly rectangular. The Ka'ba has been rebuilt more than once since Mohammed purged it of idols and adopted it as the chief sanctuary of Islàm, but the old form has been preserved except in secondary details; so that the “Ancient House,” as it is titled, is still essentially a heathen temple, adapted to the worship of Islàm by the clumsy fiction that it was built by Abraham and Ishmael by divine revelation as a temple of pure monotheism, and that it was only temporarily perverted to idol...