Talk:Mecca/Archive 3

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Spelling

I've tried to clean up the very messy and POV section about the spelling. This section has had a good pounding by two sides who displayed an almost fanatical zeal to stamp out one spelling in favour of the other. That was a year or so ago and I hope it's now calmed down enough to tidy this up and try to make it more NPOV. Still needs work (News orgs, notably BBC and others in coverage of the Haj) are now tending towards 'Makkah'. THat needs to be reflected and referenced. If you have strong feelings on spelling, please discuss here and let's not have a repetition of the historical edit war :) Anjouli 10:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As for renaming the article, I think that's going to come eventually, but probably not yet. There is a noticeable swing towards 'Makkah' but it's just starting. Please don't use Google searches as justification unless you can filter out lower-case 'mecca' (impossible I think) and any pages more than a year old. Anjouli 18:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Time to rename the article as Makkah

It's time to rename the article, the same way that the Bombay article became Mumbai. (And Bombay was not even all that offensive, unlike linking the holiest site in Islam with a gambling organization).

The main argument raised against this has been common use: major organizations and Google counts. Most organizations now use Makkah. (See Anjuli post above and other references in the article.

Makkah is now most common on Google:

1) Google mecca -bingo = 2,320,000 2) Google makkah = 2,160,000

but most sites using Makkah also reference mecca: e.g. Makkah(Mecca)

So how many of these are there?

3) Google makkah mecca = 175,000

subtract these from 1) 2,320,000 - 175,000 = 2,145,000

so Makkah beats Mecca by 2,160,000 - 2,145,000 = 15,000

Not much, but Mecca beat Makkah 10 to 1 a year ago. It's definitely shifting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.101.244.6 (talk • contribs)

  • oppose this has been discussed heavily. Mecca is better. Google results do not determine what is more notable for wikipedia standards.--SefringleTalk 19:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
It's interesting how a Google count has been used by the pro 'Mecca' lobby to defend their position for so long, but now that the Google count is tending towards 'Makkah', it seems "Google results do not determine what is more notable". Fine. In that case we have to go with usage by major organizations, news organizations, governments etc. which all as per Anjouli post above clearly favour 'Makkah' as per refs in article and in archive. It's time to change, despite87.101.244.10 17:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC) the Islamophobia.
You aren't going to get consensus by accusing the opposition of being islamophobes. Please provide evidence, but this has been discussed heavily, and I doubt there will be any consensus to change the title.--SefringleTalk 03:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Well I don't see any opinion to the contrary. I have referenced evidence that Makkah is now more common on Google and is used by governments and major organizations and that 'Mecca' is offensive to Muslims. Do you have any verifiable references NOT to change it? NB I'm discussing this and am not trying to force a change. If anyone objects, let's talk about it.87.101.240.6 11:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I suppose I'm supposed to just take your word for it? We do not determine the more proper name based on google results. Consensus is to keep it as Mecca. See Talk:Mecca/Archive02#Poll: Spelling of Mecca / Makkah.--SefringleTalk 02:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

"Makkah" is used as the transliteration of "Mecca" in Saudi Arabia, and, given that Makkah is in Saudi Arabia, it seems proper to use that as the article title (no matter what your political feelings regarding the Saudis is — I just thought I'd pre-empt arguments about that). And "Makkah" is a better approximation of the sound of مَكَّة, anyway. Murraytheb (talk) 07:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

As evident in the topic page references 28, 29 and 30 from UN, US & UK sources, the spelling used is "Makkah" not "Mecca". I think it is time to rename to "Makkah" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amrotefa (talk • contribs) 12:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Early archiving

Why has entire June talk been archived before end of June? The last of those discussions was not closed and was still ongoing. I suspect a hidden agenda and have accordingly reopened the discussion on the current talk page as per guidelines on archive page. 87.101.244.10 17:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

1880 or 2001

Image:Kaba.jpg

The picture said that it is from 1880 until I saw it is shooted in 2001.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.82.63.101 (talk • contribs).

Looks like a photograph taken in 2001 of a poster showing the Kaaba in 1880. → AA (talk) — 09:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Although the Arabic text on the photo (which looks like an overstamp) says 1880, the buildings around the Kaba more closely resemble the site around the turn of the century. It's probably later than 1880. 212.71.37.89 15:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

"Bakkah" and "buka'"

The word Bakkah can be derived in Arabic from the root ba-ka-ka, is written in Arabic بكّة, and is transliterated bakkah. On the other hand; the word that means "he who cries much" derives from the root ba-ka-ya, is written in Arabic as بكّاء, and is transliterated bakkā'.

Based on the above, suggesting any relation between the two words is misleading since there is none (at least within the Arabic language). I've removed the discussion of Arabic examples in the section related to the word "Bakkah" without removing any other arguments for the "weeping" interpretation. -- AMSA83 14:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

refimprove tag

The tag is here because half the article is still unreferenced, specificly the history section, the tourism section, and the non-muslims section is mostly, if not completely unsourced. Yahel Guhan 04:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you please be more specific? The History section looks well-sourced to me, but if you have concerns about specific statements, please add {{fact}} tags and I'll see what I can dig up.  :) --Elonka 05:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"Meccan influence was the primary binding force in Arabia in the late sixth century." - that sounds dubious. I realize that it's sourced to Lapidus, but does he really say that with certainty? Considering how much violent warfare the Meccans and Medinans engaged in in order to subjugate the Peninsula after Muhammad, that seems doubtful. There were also numerous tribal confederations that held no regard whatsoever for Mecca. Maybe this statement should be modified so that it doesn't sound so unequivocal. -- Slacker 01:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup, that's what he said. Though if you can find a source that contradicts, I have no trouble with toning it down. My understanding of the context, is that it was a "relatively" strong binding force. In other words, there wasn't much binding the tribes of Arabia together, but if there was one binding force among them, it was Mecca. That doesn't mean that they'd kowtow to Meccans, but it did mean that anywhere you went on the peninsula, Mecca was probably the most famous spot, and was the place that was most likely to have been visited by any particular member of any tribe. Then again, the influence that Mecca had, was that it was the central repository of the totems of each of the tribes. So when Muhammad decided to shuffle things around, yes, it doesn't surprise me that there was resistance. Or in other words, both Lapidus's statement, and your own concerns, are both correct. --Elonka 01:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

==Deletion of entire Muhammad section?==

I know you're supposed to be bold when editing, but I can see that this would be hugely controversial. However, the section is entirely based on belief and not verifiable fact. Its relevance is questionable given that the article is about a place, not a belief system. At least it could be altered to say 'Muslims believe...' rather than stating opinion as fact.

SteveRamone 21:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Lock the article

People are vandalising this article too much lock it 78.144.25.152 (talk) 21:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Who was sacrified?

The questions about the name Abraham are innumerable, who was Abraham or who were the Abraham figures, is it advisable to consider the figure singular? How about the transmission of a story (legend) through the ages? Has the story been altered, modified, stylized, during the telling from one generation to another? How can we be sure that the Abraham who was born (Commonly thought) in the 19th century BC is the same as the one who lived in the Mecca Area? How can we be sure that Abramu is the same as Abraham or Ephrem or Ephraim or even Ibrahim of the Arabs? So how many faces are there behind the mask? The name itself "Ibrahim" suggests a God name because of the "I" prefix, which means the "God of...". This rimes with Itzhac, Itzrael, Ismael, etc... a current verbal tradition in Arabia. The name Itzhac itself generated the verb "Tzaha-Dhaha" which means "sacrify" in Arabic. Tradition when "told" from one generation to another, creates a new "term" in a living language, where an event generates a verb. The most important holiday in Arabia is the pilgrimage to Makkah, centuries before Islam. In this pilgrimage, the sacrifice "story" is repeated on the "mount of mercy", which in Arabic is literally "Har-Ra'fat" or simply Arafat. In the Hebrew tradition this mount is called Moriah, which recalls the name of "Marwah" in the Mecca area. The big Sacrifice holiday is then the Ad-ha holiday. This is the holiday that repeats the Sacrifice by Abraham to his son Itzhac. Therefore, Arabs who may think (without proof) that it was Ismael who was offered as scrifice, the name of that big holiday "Atz-ha" proves that it was Itzhac who was sacrificed. The name Tzah-ha (Dah-ha) in Arabic also means "Sacrify at Dawn". The term Dawn is also derived from the "Sacrifice Tradition". The sheep sacrifice in the Hajj Islamic tradition also must happen before sunrise which means at Dawn. The history of Arabia must be re-written on the basis that the theater of all the Biblical events was Arabia. The Arabian tradition seems to be more coherent and clear than the biblical stories. The Bible stories are interpreted as deciphered from the old Hebrew, which is unclear while the Arabian oral stories are linked together in a way that makes sense. Let us analyse the pilgrimage holiday in Mecca. This pilgrimage has a unique name: Hajj. Arabs have never questioned the etymology of this term: Is it a noun, a verb or a gerund? The name derived from this event in Arabic is simply "hajjeej" which means the dense crowd. It is also pronounced "Ajeej" with "'Ayn". Some tribes in the Hijaz region in Arabia still pronounce the "'ayn" consonant as "Ha" (as in Hayat) and also the "J" as "Ye". Therefore the term Hajj can lead us to the term "'Aii". People who never lived with the local tribes in Hijaz may never belive it but Moslems who recall the hadith about the Calif who corrected a Koran reader committing the same permutation, these Moslems easily admit the above pronunciation glitch. Furthermore, in the Mecca area, the Misfilah quarter is an area that reminds us the Macvilah caverns of the Torah. in addition, Abraham, after he buried his wife Sarah, headed south towards the road of Shor: Jabal Thawr is a few miles south of Makkah. If the prophet Muhammad honored a place called the Namra Shrine, it is because the name recalls an ancient honorable figure mentioned in the Torah: Mambra. If all these facts and names are gathered in one single area, they are worth being considered for investigation. I personally do not believe the Moslem tradition saying that Abraham was buried in Palestine, unless we consider the eternal Arabian migrations of his descendants from Makkah to Palestine. The Kaabah in the Arabian tradition is the Old House of God, which in Arabic is literally Bethel or Beit El. According to the Koran, it was the "first house ever built for people worship", a version that coincides with the overall story of Abraham in Arabia. Respectfully, Noureddine (talk) 02:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The Origin of the Name Meccah

Thanks to Wikipedia, my thoughts are being confirmed about the real origin of the name of Mecca. The following story tells about Micah as living near the House of the Lord (the Kaabah). If we read the book of Judges as mentioned in the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micah%27s_Idol

we realize that it is not a coincidence that the Port of Laith on the Red Sea south of Juddah, with Juddah the famous port city and Micah the silver idol maker, are gathered in one region.

