Mecca

Mecca lies in a dry valley of the Hijaz in western Arabia. Before Islam it was a trading town and a sanctuary centered on the Kaaba. Muhammad was born there around 570, began preaching there, emigrated to Medina in 622, and returned to take the city in 630. The Kaaba became the focus of Muslim prayer and of the hajj pilgrimage, which every able Muslim is expected to make once.

Two passages of the Qur'an discussed on this site involve Mecca. Surah 17 opens with the Night Journey, in which God carries his servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, which tradition identifies with Jerusalem, followed by an ascent through the heavens. Surah 105, 'The Elephant', recalls how an army with elephants was turned back from the Kaaba by flocks of birds pelting it with stones.

Muslim tradition identifies that army with the forces of Abraha, the Aksumite-backed ruler of Yemen, around the year of Muhammad's birth. Some historians suggest an epidemic such as smallpox may lie behind the story.