page_title: Mecca
section_title: Muhammad and the conquest of Mecca
hierarchical_section_title: Mecca / History / Muhammad and the conquest of Mecca
caption_attribution_description: English: Panoramic View of Mecca, Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 1845. From the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage.
context_page_description: Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah and commonly shortened to Makkah, is the holiest city in Islam and the capital of the Makkah Province of Saudi Arabia. The city is located 70 km inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley 277 m above sea level. Its last recorded population was 1,578,722 in 2015. estimated metro population in 2020 is 2.042 million, making it the third-most populated city in the kingdom. Pilgrims more than triple this number every year during the Ḥajj pilgrimage, observed in the twelfth Hijri month of Dhūl-Ḥijjah.
  Mecca is the birthplace of Muhammad. The Hira cave located atop the Jabal al-Nur is located just outside the city and is the location where Muslims believe the Qur'an was first revealed to Muhammad. Visiting Mecca for the Hajj is an obligation upon all able Muslims. The Great Mosque of Mecca, known as the Masjid al-Haram is home to the Ka'bah, believed by Muslims to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael, is one of Islam's holiest sites and the direction of prayer for all Muslims, cementing Mecca's significance in Islam.
context_section_description: Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with it ever since. He was born in a minor faction, the Banu Hashim, 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 Jibreel in 610 AD. Advocating his form of Abrahamic monotheism against Meccan paganism, and after enduring persecution from the pagan tribes for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated to Medina (hijrah) in 622 with his companions, the Muhajirun, to Yathrib (later renamed Madinah). The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims is accepted to have begun at this point. Overall, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam failed and proved to be costly and unsuccessful. During the Battle of the Trench in 627, the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad's forces.
  In 628, 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 and their allies promised to cease fighting Muslims and their allies 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 Banu Bakr, allies of the Quraish, violated the truce by slaughtering a group of the Banu Khuza'ah, allies of the Muslims. Muhammad and his companions, now 10,000 strong, marched into Mecca and conquered the city. The pagan imagery was destroyed by Muhammad's followers and the location Islamized and rededicated to the worship of Allah alone. Mecca was declared the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj), one of the faith's Five Pillars. 
  Muhammad then 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 under the banner of Islam. Muhammad died in 632. Within the next few hundred years, stretched from North Africa into Asia and parts of Europe. As the Islamic realm 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.
caption: Panorama of Mecca, 1845, from the Khalili Collections
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