The Saudi historians pronounce the name of Jeddah as Juddah which, in the Semitic languages, cannot be written other than JDDH. Of course, the Modern Hebrew would consider it as being Judah, or Judea. As for Micah, the old hebrew presented it as MKH and therefore, transfigurated into Micah. In addition, the name of Mecca has never been fairly explained as of its origin. Every time historians talk about the origin of the name they refer to the mention, in the Roman and Greek records, of a township in Arabia called Macoraba. That’s all. No other reference is made for the name of Mecca.

Briefly, the entire Juddah area is linked to Laith harbor and Mecca where in the deep past, before the Arabs were a pronounced nation, it was a prosperous country of trade and agriculture. At that time Arabia was an Israelite country and up to a large extent, the Israelites were Arabs among Arabs speaking old Arabic. By the time of Moses, there was no Arabic as spoken in the Koran. The old Arabic was what was frozen in time in the scrolls until after the Deportation, to be read and written by the Rabbis of Babylon. In the mean time, Arabic was evolving through the centuries to crystallize and clean-up from hiatuses and odd pronunciations with poetry and oral tradition. That is how Arabic had become a separate language from “Hebrew”. “Hebrew” is the old Arabic unfolded in Babylon after centuries of deep sleep inside the scrolls.

In other words, Arabism emerged after the Israelites had disappeared from the scope of Mecca (Perhaps after Tiglath-pileser III in 733/732 BC deported them to Babylon). This is my theory which involves the search for Babylonian traces in Saudi Arabia. Otherwise we can consider that Arabism has never been inexistent even during the Israelite era in Arabia, but only was eclipsed by the more intense and active tradition of the Israelite life there.

Dan has never been a city or a town. It was a tribe living in Laith, a harbor city south of Juddah on the Red Sea. The "Peoples of the Sea" as mentioned in the funeral stella of Merneptah in Egypt mentioned the Denen among the eight peoples listed in his victory story. The Denen are hard to be considered as being the Dan of the Bible. The other names mentioned in that stella are hard to explain but the name PLST is closer than any of them to be the Falashat of Ethiopia. The entire story of the Bible people converges towards the Red Sea not the Mediterranean sea.Noureddine 17:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The explanation is that Micah (Should be Makkah) was an Israelite living in the Bethel area (The ancient House of God, as founded by Abraham). He was a famous figure in that area as a Grand Rabbi. People gave a name to the area from his name, just like his grand father Juddah gave his name to the harbor city of Juddah on the Red Sea. I do not agree with the local Arabian explanation to the name of Juddah as being the "Grand Mother of all Arabs", as they say.Noureddine 12:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Remember that King Josiah (of Judah) was the son of Amon and Jedidah. Please log on Josiah and see.

I must just jump in and say that as an Arabist who has lived in Jeddah for decades, the local Saudi pronunciation in nothing like "Juddah". Not getting into phonetic symbols, it's between "jedda" and "jidda", perhaps a little closer to "jedda". (Mecca on the other hand is certainly "makka".) Anjouli 16:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Anjouli: The fact that you are right does not change anything. It is the reading of the old Hebrew that should be corrected to whatever the real pronunciation of Jeddah is. In Hebrew the writing is JDDH without any vowels. Besides, I found the "Juddah" term in a book dedicated to Juddah in Arabic and written by a Saudi historian. It is an important volume that I invite you to look for it in the local Saudi libraries. Please forgive my memory about the author's name but also you can find the variations of the name's pronunciation on Wikipedia itself. Just search for Jeddah and see. Remember that any name in history is subject to change across the centuries, from one generation to another and from one era to another. By the way: Mecca is the "English" lettering and in hebrew Micah is MKH (without vowels) and it should be pronounced Makkah exactly like Arabs pronounce it. This is my stand and opinion. Respecfully, [[User:[Noureddine]] 02:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Noureddine. My only beef was with "The Saudi historians pronounce the name of Jeddah as Juddah". Seems you meant spell, not pronounce. I'd also question that, since Saudi historians obviously tend to write in Arabic and spell it جدة (Hebrew ג'דה). The only academics I know who regularly spell it Juddah are Malaysians, and I agree their pronunciation does sound a bit like that. عيد مبارك Anjouli 20:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Anjouli again. I have changed my username introduction to reflect what I am after in my writings. I would be honored if you read the new text. Comparative philology can reveal a great deal of hidden meanings behind the convetional history taken for givens. Perhaps some day the warrying nations would give it a second thought as to what are they doing, if it makes sense following their current convictions. Noureddine 21:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Anjouli, the Arabic spelling of Jeddah allows three pronounciations - with an 'a', 'i' or 'u' vowell sound. The question then becomes which of these three pronounciations is actually used, in particular, by the locals. A Saudi language professor at a local university in the Hijaz region said that all three pronounciations are acceptable. There are more than a few words in the Arabic Language which allow more than one pronounciation while the spelling remains the same. Sometimes one will be commonly used while the others slip into obscurity and other times different regions or tribes will use one pronounciation and another region or tribe will use another. Supertouch (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


Qur'an 9:28

I just wrote: "People of the Book would usually not be regarded as pagans." Now, since I've only been studying Islam seriously for about a month, could someone confirm that I'm right about that? It seems from other translations (e.g. Arberry and Abdel-Haleem) that this verse is talking about polytheists or idolators... Evercat (talk) 00:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has to be impartial when presenting information

Dear Sir

I have Two Points to make.

You have said in the section Early History Of Mecca and I Quote {The Kaaba is a large cubical building now surrounded by the Masjid al-Haram. According to the Qur'an, the Kaaba was built by Ibrahim (ابراهيم, Abraham) and his son Ismā'īl (سماعيل, Ishmael), around 2000 BC. There is no secular evidence to support this claim}

"Where did you Get that from??"

One testable irrefutable Clear scientific evidence ( which even better than Secular evidence) that Support the Quran is the Existence and the continuity of “Well of Zamzam “beside Al Kasbah “ for thousands of years. without The Existence and the continuity "Zamzam Water-Well" and bearing in mind the dry desert nature of the place, "Mecca" would not be Founded and built let alone be populated inhabited by Arab Semitic tribes and others for thousands of years even before the advent the “Prophet Muhammad” till present. This is Just one testable irrefutable evidence that prove the Miraculous Existence and the continuity of “Well of Zamzam” with it the existence of Mecca for thousands of years in this hostile water scarce place.

The other point I want to Raise is that you said and I quote {and much contradictory evidence from the Jewish torah.}

Exuse Me ! What make you believe in Torah which state the whole cosmos was created in less than 6000 years( six thousand AFTER City Jericho had been established) TO BE RIGHT? and Quran Is False?

I don’t take the Hindu Veda Books which was written(thousands of year before the Creation of the biblical Cosmos) to MEASURE Torah and the Jewish writings.! What make you use the Torah to measur Quran For?

But if you make the Torah and the Jewish writings as "The Standard" For Measuer, then Please prove to us that the mythical Solomon temple is TRUE FACT did exist NOT a MYTH . Because despite of archeological traces been founded of the total devastated lost city Pompeii in Italy, There is NO ONE single proof or trace about this temple and or the so called Ark of Covenant been FOUND yet !!

Cheers and Regards

81.153.64.15 (talk) 17:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes I Agree with you.first of all I Have never heard of Kabah traditions In torah.And Secondly we cannot measure Quran by torah nor the Torah By Quran and Torah can certainly not be called 'evidence'.--Actionfury199 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Full Article Re-write

The article extremly need a full re-write . Such as the previous re-write projects for Jeddah and Riyadh.  A M M A R  09:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Points of improving
  1. Removing unnesseceray text.
  2. Displaying Mecca article as a City not as a religious topic.
  3. Adding new photos.
  4. Fixing laguage and grammer.
  5. Protecting the article from the dialy vandalism.
  6. Using Chapers and Sections standard that used in Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities.
-- Work will be done here.
--  A M M A R  01:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Done  A M M A R  10:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Arabic grammar

Under the heading "Etymology and Usage," it reads: "Its formal name, Makkat il-Mukarrama results from the conversion of the last letter of Mecca, the ta marbuta (ة), into a ta (ت) in the idoffa format." Taking issue with a couple of points in the above:

1. When to transliterate tā marbūţah as -h or -t (or nothing) is a complex question. The various transliteration systems take divergent approaches on this question. But I don't see how the romanization quoted above can be derived from any of the known systems.

