Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Revolt in Arabia (1917).djvu/22

 Rh Still the Arabian peninsula, arid though it is in the main, retained its prestige in the Moslem world, not only as the fatherland of the conquerors, but also as the Holy Land of Islam. Mecca might be ill adapted for a political capital, but it was, in the eyes of the faithful, the earth's centre, where the first human pair had walked, where Abraham had founded the first House of God, the Kaba, where every normal Mohammedan was bound to go once in his life to take part in the religious festival annually celebrated there.

While Mecca had already long been a religious centre for the heathen Arabians, after Mohammed's death Medina was classed with it as a spot where the foundations of Moslem theocracy were laid, where the Prophet had built his first mosque, and where he was buried. The lieutenants of the Caliphs in West Arabia