LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mecca: Saudi Arabia
built 630 days ago
It is interesting to note that prior to the age of the European world explorations, the pilgrimage to Mecca was the single largest expression of human mobility. As the religion of Islam rapidly spread across the world from Indonesia and China in the Far East to Spain, Morocco and West Africa in the west, ever increasing numbers of pilgrims made the long, and often dangerous, journey to Mecca. Some came by boat, braving the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Others spent months in camel caravans slowly crossing great tracts of land. The most important pilgrimage caravans were the Egyptian, the Syrian, the Maghribi (the trans-Saharan route), the Sudanese (the sub-Saharan, savanna route), and those from Iraq and Persia.
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Today, many of the people living in Mecca are pilgrims wanting to study Islam in the very centre of the world. But this learning is primarily aimed at normal people, and even today Muslim theology is exercised other places. But for Saudi Arabia, Mecca is the centre of religious teaching.
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Despite its continuing religious significance, Mecca lost its political importance in the seventh century (the first century of Islam) when the capital of the caliphate moved first to Medina and later outside Arabia altogether. Thus Mecca became a provincial backwater ruled by governors appointed from afar. But as central authority weakened, local sharifs claiming descent from the prophet Muhammad were able to assert their control and remain substantially in power from about 965 to 1924, but never with full independence. From 1517, the sharifs fell under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire but remained effective local rulers, sharing power with the Turkish governors of Jidda. From 1916 to 1924, Mecca was part of the short-lived Kingdom of the Hijaz proclaimed by the last sharif, but then was conquered and incorporated into Saudi Arabia.
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Mecca didn't become a 'universal' religious center until the appearance of Islam. Even by the time of Muhammed, sectarian Jews and Christians of Arabia, used to face Jerusalem in their prayers and not the Ka'bah.
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With the passage of centuries, the original Abrahamic observances at the Ka’ba were progressively diluted by the addition of various pagan elements (these arriving via the caravan routes that led to Mecca). The pilgrims of pre-Islamic times visited not only the house of Abraham and the sacred stone of Gabriel but ... the collection of stone idols (representing different deities) housed in and around the Ka’ba. There were said to be 360 different deities including Awf, the great bird, Hubal the Nabatean god, the three celestial goddesses Manat, al-Uzza and al-Lat, and statues of Mary and Jesus. The most important of all these deities, and chief of the Meccan pantheon, was known as Allah (meaning “the god”). Worshipped throughout southern Syria and northern Arabia, and the only deity not represented by an idol in the Ka’ba, Allah would later become the sole god of the Muslims.
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PA President Abbas and Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khaled Mashaal were headed for Mecca for their two-day summit. Hamas delegation consisted of PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahhar and a number of senior Hamas members. The Fatah delegation included Mohammed Dahlan, Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip. The meeting was expected to take place at a guest palace of Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz that overlooked the Kaaba, the black-draped cubic shrine. Both sides expressed optimism that an agreement on a national unity government would be reached. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that there were more major issues to be addressed in Mecca and he hoped that they would return with an agreement which would end the conflict and enhance partnership.
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