Generally, the default transliteration for ة is -h (or nothing). The -t form is triggered by the iḍāfah construct, as noted by the editor who wrote the above-quoted sentence. But the phrase مكة المكرمة is not an iḍāfah (or even an "idoffa"). The editor evidently mistook it for one. The phrase is actually a noun followed by the adjective that modifies it. The adjective al-mukarramah is marked definite with al- because it agrees with the definite headword Makkah. Because proper nouns in Arabic are always definite, even when not marked with al-.

Most of the widely-used Arabic romanization systems, such as the Library of Congress romanization, do not transliterate ة as -t unless it occurs in the muḍāf, the first word in an iḍāfah structure. So no iḍāfah, no -t.

2. The inclusion of -i as the iʿrāb vowel in "Makkati" is inexplicable. The definite article ال is transliterated al- by convention. None of the romanization systems would use il- here. As seen above, the editor mistook the phrase for an iḍāfah. The iʿrāb -i is always used in the muḍāf ilayhi, the end word in an iḍāfah. However, the editor applied it to the first word, which would be wrong even if this were an iḍāfah. The default case for Arabic nouns cited outside of an Arabic syntactical context is the nominative. But since iʿrāb is normally not transliterated (apart from grammatical studies), the case of the noun is irrelevant to its transliteration anyway. If one decides to apply iʿrāb, that will demand a thorough understanding of the complex subject.

Accordingly, I propose transliterating the name as Makkah al-Mukarramah, which is how it is in Library of Congress romanization, a system widely accepted in Wikipedia. Thank you for considering my suggestions. P.S. a parenthetical clause needs to be set off by two commas, not one. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 20:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No reply, cool, I've gone and made the edit. Thanks! Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

2

The 2nd paragraph is a little messed. 84.13.26.117 (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Mecca: Islam's holiest city

The article has long had the above statement. As far as I know, this is not contrary to Islamic belief to say this. It is certainly widely known as that. For some reason User:Abdullajh wants to change it to a one-off used "Islam's cultural capital" with this revert. The edit sumary says something about calling it what Muslims call it. But (a) I don't believe it's true that Muslims call it Islam's cultural capital rather than holiest city and (b) even if they did, Wikipedia policy determines that it be called the most common name not what any particular group call it. DeCausa (talk) 07:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Undue

There is currently an image of a bypass in Mecca, that seems to allow only Muslims to enter. that image is a violation of WP:UNDUE. The reason being that it places undue emphasis on some road signs, whereas Mecca is known for so much more. As the holiest city of Islam, there are tens (if not hundreds) of sites that merit images, and this sign board is certainly not one of them.VR talk 01:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted per WP:BRD. Firstly, WP:UNDUE is about conflicting opinions (fringe theories etc) and is not strictly applicable anyway. But, secondly, and more importantly this image illustates the ban on non-Muslims enterring Mecca. (It's the bypass around Mecca that non-Muslims have to take so they don't go through the city. It's not just any bypass.) It is therefore notable and relevant. As an aside, there are not "tens (if not hundreds) of sites that merit images". As noted in the article, much of the historic heritage of Mecca has been destroyed in recent years and little outside of the Grand Mosque of historic interest survives. DeCausa (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Historic sites have indeed been destroyed, and yet not a mumur from UNESCO. When a fire broke out at Al Aqsa, the UN was quick to issue a resolution. Beats me. Anyhow, while the issue of non-Muslims being unable to enter is notable, the image is unnecessary. We don't need to rub it in. Chesdovi (talk) 12:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Disagree. The fact that it is notable warrants the image. There could, however, be a better explanation in the caption - it's a little cryptic. DeCausa (talk) 12:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Destruction of heritage of Mecca is notable. However, it should come under the history section, for the sake of avoiding poor organization.
You have provided nothing to substantiate the notability of the bypass. Arguments have already been raised that "tens (if not hundreds) of sites that merit images". I agree with this. Zam zam well, house of Muhammad, cave of Hira, footprints of Abraham, hateem, inside of Kaaba, hilltop Safa, hilltop Marwa, Mina, Muzdalifah, Arafah, Jabal-rahman (mountain of Mercy), the three devils (forget the Arabic term), meeqat, the Qur'an archway, are just some of the few more important sites that come to mind. This is not even doing a Google search.
I highly doubt that pictures of demolished Palestinian houses would be included in the article Jerusalem. Even though, as Chesdovi might agree, media sources devote more attention to Israeli activities in Jerusalem, than Saudi activities in Mecca.VR talk 04:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, as a matter of process if you want to change an image it is for those who wish to make a change to establish a consensus to so per WP:BRD. I will revert (in accordance with WP:BRD) please leave it as is and continue the discussion until consensus is reached. As far as notability is concerned, there are two points: (1) it is an illustration of how non-Muslims are prohibited from going to Mecca (2) it'sa road system based on religion. Your comment on Jerusalem is not only irrelevant it's somewhat bizarre since i can't even guess at what you are trying to say in relation to Mecca. The image you have replaced it with is quite dull. Those sort of archways over highways (Crossed swords, crossed anything etc) are not unusual in the Arab world. DeCausa (talk) 07:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any consensus on the image. For example, is an editor comes along and places something unsourced in the article, and that unsourced thing remains for a long time, it doesn't mean "there is consensus". I am, however, open to a temporary compromise, as suggested at BRD.
"it is an illustration of how non-Muslims are prohibited from going to Mecca" And why exactly is that illustration notable? The issue of non-Muslims in Mecca has already been covered in the article.
I brought up Jerusalem, to show that trivialities, especially negative ones that aim to paint the city in a negative light, are usually not imaged in the articles of those cities.
"Crossed anything" Do you know of any other Qur'an archway either in Mecca or Saudi Arabia for that matter? This is not a "common" sight, rather a unique structure.VR talk 21:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
It's really not important enough to argue about, so although you are in breach of Wikipedia process (yes, a long-standing image has consensus approval and WP:BRD requires you to leave as is if you are reverted) I can't be bothered to do anything about it. It's sad that you are so insecure in your religion that you have to cover-up such images. What you say about Jerusalem reveals your real motives: "negative ones that aim to paint the city in a negative light, are usually not imaged in the articles of those cities". It's a childish attitude that belongs in a high school magazine rather than an encyclopedia. If you are so ashamed of this aspect of Mecca, I would have thought you should put your energies into publicising it rather than covering it up. DeCausa (talk) 22:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with your understanding on consensus. Please see Wikipedia:Silence_and_consensus#Silence_is_the_weakest_form_of_consensus. Also, per WP:CCC, even if there was consensus, that's not valid for dismissing my points.
"please leave it as is and continue the discussion until consensus is reached" Discuss with who? Those who insert it, are drive-by reverters. You yourself have said that you "can't be bothered to do anything about it".
Regarding your personal attacks against me ('real motives', 'childish attitude' etc.): if you were truly interested in the welfare of this article, you'd focus on things other than this ideologically divisive image (see my edits in the past 24 hours).VR talk 18:31, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm not a "drive-by reverter". I've been editing this article longer than you. So you could have discussed with me. But you just reverted my revert, which is a breach of WP:BRD. Clearly, your disrepect for this policy indicates you will edit-war to get your way - and that's what I can't be bothered getting involved in. There's nothing "ideologically divisive" about the image. You just don't like it. DeCausa (talk) 21:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a reason for an ugly old sign to be on Wikipedia. The point of "non-submitters to GOD aren't allowed to enter" is already presented in the text, hoping personal matters will stay out of here. Non-believers of the full message of GOD has no business in Mecca. It's not a museum, nor a personal matter.AdvertAdam (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
This sisn't a travel brochure or a publication of the Saudi Ministry of Information.
It isn't a place for personal attacks, also. Muslims are proud, not ashamed as you assume, that Mecca is the only city that is clear of idols and adultery. Anyways, the purpose of the sign is to keep the city clean, and it is clearly explained by the text too. Pictures like the towers and traditional "Sagga" gives expression, while that sign has no purpose nor meaning in a demographic section. Peace! AdvertAdam (talk) 03:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
:: Agreed that this violates WP:UNDUE. Anyone can claim to be a Muslim and there are no tests of faith; best to omit sensationalism. Mecca is a beautiful place with much worthy of note despite anti-Saudi points-of-view held by some editors. Abdullajh (talk) 03:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Editors should focus on other aspects of Mecca. This article is not a battleground. A sign that shows whether an editor is sincere or is a "POV pusher" is if he/she contributes to other parts of this article, or simply cares about pushing the anti-Saudi POVs.VR talk 18:31, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I also agree on denying the sign. It's not a historical sign to be related to the demographic of Mecca, and non-believers of the full message of GOD has no business in there anyways. Its a strictly religious area, not a historical museum.AdvertAdam (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • To Ankimai: see [File:Hebrew domeEntrance sign.jpg] for another example of religion being used to keep people out of a sacred area. Mecca is not unique in this regard at all. This article is, however, unique in that it has such an image.VR talk 18:31, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
OK there are two: still makes it highly notable and unusul. DeCausa (talk) 23:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
And there are quite a couple of Hindu temples forbidden to non-Hindus, too (the Jagannath Temple in Puri for instance). Why not. But Mecca is a whole city barred to non-believers. The image gives an idea of what that means. It's not at all anti-Muslim. Ankimai (talk) 10:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
No, the whole city is not forbidden. There are very specific physical limits that are considered part of the haram. Similar to this concept is the concept of Miqat. These are very clear physical delineations.
The issue here as always been the notability of the image, as it doesn't seem to be more notable than other images that I discussed above. And yes, it does seem to be a bit anti-Muslim. If you want you can take this image to criticism of Islam or something.VR talk 04:26, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Diverse

