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Mecca   /mˈɛkə/   Listen
Mecca

noun
1.
Joint capital (with Riyadh) of Saudi Arabia; located in western Saudi Arabia; as the birthplace of Muhammad it is the holiest city of Islam.
2.
A place that attracts many visitors.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mecca" Quotes from Famous Books



... certainty. We crave knowledge which is withheld more earnestly than we desire faith or hope, and we eagerly make even its semblance a foothold. It appears to me, my friend, with whom I am grown bold, that you and I may find in our less material beliefs as false a haven as the pilgrim finds in his Mecca." ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... wines in the world. They arrived at Port Joppa. There they found two-and-twenty thousand camels and sixteen hundred elephants, which you shall have taken at one hunting about Sigelmes, when you entered into Lybia; and, besides this, you had all the Mecca caravan. Did not they furnish you sufficiently with wine? Yes, but, said he, we did not drink it fresh. By the virtue, said they, not of a fish, a valiant man, a conqueror, who pretends and aspires to the monarchy of the world, cannot always have his ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... priceless precious stones—emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds—which flash and glitter in the sun. These have been presented by pious pilgrims from all parts of the province and beyond; for, with the exception of the Caaba at Mecca, no earthly shrine attracts such multitudes, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... did to advance the cause of missions, an illustration has recently been given us in The Jewish Intelligencer, showing what an influence his life had on Mohammedans and others with whom he came in contact. The writer describes a conversation he had with a shereef from Mecca, a man who was held in the greatest veneration by all loyal Mohammedans. He was a well-informed man, and had travelled much. In speaking of Gordon, he said: "Oh! the English lost a great man, it is true, but the unhappy Mussulmans ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... home that night, Bradley extended his ambitions. He dared to hope that he might be a lawyer, and an orator, which meant also a successful politician to him. Politics to him, as to most western men, was the greatest concern of life, and the city of Washington the Mecca whose shining dome lured from afar. To go to Washington was equivalent to being born again. "A man can do anything if he thinks so and tries hard," he thought, following ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... occurred every fourth year. Each Olympiad was thus a period of four years. The Romans, though not until some centuries after the founding of Rome, dated from that event; i.e., from 753 B.C. The Mohammedan era begins at the Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca, 622 A.D. The method of dating from the birth of Jesus was introduced by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, about the middle of the sixth century. This epoch was placed by him about four years too late. This requires us to fix the date of the birth ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the ships trading to that place, that when, in India, it was wished to describe a thing of inestimable price, it was customary to say, 'It is of more value than a Jeddah ship.' Every year during the winter months, Indian traders, and pilgrims for Mecca, found their way in single ships to the Red Sea. On the setting in of the monsoon, they collected at Mocha, and made their way back in a single body. All Indian trade with the Red Sea was paid for in gold and silver, so that the returning ships offered many tempting prizes ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... your lights, that I may see my way!' and to those behind and below me, 'Brothers! sisters! come on, come up!' Ah! these steeps of human life are hard enough to climb when each shares his light and divides his neighbor's grievous burden. God help us all to help one another! Mecca pilgrims stop in the Valley of Muna to stone the Devil; sometimes I fear that in the Muna of life we only stone each other and martyr Stephen. Last week I read a lecture on architecture, and since then I find myself ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... Kedzie was familiar enough with names of great places to realize the accolade. To be recognized by the Noxons was to be patented by royalty. And Newport was Mecca. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... historian, given to a just weighing of evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable, shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame Poulard. The fog of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... other—with our legs somewhat drawn up, to be sure, as the whole length was not more than six feet. We must have slept there the whole night; for when we got up we found the sun just rising, while the chief and his crew were turning their faces towards Mecca—or where they supposed it to be—and offering up their morning prayers. By this we knew that they were Mohammedans: such, indeed, is the religion of a large number of the people of the archipelago ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... and we have the money, too! And it is to be hoped that ere many years are over, some of our great guns will see their way to construct a local Exhibition that shall attract people from the very ends of the earth to this "Mecca" of ours. As it is, from the grand old days of Boulton and his wonderful Soho, down to to-day, there has been hardly a Prince or potentate, white, black, copper, or coffee coloured, who has visited England, but that have come to peep at our ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... the Moslems I am more familiar. The grave consists still of the two parts, the burying place and the offering place. The swathed body is laid on the right side, with the right hand under the cheek and the face towards Mecca. At the burial the confession of the faith is recited over and over, lest the dead ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner

