Makkah
Zhra
Makkah is located about 80 km from the Red Sea Coast, around a natural
well.
Makkah is the most holy city in Islam. The city is revered from
being the first place created on earth, as well as the place where
Ibrahim (AS) together with his son Isma'il (AS), built the Ka'ba. The
Ka'ba, the centre 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 Makkah.
Makkah was a central point on the caravan routes running over the
Arabian peninsula at the time of Muhammad (PBUH).
Makkah was revered as a holy city even before the first revelations
came to Muhammad (PBUH).
Makkah's importance as a centre of religious teaching must not be
exaggerated. Very soon in the beginning of the Muslim expansion,
religious teaching moved to other places in the Muslim world. Makkah is
important in two points: Centre of the compulsory pilgrimage, and a
focal point for all Muslims.
Today, many of the people living in Makkah are pilgrims wanting to
study Islam in the very centre of the world. But this learning is
primarily aimed at normal people, and even today Muslim theology is
exercised other places. But for Saudi Arabia, Makkah is the centre of
religious teaching.
Apart from the services for pilgrimage there are only modest
economical activities going on. Every year some 2 million pilgrims
attend the Hajj, and this number is now regulated, where each country
can send a fixed number of adherents. The numbers of Muslims coming to
Makkah for the Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage are far less, and not
regulated
Zhra
Pilgrimage in Islam going to Mecca, second to the main pilgrimage hajj.
Umra is often referred to as the "little pilgrimage", and while the
hajj is compulsory to a Muslim, the umra is not. However, the umra it
is recommended by the Koran, and is a highly regarded practice in
Islam.
KORAN, Chapter 2
153Truly, Safa and Marwa are among the landmarks of God, therefore
anyone who performs the hajj or the umra he does no harm if he
circumambulates them both.
There is a close connection between the rituals of the umra and the
hajj, to the extent they