During Hajj time city of Mecca possibly becomes more diverse than New York City. Could this line be added at the bottom of the intro?--Triplespy (talk) 22:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed the following statement:
"During Hajj the city of Mecca possibly becomes more diverse than New York City."
It had been reinserted with the comment "Please don't remove content even if its unreferenced. Find thew reference and add."(sic)
The problem is, it's not only unsourced, but it reads also as a subjective opinion, not a fact, which is inappropriate for a lead section especially, and the article in general. If a statement about this diversity is desired, it will need to be well sourced and neutrally worded - not phrased as a conversational opinion. You cannot insist that other editors look for sources for a vague, speculative statement like this - see WP:BURDEN, it is the responsibility of the editor wishing to add material to provide a source. Whilst others, such as myself, are usually happy to help find sources, it is not reasonable to expect other editors to source such a vague statement as this.
 -  Begoon (talk) 05:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The source that states 'Mecca is a cosmopolitan city' is feeble. It needs more sources, or the word cosmopolitanism should be removed. The wikipedia article on cosmopolitanism clearly states cosmopolitanism sees all humans as equals. Universal moral equality is key in cosmopolitanism. Hence a city that discriminates a group of people (non-muslims) from entering the city is clearly not very cosmopolitan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.96.151.181 (talk) 10:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

proposal for new photo - mecca panoramic shot

Hi, I made a new shot in Mecca and think it is not too bad. Perhaps you would like to include it somewhere in the article. It shows a panoramic view from the top of Abraj al-Bait. File:Makkah-Panorama-2011.jpg -- Wurzelgnohm (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It's quite interesting full size, but when it's reduced to thumb (which it would have to be for the article) the composition becomes too small to make out anything much except the Tower's sides in the foreground. DeCausa (talk) 16:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Mayor is Called Ameen (Amin), Not Amir

As the title says. So, can someone correct this mistake since this page've been protected? Ameen or Amin - أمين (Secretary in Arabic) is the official title for a city mayor in Saudi Arabia. --A sanny (talk) 17:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not done: Their title is actually closer to "prince" than "secretary" sir. Please look at the linked article: Amir. ~ AdvertAdam talk 18:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
No, that's incorrect. Amir (=Prince) is the Governor of the Province. The mayor of a town is Amin. See this, for instance. Different word. DeCausa (talk) 18:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, they just have tons of princes everywhere :p. The sentence was actually unsourced. Thank you both ~ AdvertAdam talk 22:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Whatever.--A sanny (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Area

The land area given for the city in the infobox includes area for the urbanized settlement and then the "metro". Is the metro area given really the area of the municipality, because if it is, this needs to be made more clear by listing "Municipality" instead of "Metro". --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

File:Mecca 5.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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mecca is a place were people worship — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.0.168 (talk) 15:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Prohibition on entering Mecca

I'm curious, as I thought the prohibition only applied to the Grand Mosque.

""Oh you who believe! Truly the idolaters are unclean; so let them not, after this year, approach the Sacred Mosque"[1]
  1. Is this the only basis for prohibition on non-Muslims? Or are there hadith which state this as well?
  2. Do any Muslim sects/schools interpret this as applying only to the Grand Mosque, and not as the city as a whole?
  3. Are there any Muslim schools which interpret this as applying only to idolaters?

OK, I admit, I want to know if I'll ever be able to visit Mecca without claiming to be a Muslim. That said, it would be useful to know if this is actually a fairly universal belief among Muslims, or a Salafi or Sunni thing, like historically with depictions of Muhammad. —Quintucket (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Allat, the female Goddess of Mecca

Allat's image has been added. This represents the Arabian culture prior to Islam.

Allāt or al-Lāt (Arabic: اللات‎) was a Pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is mentioned in the Qur'an (Sura 53:19), which indicates that pre-Islamic Arabs considered her as one of the daughters of Allah along with Manāt and al-‘Uzzá.

Vplain (talk) 05:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

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Hypocritical

"Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Muslim world,[8] although non-Muslims remain prohibited from entering the city.[9][10]"

Definition of cosmopolitan: composed of people or elements from all parts of the world or from many different spheres

So let me get this straight; although non-Muslims remain prohibited from entering the city, the city is regarded as 'cosmopolitan'. Riiigghht... 58.175.28.71 (talk) 09:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

You do realize that Muslims aren't just from Saudi Arabia, right? Peter Deer (talk) 09:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
IP: The "cosmopolitan" reference is from a cited source: The New York Times. Is your point that the New York Times is not a reliable source? If so, you'll need to argue that point, although it would, at first sight, appear to be an unlikely proposition. If not, is your point that the New York Times is incorrect? If so, you'll need to cite a reliable source stating a contrary point of view. If your point is that you have a different opinion...well no one's interested. I'm unsure which of those "Riiigghht..." addresses. Please clarify. DeCausa (talk) 09:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

.

Honestly, I don't have the patience nor austerity to argue my reasoning with such condescending, antagonistic individuals as yourselves. I merely wanted it to be known that the statement is hypocritical. 'Many different spheres' includes different religious spheres as elements from all parts of the world, would you not agree? So how can a city that excludes all other religion from it's walls be said to be composed of people or elements from all parts of the world or from many different spheres? That's all. 58.175.28.71 (talk) 12:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

You've come to the wrong website. This isn't a discussion forum. If you've got some hard facts to offer or sourced notable opnions, both derived from reliable sources then that's something worth reading. If, as you've done, you just did a condescending, antagonistic, drive-by knee-jerk opinionated flame based on not-very-much, no one's interested. Oh, and as you appear to use the word austerity in a way which suggests you don't actually know what it means... DeCausa (talk) 17:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I think my question was perfectly valid, anon. You implied that it being all Muslim means it could not be not cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan meaning containing elements from all over the world. One would infer from this that you were unaware that Muslims are from all over the world, and thus being all-Muslim would be no barrier to a cosmopolitan adjective, correct? If not, could you please clarify what exactly you were implying?
And I'd suggest that you cool it with the flaming, that doesn't go over well here at all, so it's definitely best to take the high road. Peter Deer (talk) 21:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I think what User 58.175.28.71 meant is that even if Mecca includes all the diversity of all the vast worldwide Muslim population it still prohibits the entry of a larger part of the Worlds cultures and faiths, reducing its eligibility as "one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Muslim world"[think Beirut, Jakarta or Dubai as examples of diversity]. The issue would be a disagreement with the article of the NYT even if it's a reliable source.ArticunoWebon (talk) 23:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
That's understood, and may or may not be correct - but it is WP:OR. It's not relevant that an editor disagrees with a reliable source. If there is a reliable source which contradicts the NYT statement then that can be discussed. But an editor's personal (subjective) opinion is not relevant. (Btw, it says "one of the most" not "the most", so it is not inconsistent with the cities you mention being more cosmopolitan, if that is indeed the case.) DeCausa (talk) 08:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Municipality vs. Metro?

This is really more a question about local government in Saudi Arabia, in general, but when populations are listed for municipalities and the "metros" in the infoboxes on city pages of Saudi Arabian cities, what exactly are we defining, for each? Is the "metro" simply the population of the governate, and "municipality/city" the population of some division below governate? --Criticalthinker (talk) 00:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

etymology

doesn't mecca mean ruined? like, the ruined city... ghost town... not any more of course, but I always imagined the revelation of the Qur'an to be almost analog to that scene in the lord of the rings movie when they find the book in the mines of moria... anyway..Lawstubes (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

"Disasters"

I think the editor who made this edit needs to explain this deletion of sourced material. DeCausa (talk) 14:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I have not deleted any sourced material or any reference! At Wikipedia, we should try to cooperate, instead of reverting other's edits! The Wikipedia also has an article named Incidents during the Hajj. Brother! The word "Disaster" is not appropriate for usage with a religious pilgrimage! We have many same alternatives, and we should not force "Disasters"! Faizan (talk) 10:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Because that's how the reliable sources describe it. The sources in the paragraph, the BBC and Malise Ruthven dscribe the events as "disasters". If several hundred people die - that's a disaster. What's the problem? DeCausa (talk) 22:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah agree with that point, but its not compulsory that same to same content or words should be used in Wikipedia, from reliable sources! The word disaster gives a wrong impression of the Pilgrimage. We should use an alternative suitable word, instead of "Disaster".Faizan (talk) 11:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
You'll have to explain that. What "wrong impression of the Pilgrimage" does it give? Reliable sources use this word to convey the the enormity of these tragic incidents. We are supposed to be following sources by using a word that conveys a similar sense. The current wording plays down and reduces their seriousness. Who would want to do that? The Saudi authorities would, that's who. DeCausa (talk) 20:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I am here to explain that. But you also have to explain that who wants you to use "disaster"? The British authorities would, that's who. Tragic "Incidents" during our Religious Pilgrimage can never ever be termed as "disasters"Faizan (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I honestly can't follow what you're saying. What's it got to do with the "British authorities"? Why can't there be a disaster on a pilgrimage? Why isn't 1400 killed in an accident a "disaster"? You're not making any sense unless you want to play down the way it's described by reliable sources in order to improve how the Saudi authorities are presented. Is that your point? Can you just say exactly what you mean please. DeCausa (talk) 12:21, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Disaster is a very harsh word for use in this matter. 1400 killed in an "accident" or "incident" but no "disaster". So what? You meant that I was paid by Saudi Authorities? It is also a type of Personal Attack! Faizan (talk) 12:35, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I see now this is simply a question of competency in English. This is the Oxford Dictionaries definition of disaster: "a sudden accident or a natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life". I've wasted enough time on this. I'm done here. DeCausa (talk) 19:57, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah sure, I am also done here. Bro just tell me why "incident" cannot be used? Its ok with the word "incident" or "accident". Faizan (talk) 07:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Religious intolerance and the closing of Mecca to non-Muslims

Mrmatiko removed a "see also" link that was added by Tavernsenses. I absolutely agree with the removal of that particular link; at the same time, I also understand the reason for the addition. I've noticed that many articles on Islamic topics tend to gloss over their nastier aspects, and in this case the Saudi rules on Mecca and Medina do present a unique manifestation of religious intolerance. (To be fair, a lot of what the Saudis do is uniquely appalling.)

