Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/702

Rh 670 MECCA 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 land cultivable after rain. 1 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, aud thus has the advantage overTaif, 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 Tihama. 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. 2 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 com mercial town. 3 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 com mercial 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 religions observances were associated with a series of annual fairs at different points in the vicinity. 4 The com bination 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 pro hibited 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 Okaz on the easier road between Mecca and Taif, 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-Majaz, on the flank of J. Kabkab behind Arafa) where further fairs were held, 5 culminating in the 1 To this description of the valleys surrounding the Mecca group on three sides, which is mainly drawn from personal observation in 1880, it may be added that there is a direct and easy camel route from Zeima to Arafa between the Mecca hills and the mountains of the Hodheil. Taking this fact with the statement of Wakidi ( Wellhausen s Muh. in Med., p. 341) that every wady in the sacred territory flows outwards into common ground except that at Tan im (near the Hudud on the Medina road, Yakut, i. 879 ; Ibn Jubair, p. 110) we see that Mecca lies in an isolated group of hills a sort of outpost of the great mountain wall. 2 The inland road in ancient times was not so valuable as the coast road to Syria, on account of the scarcity of water (Muh. in Med., p. 100). 3 Mecca, says one of its citizens, ap. Wakidi (Kremer s ed., p. 196, or Muh. in Med., p. 100), is a settlement formed for trade with Syria in summer and Abyssinia in winter, and cannot continue to exist if the trade is interrupted. 4 Details as to the inhabitants and constitution of Mecca before Islam will be given under MOHAMMED. 5 The details are variously related. See Biruni, p. 328 (E. T., p. 324) ; Asma i in Yakut, Hi. 705, iv. 416, 421 ; Azraki, p. 129 sq. ; special religious ceremonies of the great feast at Arafa, Kuzah (Mozdalifa), and Mecca itself. The system of inter calation 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, 6 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. 7 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 Hijaz 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 pre- tendant to the caliphate, when the city was taken by Hajjaj (692 A.D.). On the other hand, the sanctuary and feast of Mecca received a new prestige from the victory of Islam. 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 aud 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 camel- transport it demands and from the subsidies and gifts by which they are engaged to protect or abstain from molest ing the pilgrim caravans. But the ancient &quot;fairs of heathenism &quot; were given up, and the traffic of the pilgrim season, sanctioned by the Prophet in sur. ii. 194, was con centrated at Mina and Mecca, where most of the pilgrims still have something to buy or sell, so that Mina, after the sacrifice of the feast day, presents the aspect of a huge international fancy fair. 8 In the Middle Ages this trade was much more important than it is now. Ibn Jubair in the 12th 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, c Irak, Khorasan, and every part of the Moslem world. 9 Mecca, as has been already indicated, lies in a narrow sandy valley running approximately from north to south between the Bed 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 Bekri, p. 661. Jebel Kabkab is a great mountain occupying the angle between W. Na man and the plain of Arafa. The peak is due north of Sheddad, the hamlet which Burckhardt (i. 115) calls Shedad. According to Azraki, p. 80, the last shrine visited was that of the three trees of Uzz4 in W. Nakhla. 6 So we are told by Biruni, p. 62 (E. T., p. 73). 7 Wakidi, ed. Kremer, pp. 20, 21 ; Muh. in Med., p. 39. 8 The older fairs were not entirely deserted till the troubles of the last days of the Omayyads (Azrakf, p. 131). 9 Ibn Jubair, ed. Wright, p. 118 sq.