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 suckled her son and they drank the remaining water. Soon, however, both faced great thirst and the child began to cry. Hagar began to run between two mounds named Safa and Marwah looking for water, repeating the journey seven times until an angel appeared to her, striking the ground with his wing, with the result that the spring of Zamzam, which Muslims consider as a “tributary” of the water of Paradise, gushed forth. Henceforth, Mecca was to be blessed with a source of water which has continued to this day. It was because of the Zamzam that the Jurhum tribe from northern Yemen came to settle in Mecca where they adopted Ishmael (Ismail), taught him Arabic and made him one of their own.
Muslim historians also believe that it was at Mount Thabir, situated north of the Mecca valley, that Abraham, upon returning to Mecca, took Ishmael (Ismail) to be sacrificed for God. In the Islamic version of the binding of the son of Abraham, the son himself was perfectly resigned to the Will of God as was the father. “So when they both surrendered [to Allah] and he had flung him upon his forehead We called out to him: ‘O Abraham! Thou hast already fulfilled the vision.’ Lo! Thus do We reward the good.... Then We ransomed him with a tremendous sacrifice. And we left for him among the later folk (the salvation): ‘Peace be upon Abraham!’” (Qur’an, xxxvii: 103–9). This great episode of sacred history, shared in different versions by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is thus again associated by the Muslim mind with the area of Mecca.
It was after this event and the departure and return of Abraham to Mecca that the most lasting mark of the Patriarch in Mecca was created. Upon his return, Abraham discovered that his wife Hagar had died. Then he called upon his son Ishmael (Ismail), who is called “the father of the Arabs” and was the ancestor of the Prophet of Islam, to help him in the construction of the House of God, bayt al-atiq or the “Ancient House” as the Arabs called it. The Divine Peace (al-sakinah) descended in the form of a wind which brought a cloud in the shape of a dragon that revealed to them the site of the old temple. Abraham and Ishmael (Ismail) dug the ground until they discovered with awe the ancient temple built by Adam. A stone came to light on which there was the following inscription: “I am the God of Becca. I have created compassion and love as my two appellations. Whoever attains these virtues shall meet Me. And whoever removes himself from these virtues is removed from Me.” Already Allah, whose Name is inseparable from the qualities of compassion and mercy in Islam and who was to reveal “Bismi’Llah al-Rahman al-Rahim” (In the Name of God, the Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful) as the formula of consecration in the Noble Qur’an, had spoken. And He had spoken at the place that was to become inseparable from the celebration of His Names of Rahman and Rahim from the time of the advent of Islam.
Abraham or Ibrahim, known in Islam also as Khalil Allah or Friend of God, built the Ka’bah as a sign of his perfect faith in his Friend. Thus does the Qur’an address him: “Associate naught with Me and purify My house for those who make the round (thereof) and those who stand and those who bow and make prostration. And proclaim unto mankind the Pilgrimage” (Qur’an, xxii: 26–7).
He made the first pilgrimage with his son Ishmael (Ismail), and in the presence of the archangel Gabriel performed all the elements which constitute the rite of Hajj today. Under Divine Command, he established a rite which was revived by the Prophet of Islam and which is inseparable from the reality of Mecca and its meaning for Muslims the world over to this day. Abraham was to leave Mecca to die in Palestine in al-Khalil, but he left an important part of himself and his heritage in Mecca. And so Abraham raised his hands in prayer and said according to the Noble Qur’an: “Our Lord, I have settled a part of my offspring in an infertile vale near Thy Sacred House, our Lord! That they may establish proper worship” (Qur’an, xiv: 37). Henceforth, Mecca became inseparable from Abrahamic monotheism, and despite the rise of Arabian paganism in later centuries in that city, it was finally here that the religion of the One was re-established in its final form with the advent of Islam. Mecca’s sacred history links it therefore inalienably to the message and heritage of Abraham, whose progeny continued to live there. Eventually, they gained power over the city and finally, as a result of their indulgence in idolatry, lost that power because of the revelation of the message of the One to one of their own, namely, Muhammad— may blessings and peace be upon him—who destroyed the idols and renewed fully the monotheism of his ancestor Abraham.
The wilderness stretching to the north of Medina forms a striking contrast to the desert area lying at the center and east of the Arabian peninsula. The Hijaz region, in which both Mecca and Medina are located, has mountains extending both north and south, some continuing to be volcanically active.
The Protohistory of Arabia and the Holy Cities
Already in an inscription of the Assyrian King Salmanazar II, dating from 854 BC, there is reference to the “Arabs”, probably meaning “desert dwellers”. The Arabs were Semites who, with the help of camels, were able to navigate the Arabian peninsula around 1000 BC while creating settlements such as Aram and Eberin in the north of the peninsula. Divided into tribes, they guarded jealously their genealogy and tribal customs, and until the advent of Islam their allegiance was first and foremost to their tribe while intertribal skirmishes and warfare characterized their lives. Some of these tribes remained in a particular region while others, such as the Amaliq, mentioned in the Bible as the Amalekites, were to be found throughout the Arabian peninsula.
It was a branch of this tribe, known as the Abil, that founded the city of Yathrib, later to be known as Medina. Blessed by much underground water, the plain of Yathrib, lying between the ranges of the Sarat Mountains, became the site of a prosperous community. But its people disobeyed God and so were punished by natural calamities such as pestilence, and also the Prophet Moses sent an army to punish them. Centuries later, Jews, probably fleeing from Nebuchadnezzar, migrated to Yathrib and formed the community whose descendants the Prophet of Islam was to meet upon his migration to that city.
According to Arab custom going back to the earliest known historical period, it was forbidden to fight in the vicinity of the Ka’bah. Another branch of the Amaliq, taking advantage of the fact that the descendants of Ishmael (Ismail), the custodians of the Ka’bah, would not engage them in battle there, attacked them and drove them out. The descendants of Ismail took refuge in the gorges around Mecca as nomads, some wandering to other parts of Arabia and others remaining close to the House of God erected by their ancestors Abraham and Ishmael (Ismail). Gradually, Mecca grew in stature as the chief sanctuary of Arabia, and tribes would come from every corner of the peninsula to pray in and around the Ka’bah, which had by now become defiled, from the Islamic point of view, with idols of various tribes, the original significance of the structure as the House of the One God eclipsed and forgotten by the majority save the few who, however, remained attached to Abrahamic monotheism and whom Islam calls the hunafa or “primordialists”. It was