While many religions have particular holy sites closed off to non-congregants, the closing off of whole cities is a singular phenomenon. Mecca and Medina are the only cases where entire cities are off-limits to everybody except members of a certain religion, as the result of the very strict Wahhabi reading of a clause which forbids entrance by non-Muslims into the two holy mosques. However the actual closing of the cities to non-Muslims dates back at least to Ottoman times (though I'm not sure the basis is the same as the reading the Saudis used; the Ottomans tended to restrict non-Muslims in a lot of ways). Further, many Muslims assume it dates back to Mohammad himself, and become very touchy if you bring the matter up. (Google "Mecca non-Muslims" and you'll get a taste of the popular justifications, seasoned with a good deal of anonymous internet nastiness.)

Do we have an article or section of an article on the history of access and restrictions to Mecca and Medinah for non-Muslims? It definitely is a noteworthy manifestation of religious intolerance, and though I think that Mrmatiko is absolutely right that a link to religious intolerance isn't appropriate here, if we do have an article or even section of an article on this phenomenon it absolutely deserves a mention. —Quintucket (talk) 17:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but the tone of your post seems to suggest WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:Advocacy. This is not the place to expose the "nastier aspects" of Islam or to highlight a "noteworthy manifestation of religious intolerance". The only question is how to reflect how WP:RS cover non-Muslim access to Mecca (without getting into WP:UNDUE). Having said that, I agree that a sentence or two could justifiably be added on the history of access: I'm pretty sure the issue pre-dates the Ottomans, but how far back I don't know. DeCausa (talk) 17:59, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, I remember that once I could get to a page telling non-muslims who visited Mecca, like Richard Francis Burton. Since it's a holy city and one of it's peculiarity is that it is closed to non-muslims, it should be noted that it has been visited by someone anyway. Peace, anyway. 79.6.68.145 (talk) 21:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

The Secrets of Moses

Hello friends, I seek consensus on a possible change to the following paragraph:

Mecca was also mentioned in the Samaritan literature, in the Book of the “Secrets of Moses” (Asatir) which claimed that Mecca was built by Ishmael and his eldest son Nebaioth [28] The Secrets of Moses” or Asatir book was suggested by some opinion to have been written in 10th century.,[29] while another opinion suggests that it was written no later than the second half of the 3rd century BC.[30]

The paragraph gives equal WP:WEIGHT to the dating estimate made by the work's original translator, writing in the early twentieth century, as it does to the views of modern Samaritan scholars, who to my knowledge universally view the work as medieval in origin, citing the work's "heavy Arabic influence", it's form of Aramaic, and its "traces of Islamic influence" (see 'Ref 3' below).

The question then becomes whether the work need be mentioned at all at this point in the encyclopedia, or whether (as I view it) using it as a source for the early history of Mecca is anachronistic, as it is the later history of the city (and particularly it's rise to prominence under Islam), that is itself the source of the city's mention in the Asatir.

Were the paragraph to stay, I would suggest a modification similar to the following:

In the Samaritan Asatir (Book of the “Secrets of Moses”), Mecca was built by the children of Nebaioth, the son of Ishmael. [Ref 1]
The book's English translator, Moses Gaster, believed the Asatir to be contemperaneous with Jewish pseudepigraphic literature, and thus dated the work to the second or third century BC.[Ref 2] Modern scholars, citing the work's heavy Arabic influence among other factors, date the work much later, to the tenth to twelfth century CE. [Ref 3]
[Ref 1] - M. Gaster, The Asatir: The Samaritan Book of the "Sercrets of Moses", London (1927), p.262
[Ref 2] - M. Gaster, The Asatir: The Samaritan Book of the "Sercrets of Moses", London (1927), p.160
[Ref 3] - Crown, A.D., Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts (Mohr Siebeck:2001) p. 27; cf. Tal, A., "Asatir" in Crown et. al., A Companion to Samaritan Studies (Mohr Siebeck:1993) p.34

Any comments on this? Thanks in advance. 67.161.254.8 (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


Hi....
the opinion which says that Asatir is a 10th century work is not based on analysis, but all scholars cite Ben-Hayyim when they claim it....none of them ever questioned Ben-Hayyim's credibility, nor any of them investigated his thesis
anyway, Ben-Hayyim himself admitted that some of the material of Asatir really goes far back into history
but one scholar "Moshe Florentin" analyzed Ben-Hayyim thesis and showed that the Arabic elements of Asatir is not the same as Arabic in other Samaritan works Omar amross (talk) 17:45, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Requested move 26 April 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved per WP:SNOW. Consensus is clearly against this move taking place. (non-admin closure) Egsan Bacon (talk) 12:47, 30 April 2015 (UTC)


Mecca → Makkah – Short answer? The following test defeats virtually every argument in favor of Mecca (and opposed to Makkah) made on the talk page: the wikipedia title pages for Odisha, Beijing, Mumbai, and others are not titled by their old names (Orissa, Peking, Mumbai, respectively). Unless Wikipedia uses the old names for these pages' titles, it shouldn't use the old name for Makkah, which may have been Mecca (depending on what resource you consult). Long answer: This article title has been discussed before many times, and a consensus was claimed back in 2007, albeit not really. Now, the pro "Mecca" arguments simply do not stand up in 2015 (and they weren't very good then, either). I have recently countered them on the talk page. Makkah is the capital city of Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia is most definitely not an orientalist encyclopedia or a colonial era reference. Mecca is an outmoded colonial era spelling that is now technically incorrect for normal usage. See also, Beijing (Peking), Mumbai (Bombay), Jeddah (Jidda), Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Busan (Pusan). Mecca is not a translation of Makkah into English; it is a very poor transliteration, at best. On the other hand, Makkah is an accurate transliteration, but more importantly, it is also the official name in English internationally and locally, moving forward. When spelled "Mecca," the name must be incorrectly pronounced with a short "e" sound, however, as "Makkah," the "a" can be correctly pronounced as a schwa. Wikipedia is not the bastion for surviving outdated anglicized orthographic conventions; Wikipedia endeavors to educate and inform with correct, accurate, and up to date information. Even in the comments on the talk page from the previous decade, it was clear that finality on this issue in favor of "Makkah" was not a matter of if, but when, and that "when" is now very long overdue. Marknorth (talk) 06:23, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment Wikipedia is also a bastion of presenting commonly recognisable names as used in reliable English sources in relation to subjects on which it educates and informs.
("Osama al-Bar" OR "Great Mosque" OR "Grand Mosque" OR "Al-Masjid al-Haram" OR "Saudi Arabia" OR "al-Arabiyah" OR "Arabiyah") AND Makkah gets "About 422,000 results" in books
However
("Osama al-Bar" OR "Great Mosque" OR "Grand Mosque" OR "Al-Masjid al-Haram" OR "Saudi Arabia" OR "al-Arabiyah" OR "Arabiyah") AND Makkah gets "About 18,100 results" in Scholar
I'm not sure of the relevance of Ngrams due to the number of similarly worded phrases and subjects as represented at Mecca (disambiguation)
See also: Trend results in search term use
IMO the likes of Beijing, Mumbai, Jeddah, Ho Chi Minh City and Busan may be relatively well known possibly in comparison to Makkah. GregKaye 10:09, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE, clearly per WP:COMMONNAME. Khestwol (talk) 10:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose No argument to counter the very clear case of WP:COMMONNAME. Simply put this is not the name that is most common in English.--Labattblueboy (talk) 11:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:COMMONNAME. All the points put in the move request are utterly irrelevant to Wikipedia policy. There is only one question: which form do English-language WP:RS use, and time after time it's been unquestionably shown it's Mecca. DeCausa (talk) 12:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose all the other entries listed use the new name over the old name not simply because the other names were old but because English language sources started using the new names to a far greater degree than the old ones. So far no evidence has been provided that this is a the case here and in fact there is evidence that seems to prove the opposite. To put it simply we need evidence that this old name has fallen out of use, not that other old names unrelated to this have.--67.68.161.47 (talk) 13:12, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Mecca is still the common name in the English language. BBC NY Times The Guardian Sydney Morning Herald. There are plenty of examples on Wikipedia where we use names other than the official name; see Ivory Coast and Kiev, for example. Calidum T|C 15:08, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not COMMONNAME. See Calidum's reasons, not worth repeating them again. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 16:12, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Not commonname. Also 'h' is not equivalent to ta marboota of Arabic but this is minor in comparison to the importance of using the common name. Mbcap (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: per WP:COMMONNAME, per evidence supplied by other users. Ebonelm (talk) 22:14, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per WP:WIAN. I don't think any of the references listed in the guideline would support this move. The eigenvector (talk) 00:33, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:UE. If there is an English exonym for a city in common use, let's use it per the principle of least astonishment. Cf. Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli, Medina, Aden. We have plenty of other cities at "outmoded colonial era spellings" (whatever that means); e.g., Riyadh, not Riyāḍ; Dubai, not Dubayy; Muscat, not Masqaṭ. —  AjaxSmack  03:04, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Mecca is the WP:COMMONNAME, not Makkah. Zarcadia (talk) 12:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I haven't even seen the word Makkah before now. Reigen (talk) 06:10, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Ridiculous proposal. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment. It may be April but it's definitely snowing.... Zarcadia (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Timeline of Mecca

