Mecca is considered the
While Mecca is its holiest site, there are other major Muslim sites—gilded mosques, mosaic-embedded shrines, and holy cities—that not only are architectural gems but provide intriguing insights into Islam's history and culture.
Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem are the three holy cites for the Muslims. Mecca and Medina are located in present-day Saudi Arabia, while Jerusalem is located in present-day Israel.
Mecca, Arabic Makkah, ancient Bakkah, city, western Saudi Arabia, located in the Ṣirāt Mountains, inland from the Red Sea coast. It is the holiest of Muslim cities. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was born in Mecca, and it is toward this religious centre that Muslims turn five times daily in prayer (see qiblah).
The Kaaba, meaning cube in Arabic, is a square building, elegantly draped in a silk and cotton veil. Located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, it is the holiest shrine in Islam.
Followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslims are monotheistic and worship one, all-knowing God, who in Arabic is known as Allah. Followers of Islam aim to live a life of complete submission to Allah. They believe that nothing can happen without Allah's permission, but humans have free will.
Around 62% of the world's Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region (from Turkey to Indonesia), with over one billion adherents. As of June 2023, the largest Muslim population in a country is in Pakistan (240,760,000), followed by Indonesia (236,000,000), India (200,000,000), and Bangladesh (150,800,000).
If you describe a place as a mecca or Mecca for a particular thing or activity, you mean that many people who are interested in it go there.
Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BC when the site was chosen during the lifetime of King David to be the location of the Holy Temple.
Allah is the standard Arabic word for God and is used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews as well as by Muslims.
Ever since the time of Muhammad, Muslims have considered Jerusalem to be an important place for pilgrimage after Makka, due to its religious significance as being the place of the prophet's miraculous journey to heaven.
Catholics, like many other Christians, regards the Sepulchre in Jerusalem to be the holiest of places. It also places emphasis on Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, and other parts of the Holy Land as sacred since apostolic times, and notes as places of special sanctity the sanctuaries built on the tombs of the Apostles.
Israel is acknowledged as the Holy Land in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, and Jerusalem's Western Wall is its holiest site. The limestone structure has been a place of worship since the 11th century, as the closest place to Temple Mount (where it's said God created man) from which worshippers can pray.
Jews commonly refer to the Land of Israel as "The Holy Land" (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ הַקוֹדֵשׁ Eretz HaKodesh).
In 2021, the top five were President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan president of Turkey; King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia; Ayatollah Hajj Sayyid Ali Khamenei of Iran; King Abdullah II Ibn Al-Hussein of Jordan.
Unlike many other forms of livestock, pigs are omnivorous scavengers, eating virtually anything they come across, including carrion and refuse, which was deemed unclean. Furthermore, a Middle Eastern society keeping large stocks of pigs could destroy their ecosystem.
Belief in the Oneness of God: Muslims believe that God is the creator of all things, and that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. God has no offspring, no race, no gender, no body, and is unaffected by the characteristics of human life.
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians. Islam developed in the 7th century CE.
There's the rub: Christians and Jews share a Scripture. Christians and Muslims do not. Muslims do not recognize the Old or the New Testament.
Most mainstream Muslims would generally agree they worship the same God that Christians — or Jews — worship. Zeki Saritoprak, a professor of Islamic studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, points out that in the Quran there's the Biblical story of Jacob asking his sons whom they'll worship after his death.
Forbidden food substances include alcohol, pork, carrion, the meat of carnivores and animals that died due to illness, injury, stunning, poisoning, or slaughtering not in the name of God.