Why did makkah

It is said that when Muhammad emerged from his house, he recited the a verse from the Quran and threw a handful of dust in the direction of the besiegers, which prevented them seeing him. He stopped at a place called Quba, some miles from the main city, and established a mosque there. After a fourteen-days stay at Quba, Muhammad started for Medina, participating in his first Friday prayer on the way, and upon reaching the city was greeted cordially by its people.

The Hijra and other early Muslim migrations. The Hijra is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib, which he later renamed Medina, in CE. The community defined in the Constitution of Medina, Ummah , had a religious outlook, also shaped by practical considerations, and substantially preserved the legal forms of the old Arab tribes.

The first group of pagan converts to Islam in Medina were the clans who had not produced great leaders for themselves but had suffered from warlike leaders from other clans. This was followed by the general acceptance of Islam by the pagan population of Medina, with some exceptions.

Around CE, the nascent Islamic state was somewhat consolidated when Muhammad left Medina to perform pilgrimage at Mecca. The Quraysh intercepted him en route and made a treaty with the Muslims. Though the terms of the Hudaybiyyah treaty may have been unfavorable to the Muslims of Medina, the Quran declared it a clear victory.

The Hajj takes place in the last month of the Islamic year, known as Dhu'l Hijja and includes certain rituals which must be completed. Every Muslim who can is expected to go on Hajj at least once in their lifetime.

It took the British Museum more than two years to collect all the objects, which include a seetanah which covers the door of the Ka'ba, archaeological material, manuscripts, textiles, historic photographs and contemporary art.

Also on Inside the Middle East: Finding freedom behind bars. The exhibition was put together with the help of the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh, which arranged the loan of some objects which had never before been taken outside Saudi Arabia. Eventually they did an excellent job. Porter said: "The most challenging aspect for us was to turn it from a mere collection of objects into something evocative of the strong spiritual experience.

To accompany its exhibition, the British Museum invited Muslims to recount their own experiences on its website , and hundreds have done so. Abraha sent a dispatch inviting Abdul-Muttalib to meet with Abraha and discuss matters. When Abdul-Muttalib left the meeting he was heard saying, "The Owner of this House is its Defender, and I am sure he will save it from the attack of the adversaries and will not dishonor the servants of His House. It has been theorized that an epidemic such as by smallpox could have caused such a failed invasion of Mecca.

The reference to the story in Qur'an is rather short. According to the al-Fil sura, the next day, [as Abraha prepared to enter the city], a dark cloud of small birds sent by Allah appeared. The birds carried small rocks in their beaks, and bombarded the Ethiopian forces and smashed them like "eaten straw". Camel caravans, said to have first been used by Muhammad's great-grandfather, were a major part of Mecca's bustling economy.

Alliances were struck between the merchants in Mecca and the local nomadic tribes, who would bring goods — leather, livestock, and metals mined in the local mountains — to Mecca to be loaded on the caravans and carried to cities in Syria and Iraq. Historical accounts also provide some indication that goods from other continents may also have flowed through Mecca.

Goods from Africa and the Far East passed through en route to Syria including spices, leather, medicine, cloth, and slaves; in return Mecca received money, weapons, cereals and wine, which in turn were distributed throughout Arabia. The Meccans signed treaties with both the Byzantines and the Bedouins, and negotiated safe passages for caravans, giving them water and pasture rights.

Mecca became the center of a loose confederation of client tribes, which included those of the Banu Tamim. Other regional powers such as the Abyssinian, Ghassan, and Lakhm were in decline leaving Meccan trade to be the primary binding force in Arabia in the late 6th century. Muhammad was born in Mecca in , and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with it ever since. He was born in a minor faction, the Hashemites, of the ruling Quraysh tribe. It was in Mecca, in the nearby mountain cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nour, that, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad began receiving divine revelations from God through the Archangel Gabriel in AD, and advocated his form of Abrahamic monotheism against Meccan paganism.

After enduring persecution from the pagan tribes for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated see Hijra in with his companions, the Muhajirun, to Yathrib later called Medina.

The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims, however, continued: The two fought in the Battle of Badr, where the Muslims defeated the Quraysh outside Medina; while the Battle of Uhud ended indecisively. Overall, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam failed and proved to be costly and unsuccessful. During the Battle of the Trench in , the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad's forces. In , Muhammad and his followers wanted to enter Mecca for pilgrimage, but were blocked by the Quraysh.

Subsequently, Muslims and Meccans entered into the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, whereby the Quraysh promised to cease fighting Muslims and promised that Muslims would be allowed into the city to perform the pilgrimage the following year.

It was meant to be a ceasefire for 10 years. However, just two years later, the Quraysh violated the truce by slaughtering a group of Muslims and their allies. Muhammad and his companions, now 10, strong, marched into Mecca. However, instead of continuing their fight, the city of Mecca surrendered to Muhammad, who declared peace and amnesty for its inhabitants.

The pagan imagery was destroyed by Muhammad's followers and the location Islamized and rededicated to the worship of God. Mecca was declared as the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage, one of the faith's Five Pillars.

Then, Muhammad returned to Medina, after assigning Akib ibn Usaid as governor of the city. His other activities in Arabia led to the unification of the peninsula.

Muhammad died in , but with the sense of unity that he had passed on to his Ummah Islamic nation , Islam began a rapid expansion, and within the next few hundred years stretched from North Africa into Asia and parts of Europe. As the Islamic Empire grew, Mecca continued to attract pilgrims from all across the Muslim world and beyond, as Muslims came to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Mecca also attracted a year-round population of scholars, pious Muslims who wished to live close to the Kaaba, and local inhabitants who served the pilgrims.

Due to the difficulty and expense of the Hajj, pilgrims arrived by boat at Jeddah, and came overland, or joined the annual caravans from Syria or Iraq. Mecca was never the capital of any of the Islamic states but Muslim rulers did contribute to its upkeep.

During the reigns of Umar —44 CE and Uthman ibn Affan —56 concerns of flooding caused the caliphs to bring in Christian engineers to build barrages in the low-lying quarters and construct dykes and embankments to protect the area round the Kaaba.

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