What is missing from the city timeline? Please add relevant content. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 12:53, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Decluttering the intro

A good place to start is

1) don't include the transliteration Makkah twice in the first line

I understand some editors would prefer that we use that and not use "Mecca" at all; that's completely against policy and has been dealt with (repeatedly) above. I understand some well-meaning editors feel that they want to draw attention to the fact that in addition to Makkah being a transliteration of the Arabic, it is (very infrequently) used in English. In fact, it is used in English... as a hypercorrection employing the modern transliteration of the Arabic name. It's much simpler to just bold the Arabic's transliteration, which (per policy) we need to include anyway.

An alternate way to do that, if people prefer, would be to run the first line

  • '''Mecca''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɛ|k|ə}}) or '''Makkah''' ({{lang-ar|{{linktext|مكة}}}}, {{IPA-ar|ˈmæk.kæ|}})
  • Mecca (/ˈmɛkə/) or Makkah (Arabic: مكة, [ˈmæk.kæ])

instead of what I put in. Either is better to what we had before.

2) you don't need to go into great detail explaining that the pronunciation of a patently Anglicized name is itself Anglicized.

You don't need to go into any detail at all. /ˈmɛkə/ simply is the pronunciation of the English placename Mecca. It's obvious that it's an Anglicization from the fact that it differs from the local Arabic name immediately provided. If it's necessary to link to Anglicization of names at all, that discussion and link should occur in the #Etymology section, not the lead sentence.

Those are both pretty solid points that simply improve the page. Kindly revert the inevitable edit warring that occurs on major pages like this or let me know what policy demands we repeat ourselves in the lead sentence. Then, I'll point you to how WP:IAR suggests we shouldn't follow any policy so strictly that it produces such unsightly and unhelpful results.

Personally, I'd also like to see

3) the footnoted name should be removed from the first line.

We already have a full section of the page for discussion of Mecca's name and its variants, so there's really no call to include something so uncommon as "Bakkah" in the first line of the article at all. I understand people might disagree with that, though, so am mentioning it here to see what y'all think. — LlywelynII 10:07, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

As long as we're keeping the English IPA, I suppose it's appropriate to list the Arabic one. I think it's an improvement to have the Arabic link to the Wiktionary entry for those who want to know more about the nomenclature and linguistics, though, and I think it's better to leave all obvious (or foreign-to-English) pronunciation over there. Do people really think that anyone able to read this page would pronounce Mecca in any other way? Does anyone think it's relevant to include Arabic pronunciation here, given that the English pronunciation of Makkah itself is inevitably going to turn the second a into a schwa? — LlywelynII 10:16, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't have any strong views on the above but agree with de-cluttering in general. But to make it clear that "Makkah" is an alternative transliteration ("Mecca" is a transliteration as well as being an anglicisation) is warranted because of its status as the official Saudi transliteration is notable. I've added that back but without having that transliteration stated twice. DeCausa (talk) 10:41, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

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Area measurement

Can someone clarify the area measurements in the infobox? What I'm interested in is which jurisdiction exactly is being measured for city, urban, and metro? Which of the three measurements corresponds to the Makkah Al Mukarramah governorate? And, then, what are the other two measurements of? The Makkah Al Mukarramah governorate should be the "city" in the municipal jurisdictional/local government sense of the word if it's already not. --Criticalthinker (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like there is a local/municipal government apart from the governorate government. Can someone answer this question about what are the three figures listed in the infobox? --Criticalthinker (talk) 16:17, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Question about infobox image

Why is there none? I assume it's because there isn't a decent image of Mecca available, or maybe there's some sort of reason why there can't be an image in the infobox or something? Philip Terry Graham 11:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2015

The caption reading "Mecca in 1850" should be changed to "Mecca ca. 1778." The image is, I believe, plate 45 from Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson, "Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman," vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1790), a copy of which may be found in the Rare Book Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC–Chapel Hill. Consider the following sentence, from a book I am currently copyediting: "After seeing paintings made by a 'Muslim painter' who accompanied a court official on a pilgrimage in 1778, Ohsson obtained permission for copies to be made by 'one of the best painters from Istanbul,' to which figures were added to show the pilgrims' movement around the Ka‘ba for the first day of Bayram." On this episode, see Günsel Renda, "Illustrating the Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman," in Theolin et al., "Torch of the Empire" (Istanbul: YKY, 2002), 69-70. 65.96.192.177 (talk) 20:34, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2016

I have just returned from Makkah having visited the city as part of Ummrah. I have useful demographic information I would like to add to the page including and about the large Bangladeshi and Pakistani diaspora that live there. Also recent commercialisation and saudization trends that I have noticed. Sjames87 (talk) 16:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a specific change in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
More importantly, you have not cited reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 16:58, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

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Cosmopolitan and diverse

There was a sentence in the lead section that states the city is cosmopolitan and diverse. Cosmopolitan it may be but diverse it is NOT. It is illegal for non-Muslims to enter it. That is restrictive and homogenistic, not diverse. Cls14 (talk) 20:06, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Makkah or Mecca

  • please change the wikipedia article title to Makkah from Mecca, as that is the official government adopted name to be used in all legal documents since 30 years in Saudi Arabia and internationally. I am very surprised that people insist on the article and the city being called Mecca when that is not the correct name or pronunciation. I do not see the names of any other city like Porto or Berlin being misspelled or misused despite them being known by a few other names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.210.49.151 (talk) 11:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Agree. I say we stay with consensus, which is Mecca.--SefringleTalk 04:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Agree. I prefer Mecca too. When I'm doing research in libraries and flipping through indexes, the spelling of "Mecca" is by far the predominant spelling. I also did a search of "World newspapers, 2000-2007" to see what they're using, and the 98%+ favorite is "Mecca" followed by "Makkah" (1%) and then "Makka" (.1%). --Elonka 01:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd vote 'Makkah'. I'm an Arabist and study the area professionally, and I'd say it now dominates by far, certainly in the last year or two. I can't reproduce the results given above for "World Newspapers". Seems quite the contrary to me. Also it's a bit of a nonsense having 'Mecca' as the capital of 'Makkah Province' - and the province has always been 'Makkah Province' - no other spelling exists. Diplomatic and government use is invariably 'Makkah'. Some papers go the other way (particularly in the US), but most have changed over. Also it's not quite the same as Mumbai/Bombay as Mecca is actually considered grossly offensive by some. But I'm not pushing my view and happy to go with the majority of eds as always. I think the article will end up getting renamed, but not sure if the time is quite yet. Anjouli 20:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I have no trouble with Makkah Province, but for the city, I'd like to see proof that the majority of English-language papers are using "Makkah" before we should change the article title. When I did a quick spotcheck at http://news.google.com, "Mecca" was more common than "Makkah", about 3500:200. If/when world newspapers switch over to a spelling of "Makkah", we can swap the Wikipedia article over, but the guidelines at Wikipedia are to follow mainstream usage, not lead it. --Elonka 04:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I see a very strong swing towards Makkah, but it's perhaps not gone far enough yet to justify a change. I think it will happen at some point, but perhaps not yet. Just as a matter of interest, googling on +mecca -bingo (regular Google, not Google News) gives 2,380,000. Googling on "mecca for" (uses like a mecca for tourists) gives 1,140,000. Subtract that from the non-bingo mecca usage and you get 1,240,000. Google on makkah gives 1,910,000; which puts it way in the lead. I'm not saying that is justification to change the title, but it's interesting.Anjouli 16:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Search results are not reliable (for instance, Makkah -bingo gives more hits than Makkah alone, which makes no sense.) More importantly, though, for chosing between possible article titles what we really care about is widespread English usage, not simply internet usage (which is all a Wikipedia search can show.) If you consult Dictonary.com, say, which compiles definitions from all the major English dictionaries, you will find many detailed definions for Mecca as the city from numerous authoritative sources on the English language, only one of which lists Makka or Makkah as alternatives; every major English dictionary has an entry for Mecca. By comparison, Makkah has only one entry, and it simply lists it as another name for Mecca. Based on this, I think that changing the article's name would only cause confusion... when it is time to change, this will probably be reflected in the dictionaries. --Aquillion (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not really understanding what the fuss is about except for the fact that IF you change the english version of the word "mecca" to the,i'm assuming,arabic preference of "mekkah" then I would have never found what I came here to read about.I have never heard of "mekkah".I am not the greatest speller but if I had typed "mecca" and instead "mekkah" came up (no offence ment)I would have assumed it was referring to a bird.Please help me to understand how a english version would change its wording to appease a people who rarley can read english.Changing the word to "mekkah" would only confuse the majority of people who might use this site which are the people who are trying to learn in the first place.Maybe a simple solution would be to use BOTH spellings of it.If I offended anyone it was not ment,im only trying to use some common sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.61.196 (talk) 04:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

