while Medina became his city by virtue of his migration there in AD 622, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The very name Medina, which in Arabic means simply “city”, is, in fact, the abbreviation of Madinat al-nabi, “the City of the Prophet”, which replaced the older name of Yathrib after the Blessed Prophet migrated to that city where he established the first Islamic community and the first mosque.
The testimony whereby a person embraces Islam is simply “la ilaha illa’Llah” (there is no divinity but Allah) and “Muhammadun rasul Allah” (Muhammad is the messenger of God), “Allah” being simply the Arabic word for God considered in His absolute Oneness beyond all hypostatic differentiations. These two formulas are inseparable in Islamic life and are seen by Muslims as being inwardly united. One may say that such is also the case of Mecca and Medina, the two holy centers of Islam, whose significance is inseparable in the religious life and thought of Muslims. Mecca is primarily the city of God by virtue of the Kab’ah and may be said to correspond to “la ilaha illa’Llah”, while Medina, where the Mosque of the Prophet and his tomb are to be found, is of course primarily the city of the Prophet and corresponds to “Muhammadun rasul Allah”. And in the same way that five times a day the call to prayer (al-adhan), heard from minarets and rooftops as well as in streets and houses throughout the Islamic World, announces the two testimonies of faith together, the barakah and significance of those holy cities remain organically united. At the same time, their influence, and the second by virtue of the first, has over the centuries dominated not only the heartland of Islam in Arabia but all Islamic lands near and far, and love for them is cherished in the hearts of men and women of all different races and climes where there has been a positive response to the call to unity (al-tawhid) of the Islamic message.
Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, a hundred years ago. In this photograph, the sacred spring Zamzam is located in a peak-roofed building adjacent to the Ka‘bah. Today, the buildings in close proximity to the Ka‘bah have been demolished and access to the spring of Zamzam has been moved underground.
The Arabian Peninsula
The peninsula of Arabia is located at the crossroad of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, its northern regions neighboring the Mediterranean world, its eastern realms Persia, and its southern shores Africa, with which it has always enjoyed close links in trade, migration of ideas and also people, as it has with its other neighbors. The southern region of the peninsula, home to ports through which goods were brought from the Indian Ocean, has always been more green than the north and was the home of many ancient civilizations. Its people, who considered themselves descendants of Qahtan, became known for the wonderful plants and perfumes that they cultivated. The frankincense and myrrh of southern Arabia were so well known in the Roman Empire that the Romans called this region Arabia Odorifera. It is sufficient to think of the Queen of Sheba and her world to recall the great regard that peoples of antiquity held for the high civilizations of southern Arabia.
As for the northern part of the peninsula, it was adjacent to the great Semitic civilizations of Mesopotamia, the influence of whose art is to be seen in the artifacts found in the north. Later, there were also close contacts with the Persian and Byzantine Empires. In the centuries between the rise of Christianity and the advent of Islam, there were, in fact, local kingdoms in the north such as the Nabataean and the Ghassanid which exercised influence upon certain aspects of the cultures of Arabia, the latter having been Christian.
Map of the center of Medina, dated 1790, when the city was surrounded by ramparts with the Mosque of the Prophet at its heart. The ramparts seen here, 2,300 meters long with four gates, were completed in 948/1541.
The heartland of Arabia, consisting of Hijaz and Najd, continued, however, to be dominated mostly by Arab nomads who had remained on the margin of the major historical developments to their north and were not greatly influenced by either Judaism or Christianity despite the presence of members of both communities in the cities of Arabia. As far as Hijaz, the sacred land in which Mecca and Medina are located, is concerned, it is the name of the western region of the Arabian peninsula, consisting of a fairly narrow tract of land about 1,400 kilometers long east of the Red Sea with the Tropic of Cancer running through its center. The land is called Hijaz, meaning “barrier”, because its backbone, the Sarat Mountains, running parallel to the Red Sea, separates the flat coastal area called Tihamah from the highlands of Najd. The Sarat Mountains consist of volcanic peaks and natural depressions, creating a stark and rugged environment dominated by intense sunlight and with little rain. And it is in one of the natural depressions of this mountain range that is to be found the sacred city of Mecca, the hub of the earth and its center for the descendants of Ismail (the biblical Ishmael).
Arabia is dominated by deserts that before modern times could not be crossed except with the help of camels which, therefore, became indispensable to the life of its people. The population centers have always been situated around wells and springs in the desert which have created the oases for which certain desert areas are well known. The majority of the population of Arabia consisted of nomads, although cities such as Mecca existed in Arabia even before the rise of Islam. It was, however, only during the twentieth century that the vast majority of the nomads of Arabia became sedentarized and attempts were made to use the vast underground water sources of the peninsula to create agriculture for the settled nomads. Throughout history, the Arabs, the descendants of lshmael (Ismail), were mostly nomads of Semitic stock. Something essential of the spiritual dimension of Semitic nomadism was, in fact, adopted by Islam and has therefore become a basic aspect of the spiritual universe of all Muslims.
Mecca’s Early Sacred History
From the Islamic point of view, Mecca, the Ka’bah and the environs of the holy city are associated with the very origin of humanity and Islam’s sacred history which, being based on the chain of prophecy, begins with Adam himself. The spiritual anthropology of Islam stated in the Qur’an begins with the creation of Adam and Eve in Paradise, their subsequent fall, which is not, however, associated with original sin in the Christian sense, and their search for each other on earth. Traditional sources mention that Adam descended in the island of Sarandib, or present-day Sri Lanka, and Eve in Arabia. Adam then set out to find Eve and finally encountered her at the plain of Arafat, so central to the rite of the annual pilgrimage to this day. Here, the two halves of primordial man, in the sense of anthropos and not only the male, became united again, and therefore it is here that one must search for the origin of the human family. It was also in this area in Mecca, then called Becca (Bakkah or “narrow valley”), that Adam built the first temple, the Ka’bah, as the earthly reflection of the Divine Throne and the prototype of all temples. Adam is said to have died and been buried in Mecca and Eve in Jeddah by the sea which still bears her name, Jiddah, meaning “maternal ancestor” in Arabic. The area of Mecca with the Ka’bah at its heart is therefore associated with primordiality, essential to Islam which considers itself as the reassertion of primordial monotheism and addresses what is primordial in the human soul, hence its also being called din al-hanif (the primordial religion) and din al-fitrah (the religion of one’s primordial nature).
Nor are the main later stages of Islamic sacred history separated from the area of Mecca. According to tradition, when the flood occurred, the body of Adam, which had been interred in Mecca, began to float on the water while the ark of Noah circumambulated around it and the Ka’bah seven times before setting out north where it landed after the flood. A thousand years later, the great patriarch of monotheism, Abraham, or Ibrahim, came to Mecca with his Egyptian wife Hagar (Hajar) and their child Ishmael (Ismail). It was he who discovered the mount left after the flood underneath which lay God’s first temple built by Adam. And it was there that Abraham set out to rebuild the Ka’bah, which in its present form owes its origin to him.
Prayers in the evening of Laylat al-Qadr, normally celebrated on the 27th day of Ramadan.
Leaving his wife and child with some water and dates, Abraham left Mecca on God’s command. Hagar