Mecca

From Mw

Mecca (also spelled as Makkah) (Arabic: مكة) is a city in Saudi Arabia, which is located about 80 km from the Red Sea Coast around a natural well, called Zamzam. It is the most holy city of Islam, and the place of Muhammad's birth. Mecca has a population of 1.4 million inhabitants. (2003 est.)[1]

The city is revered from being the first place created on earth, as well as the place where Ibrahim together with his son Isma'il, built the Ka'ba. The Ka'ba, the center of Islam, is a rectangular building made of bricks. Around the Ka'ba is the great mosque, al-Haram, and around the mosque, in between the mountains, are the houses that make up Mecca. A Muslim must perform a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. Mecca was a central point on the caravan routes running over the Arabian peninsula at the time of Muhammad. Mecca was revered as a holy city even before the first revelations came to Muhammad.