  • The "fuss" as I understand it is this: the Saudi government (and Muslims in general for that matter) don't object to 'Mecca' on linguistic grounds- they simply do because the word has been associated with practices which Islam frowns upon/forbids such as Las Vegas/Atlantic City/Monte Carlo being referred to as "gambling meccas " or "Mecca Bingo". Heck, I've even seen Gentlemen's Clubs (ie. "Titty Bars") which have incorporated the term 'mecca' into the description of their establishment. IMO: The fact that the US and UK governments have kissed Saudi arse to the point that both governments have "officially" changed the name of the city to "Makkah" doesn't change hundreds of years of English usage. That a government ( esp. one which severely limits it's own citizens freedom of expression) like Saudi Arabia can tell governments and English speakers how to spell the names of cities in our own language is somewhat insulting. The United States doesn't insist that French speakers or nations stop referring to La Nouvelle-Orléans even though it is inconsistent with the usual pattern of referring to English place names by Francophones (New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire for instance). And the fact that "mecca" has taken a meaning in English other than one which refers to the city is probably the best reason that it should be and is the correct place for this article, Saudi and other protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Jcam (talk) 06:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As of September 2009 the British FCO has 38 pages with use of Mecca and 8 with use of Makkah. For example the The Two Kingdom's Dialogue (2009-04-08) includes the phrase "many Brits coming here on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina". The pages using Makkah are nearly all those giving travel advice to Muslims visiting Mecca and include the Mecca spelling, eg "Every year the British Hajj Delegation accompanies around 25,000 British Muslims to Makkah (Mecca) in Saudi Arabia for Hajj.". The evidence shows that when addressing a mainly English audience the FCO uses "Mecca" and so I'll change the article accordingly. Pbhj (talk) 23:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

  • Hmm, I just looked at state.gov and un.org and find that the US Dept. State has 487 pages with Mecca and 15 with Makkah and the UN has 244 pages with Mecca and 14 with Makkah. I'm going to have to reword this to keep "Makkah" in there. Neither uses "Meccah". The OED also uses Mecca and has no entry for Makkah. So it seems the para on this was a bare-faced lie? One wrong entry, ok, but 3? Also why would we use Makkah Province as opposed to Mecca Province? It's just "the province where Mecca is"?? Pbhj (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


  • I don't know why all the editors keep on having war on each others editing. But one thing to be sure more than a billion of world population is jealous of Muslim community, the reason is that 'one rotten tomato, rottens other tomatos'. Same as said that if I am a muslim that doesnt means I'm a terrorist! mark my words. So please change the name to MAKKAH from MECCA. The verifying source to this change and correction is [2][3]

And I request the Administrator of this Makkah Section to do this change as fast as possible. Thankyou. Regards Suhebriazsaifi 08:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see anyone here calling you a terrorist. Nor does the use of Mecca have anything to do with that or some odd idea that you have in thinking non-Muslims are jealous of Islam. The article is at Mecca because the consensus right now is that this is the most common name as per Wikipedia:Article titles. something lame from CBW 14:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
This page should be moved to Makkah. The govt. official website also mention its spellings as Makkah. --TalhaDiscuss © 15:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
plz use everyone Makkah, plz change tittle of this page as makkah —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.26.62.10 (talk) 06:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't suggest that the past spelling of Mecca needs to be CHANGED. As I recall, the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially changed the spelling, in English, in about 1982. Why use "Makkah" now? Because it is CORRECT and "Mecca" is incorrect; simple. Would we call "Thailand," "Siam?" No. Why not? Because the name CHANGED. Duhhhhh!

The holiest city in Islaam is MAKKAH. That's the way it is spelled in all of Saudi Arabia in English; and it's official, according to the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So, let's spell it correctly, please.

I am aware that many media outlets in the U.S.A., including the "New York Times" and "Newsweek" misspell the name. They do it knowingly and purposefully. I don't know why. They are just displaying their arrogance, not their stupidity; because they know better.

SOURCE -- How do I know the name of the city is spelled, Makkah? Because I've been there; simple. Arrow Straight (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

See WP:Commonname. How the Saudi government chooses to transliterate in Roman script is irrelevant. It's the most common name used in the English speaking world that is relevant. For example, Mecca gets 1,390,000 results on Google books, whereas Makkah only gets 86,500. DeCausa (talk) 22:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Here are some reasons for what Makkah should be used instead of Mecca;

-Officially everywhere in the Saudi Arabia spell Makkah is used for the Holly city. No where Mecca is used. [4] [5] [6] [7]

-Mecca refers to house of wine/gambling etc which is not correct use here for Holy city. Whether it is lower case 'm' or capital 'M' it means same, nothing difference just blowing dust in dyes of Muslims. Where you write your name with small caps or large caps meaning will be same, make sense. I don't know why wikipedia consensus was on Mecca because below comments are also referring and proving for Makkah. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

-Another thing in Arabic Makkah (مَکہ) has vowel above 'M' not below 'M'. If pronounced correctly 'a' after 'M' mean vowel is above 'M', however 'e' after 'M' means vowel is below 'M' which is not correct.

-The reason below that Google uses Mecca more times than Makkah, answer is validity of things can't be simply depends on numbers. There are many things controversial (which I will not discuss in detail here) which doesn't rely on number power. Suppose any resolution is passed by NATO however America can VETO power that. Whats that? Because America is right and all others are wrong? Why not majority decision is accepted? So saying numbers for Mecca are more over internet doesn't make sense for using that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Javaidiqbal6022 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

  • All words of Makkah should be consistent and Mecca should be changed to Makkah. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Javaidiqbal6022 (talk • contribs) 19:43, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Already answered see above. This is English Wikipedia. It's what is prevalent in the English-speaing world, not Saudi Arabia, which is relevant. DeCausa (talk) 10:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
This is English Wikipedia, and the name usually understood in English is "Mecca". What form of the name may be used in Saudi Arabia is irrelevant. We have an article on Cologne, not on Köln (which is a redirect); we have an article on Moscow, not on Moskva; we have an article on Germany, not on Deutschland; likewise with Rome/Roma, Spain/España, Japan/Nippon. As for the idea that we should expunge all uses of "Mecca" because some muslims are offended by metaphorical uses of the word in such expressions as "a gambling mecca", Wikipedia is not censored to avoid offending particular groups of people. If we were to change that policy, and start removing everything which is offensive to some group of people, then we would lose a considerable amount of content, including everything on any religion, certainly including islam. Wikipedia's manual of style specifies that we use the word most commonly understood in English, and I see no good reason for changing that guideline. It is entirely possible that at some time in the future "Makkah" will predominate in English, just as "Beijing" has taken over from the long-established "Peking", but until it does Wikipedia should stick with "Mecca". What matters as far as Wikipedia's criteria are concerned is what is the most commonly recognised name in English, not what various people think should be most commonly recognised name in English. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
  • You are right that this is English forum and will follow English rules. Suppose in Pakistan we define/set word Kuta in Urdu (which means in English is Dog) then Americans will definitely disagree with that. I have no concern which spell English people use for Makkah but they should use the word which doesn't have controversial meaning like house of wine/gambling. --Javaidiqbal6022 (talk) 11:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Although wikipedia is not responsible to make all changes in English but should honor the Muslim community and allow the editors to correct this spell rather reverting back again and again. Hope this make sense. --Javaidiqbal6022 (talk) 11:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Another thing why not Ivory Coast article name is used in English instead of Côte d'Ivoire[16]. Why target only Islam? Even if Ivory Coast is used it doesn't have any other meaning. --Javaidiqbal6022 (talk) 11:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
  1. I doubt whether many Americans would care one way or another what words are used in Pakistan. (I expect to see an American later today, so maybe I will ask her.) However, the main point is that it's totally irrelevant: Wikipedia is not censored to avoid upsetting people who are sensitive about use of words that they don't like, no matter what their nationality.
  2. No we shouldn't "honor the Muslim community" nor any other community. Nor should we allow members of an interest group to take ownership of articles on subjects close to them.
  3. "Côte d'Ivoire" is now used more commonly in English than "Ivory Coast". Whether the expression has any other meaning is utterly irrelevant. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Just one more point: the metaphorical meaning of "Mecca" is not "house of wine/gambling". It means a place which is a central attraction for particular people. It is possible to refer to a "gambling mecca", but it is also possible to refer to a mecca for other categories. For example, in Wales there is a town called "Hay on Wye", which is a centre of the book trade, and it is frequently referred to as "a mecca for bibliophiles" or "the book Mecca", and suchlike terms. Just because Las Vegas is sometimes called a "gambling mecca" does not mean that the word "mecca" has anything to do with gambling, any more than calling it a "centre of gambling" means that the word "centre" has anything to do with gambling. However, this is all incidental: the main point is that Wikipedia uses the name most commonly recognised in English, without fear or favour. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:57, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
No, what he's referring to is a chain of Bingo halls (Bingo is a UK gambling game) here in the UK called Mecca and owned by The Rank Group. It's often said that the Mecca chain is specifically the reason why the Saudi government revised the spelling of Mecca (rather than the phrase you were refering to). I don't know whether there's any truth in it or it's apocryphal. Robert Lacey seemed to say it was true in his recent book on Saudi Arabia, "Inside the Kingdom". DeCausa (talk) 14:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Agree with DeCausa. Thanks for elaborating. --Javaidiqbal6022 (talk) 18:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to both DeCausa and Javaidiqbal6022 for clarifying that: I had clearly missed the point. However, as far as I am concerned, that makes my point even more strongly. Because one dubious business chooses to use the name of a city as its name, the name becomes unavailable as the name of the city? That puts an astonishing amount of power in the hands of an individual businessman. If I chose to open a brothel and called it "Paris" would that force the French government to to change the name of the city? I am not a muslim, but I have as low an opinion of gambling businesses as any muslim, and I would not wish to be associated with them in any way. However, Mecca is primarily the name of one of the most famous and eminent cities in the world (I don't have to be a muslim to see that) and only incidentally the trade name of a business. In my opinion the city is significant enough to be able to brush off the rather insignificant use of the name by a gambling business. However, at the risk of possibly becoming tedious by repetition, I will say once more that, as far as the question of what to call the city on Wikipedia is concerned, all that is irrelevant. We use the name most commonly understood in English. That is not only a matter of following Wikipedia's guidelines but also, and more importantly, a practical matter of making English Wikipedia comprehensible to most readers. Until I stumbled on discussion of this issue today I had never, as far as I remember, come across the word "Makkah", and I certainly would not have had the remotest idea what it meant, whereas I have known what "Mecca" is for most of my life. Wikipedia's guideline says "use the name most commonly recognised in English", and the practical requirement to make our encyclopaedia accessible and understandable to as many people as possible says "use the name most commonly recognised in English". JamesBWatson (talk) 20:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. This article probably should have an FAQ (or something similar) explaining this because it seeems to come up regularly. DeCausa (talk) 20:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
FAQ is a great idea - this thread is only still on the talkpage because I restored it from the archive and put a {{dnau}} on it to keep it here, so that there would be something to refer people to when reverting the change. Problem is the thread is huge. A FAQ to refer people to would be much better. Begoon talk 05:27, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

A Comment: In the above discussion, arguments relating to common name, change by the Saudi gov., and number of google search results have surfaced. I find quite a similarity between title change cases of Makkah (I prefer to use "Makkah") and Orissa or as of now, Odisha Discussion, a state of 42 million in India.

Previous official name Mecca (Not sure) Orissa
Current official name Makkah Odisha
Name changed by Saudi Gov (Not sure) Parliament of India, in 2010[17]
Current wikipedia title Not changed Mecca Changed Odisha[18]
Google search ratio (previous:current names) 100 : 38.75 [19][20] 100 : 31.16 [21][22]
Google books ratio (previous:current names) 100 : 08.13 [23][24] 100 : 00.17 [25][26]
  • Clearly according to search results, Mecca seems to be more deserving of a name change. Search of "mecca" also includes the search of the general english term. Thus the search ratio may be well over 100:50.

  • Transliteration: Proper trans. of the arabic مَكَّةْ can be done as follows. Note: Arabic is written right to left.
م + َ + ك + ّ + َ + ة + ْ = مَكَّةْ
which equals m + (vowel a) + k + (stressed k) + (vowel a) + h + (no vowel sound) = Makkah

  • Widespread usage: British and other foreigners prior to the twentieth century must have used Mecca, Jidda, Riyad, etc, probably due to different languages and styles of speech. Now Jeddah and Riyadh, both almost correct transliterations are in widespread use and the use of Jiddda and Riyad has almost come to nil, but "Mecca" is still prevalent in the non muslim world. (why?)
    May be due to the media.
  • No one objects to use John F Kennedy or United Kingdom instead of their real names, but here, in the case of Makkah there is an objection. "Mecca" is not used by all the people unlike JFK or UK, neither "Makkah" is just confined for official use.

For those who are bent on change the title to Makkah, a great example to quote here is Muhammad ﷺ himself, during the signing of The Treaty of Hudaibah. 12

Fauzantalk ✆ email ✉ 17:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Point of Order (if I can do that here): 1) statements like "the name usually understood in English is 'Mecca'" are ridiculously subjective and do not form any part of a valid proof, and 2) search engines such as Google are only indexes of what others post on the internet, and casual searches are at best anecdotal arguments; they are not scientifically/anthropologically/statistically sound in any way, so don't use them as proofs here. That said, who is the authority on determining what spelling is most commonly understood in English? And if the understanding of an outmoded or colonial era spelling still lingers in some minds now, when and how does that understanding progress into a more contemporary understanding? Through informed education? Why do some people here so adamantly desire and demand that this understanding never change in this case? In the absence of valid justification for the name being maintained as Mecca, and not Makkah, vis-à-vis other cities on English Wikipedia, this discussion is NOT over and the name change on Wikipedia from Mecca to Makkah is overdue, until further discussion demonstrates otherwise. See Beijing (Peking), Mumbai (Bombay), Jeddah (Jidda), Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Busan (Pusan). Wikipedia is most definitely not an orientalist encyclopedia or a colonial era reference. It doesn't help that much of the talk that favors "Mecca" on this page has a hostile vibe that is distinctly contrarian for whatever reason to Saudi Arabia/Islam/Arabs/Muslims, etc. When spelled "Mecca," the name must be incorrectly pronounced with a short "e" sound, however, as "Makkah," the "a" can be correctly pronounced as a schwa. Wikipedia is not the bastion for surviving outdated anglicized orthographic conventions; Wikipedia endeavors to educate and inform with correct, accurate, and up to date information. The city is Makkah, officially, internationally, and locally, and is not defined by the confined view of some archaic 19th century books that in English may use the spelling "Mecca.". Yes, there are cities (mostly European and spelled natively in Latin alphabets) such as Florence (Firenze) and Köln (Cologne) that still commonly use anglicised names, but these are cities that have different spellings in different languages, are are identified by their English exonyms in English. But then there are cities like Zargosa (Saragossa) and Basel (Basle) that don't have exonyms, and updated spellings have been adopted. So while in Europe, Switzerland may also be known as Suisse, der Schweiz, Svizzera, etc., depending on the language of the speaker's community, Makkah is an entirely Arabic name. "Mecca" is not an English translation for "Makkah," it is a direct (albeit poor) transliteration that has been officially and widely updated by everyone from governments to NGOs like IATA. Spain is the English name/translation for España, Germany is English for Allemagne (in French) or Deutschland (in German/Deutsch), and even the Japanese don't have a consensus on their country's name (Nihon or Nippon). Wikipedia does not use the title Siam for Thailand or Ceylon for Sri Lanka even though these names are very common in the literature and in English language cultural references. To deny the correct spelling "Makkah" is to undermine (with futility) and trivialize the linguistic and cultural self determination and assertion of a people (in this case Arabians/Muslims) in the modern world. The final consensus on this issue in favor of "Makkah," is not a matter of if, but when. Marknorth (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Stats on destruction of historic sites

Under Saudi rule, it has been estimated that since 1985 about 95% of Mecca's historic buildings, most over a thousand years old, have been demolished

The above quote from the article is referenced to two Independent articles (one of which is no longer available). This source makes it clear from the quotes that a lot of the historic environment has been destroyed, but 95% seems rather specific. I tried to track down the initial figure, attributed to the Gulf Institute based in Washington, but haven't had any success yet. It's a punchy number to include, but is it worth removing this stat until it can be backed up? Richard Nevell (talk) 15:19, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Population

Could someone update population: estimate is 1,920,000 (as of 2014). Reference: <ref name="Makkah Al-Mokarramah">{{cite web|title=Population Distribution (Saudi and Non Saudi) in Governorates of Makkah Al-Mokarramah Region, 2014 A.D.|url=https://www.stats.gov.sa/sites/default/files/cdsi_data/yb50/Tabels/Chapter2/Table2-3.htm|work=Stats.Gov.sa|accessdate=June 14, 2017|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160302154408/https://www.stats.gov.sa/sites/default/files/cdsi_data/yb50/Tabels/Chapter2/Table2-3.htm|archivedate=March 3, 2016|deadurl=yes}}</ref>.

Stating about 2 million in the lead is not sourced and should be removed; 1.9 million ({{as of|2014|lc=y}}) can be used instead.

If there is some statistics newer than 2014, it would be good to have it in article. --5.43.75.78 (talk) 21:42, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

The third mention of Hira requires clarification

The "Landmarks" section says "It is notable for being the location where Muhammad received his first revelations from God through the angel Jibreel". As the first two mentions do, this should instead say something like "It is notable for being the location where Muslims believe Muhammad received his first revelations", as it is not an established fact that the Islamic belief is correct. 110.33.162.61 (talk) 10:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 4 October 2017

Change the "Mecca" name to the official name "Makkah" Zyzto (talk) 16:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 November 2017

The pronunciation is given as [maka], but clicking on the spelling leads to the Wiktionary page, where the pronunciation is [makːa]. 195.187.108.4 (talk) 12:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2018

Mecca is now home to the SECOND largest floor area, instead of third. "the world's fourth tallest building and the building with the third largest amount of floor area." change "third" to "second" 2602:306:3556:3170:A512:7F0B:ACD6:D5AE (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — IVORK Discuss 21:30, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
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