... concealed a figure of singular beauty and strength. Her cheeks were colourless; her eyes large and deep, and of a soft shade of grey, filled just now with the half wondering, half worshipping expression of a pilgrim who has reached the Mecca of her desires. Her hair—her shabby hat lay upon the table—was dark and glossy. Her arms were a little outstretched. Her lips, unusually scarlet against the pallor of her face, were parted. Her whole attitude was one ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of Constantinople to battle in cases of emergency, in great solemnity, before the Sultan, and its return is hailed by all the people of the capital going out to meet it. The Caaba, or black stone of Mecca is also much revered by the Turks; it is placed in the Temple, and is expected to be endowed with speech at the day of judgment, for the purpose of declaring the names of those pious Mussulmen who have really performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and poured forth their devotions at the shrine of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... amendments' laughing and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... explained Whitney. Then, after a pause, he resumed quickly. "Of course, you know that much has been said about the chances for mining investments and about the opportunities for fortunes for persons in South America. Peru has been the Mecca for fortune hunters since the days of Pizarro. But where one person has been successful thousands have failed because they don't know the game. Why, I know of one investment of hundreds of thousands that hasn't yielded a cent of profit just because ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... was prospering under the guidance of Paul Ragueneau, who in 1645 succeeded Lalemant as superior, when the latter journeyed to Quebec to take over the office of superior-general of the Canada mission. Ste Marie, a wilderness Mecca of the faith, entertained yearly thousands of Indians, many of whom professed Christianity. On one occasion seven hundred Indians sought this sanctuary within a fortnight, and to each of these the fathers from their abundant stores gave two meals. About the walls fields ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... take from a man that which he never possessed. Burton was a very great man, Mr. Payne is a very great man, but they differ as two stars differ in glory. Burton is the magnificent man of action and the anthropologist, Mr. Payne the brilliant poet and prose writer. Mr. Payne did not go to Mecca or Tanganyika, Burton did not translate The Arabian Nights, [10] or write The Rime of Redemption and Vigil and Vision. He did, however, produce the annotations of The Arabian Nights, and a remarkable enough and distinct work ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... Mecca of women than Wall Street is the Jerusalem of men. What you are all going to do in Heaven without Wall Street, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... ruins of the ancient capital of Rama and the Children of the Sun may still be traced in the present Ajudhya near Fyzabad. Ajudhya is the Jerusalem or Mecca of the Hindus. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... ceremonies, traditions, precepts, stolen from other sects, and confusedly heaped up to delude a company of rude and barbarous clowns. As how birds, beasts, stones, saluted Mahomet when he came from Mecca, the moon came down from heaven to visit him, [6553]how God sent for him, spake to him, &c., with a company of stupend figments of the angels, sun, moon, and stars, &c. Of the day of judgment, and three sounds to prepare to it, which must last fifty thousand years of Paradise, which wholly ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... mission of Mohammed.] The personal ministry of Mohammed divides itself into two distinct periods: first, his life at Mecca as a preacher and a prophet; second, his life at Medina as a ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... they came, their hueless faces toward Mecca evermore; On they came, long files of camels, and of women whom they bore; Guides and merchants, youthful maidens, bearing pitchers like Rebecca, And behind them troops of horsemen, dashing, hurrying ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... Bagdad there once lived a merchant named Ali Cogia. This merchant was faithful and honest in all his dealings, but he had never made the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. He often felt troubled over this, for he knew he was neglecting a religious duty, but he was so occupied with his business affairs that it was difficult for him to leave home. Year after year he planned to make ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... Mecca for North Carolina's interior inhabitants who flock thither to breathe in its life-giving ocean breezes when Summer's torrid air becomes unbearable, and lazy Lawrence dances bewilderingly before the eyes. The Winter climate is temperate, but not congenial to Northern tourists, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... who lived in tents, do not seem to have been great builders even in their cities. We have no authentic accounts or existing remains of very early buildings even in Mecca or Medina, as the oldest mosques in those cities have been completely rebuilt. It is to Egypt and Syria that we must turn for the most ancient remaining examples of Saracenic architecture. These consist of mosques ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith

... brotherhood made themselves useful as teachers and in various handicrafts. They were especially in demand among the superstitious for their skill in casting horoscopes, using divining rods, and carving potent amulets. Their mysterious astronomical tower on the heights of the Wissahickon was the Mecca of the curious and the distressed. To the gentle Kelpius was ascribed the power of healing, but he was himself the victim of consumption. The brotherhood did not long survive his death in 1708 or 1709. Their astrological instruments ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... it would at a period of greater commercial activity. Comrades Rossiter and Bristow have studied my methods. They know how I like things to be done. They are fully competent to conduct the business of the department in my absence. Let us, as you say, scud forth. We will go to a Mecca. Why so-called I do not know, nor, indeed, do I ever hope to know. There we may obtain, at a price, a passable cup of coffee, and you shall tell me ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... profane heresies," says an orthodox doctor of Mecca, "it was in the six hundred and sixty-sixth year of the Hegira (about the middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era) that Abouhasan Scazali, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of our most holy prophet, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... bowling-alleys, shooting-targets, and, in fact, as many devices to empty the pocket-book as are usually found at a cattle-show and a church-fair together. An excursion party has just arrived, but this occurs, sometimes, several times in a day,—for Nantasket is a Mecca to the excursionist. Societies and lodges come here; clubs resort hither for a social dinner; mercantile firms send their employes on an annual sail to this place, and philanthropists provide for hundreds of poor children a day's outing on ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... changes of dynasties and empires in the eastern and western world, they retained their independence, though almost constantly at war with the surrounding states. "Their hand was against every man, and every man's hand was against them." In the beginning of the seventh century, Mohammed, a native of Mecca, descended from a noble family, laid claim to the title of a prophet, and being aided by a renegade Christian, formed a religious system, which, after encountering great opposition, was finally adopted by the principal tribes of ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins "stuck in his mortified bare flesh"—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various

... sunburnt young girl with a loud voice. Her laugh can be heard a mile away. She is a passionate Little Russian patriot. She has built a school on the estate at her own expense, and teaches the children Krylov's fables translated into Little Russian. She goes to Shevtchenko's grave as a Turk goes to Mecca. She does not cut her hair, wears stays and a bustle, looks after the housekeeping, is fond ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... is the testimony of travellers that the great majority of poor females in Circassia are as ready to go to Stamboul as pilgrims to Mecca. When captured by Russian cruisers on the voyage, some of them have been known to cast themselves into the sea or to drive a knife into their hearts rather than submit to become wives to the enemies of their country, the hated Muscovites; but they have no aversion ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... bound to Mecca, quite away his sandals wore, And on the desert's blistering sand his feet grew very sore. "To let me suffer thus, great Allah, is not kind nor just, While in thine service I confront the painful heat and dust." He murmured ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... are here not to talk, but to examine; we must judge, and our judgment is not determined by our will. I do not propose to you to believe extravagant things in order to escape embarassment. I do not say to you, 'Go to Mecca, and instruct yourself by kissing the black stone, take hold of a cow's tail, muffle yourself in a scapulary, or be imbecile and fanatical to acquire the favor of the Being of beings.' I say to you, 'Continue to cultivate virtue, to be beneficent, to regard all superstition with horror, or ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880

... observation car the usual well-wrapped girl and pipe-smoking young man were carrying on the usual flirtation. Martie saw the train nearly every day, but never without a thrill. She said to herself, "New York!" as a pilgrim might murmur of Mecca or of Heaven. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... "the isles where the spices grow" was very distant and obscure to the men of the Middle Ages. John Cabot, in 1497, said that he "was once at Mecca, whither the spices are brought by caravans from distant countries, and having inquired from whence they were brought and where they grew, the merchants answered that they did not know, but that such merchandise was brought from distant ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... heart is a pilgrim Seeking the Mecca of rest; Its burden is one of sorrows; And it wails a song as it drags along,— 'Tis the song ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... Burton the preparation of these volumes must have been a labour of love. He began them in conjunction with his friend Steinhaeuser, soon after his return from the Mecca pilgrimage, more than thirty years ago, and he has been doing something to them ever since. In the swampy jungles of West Africa a tale or two has been turned into English, or a poem has been versified during the tedium of official life in the dank climate of Brazil. From Sind to Trieste the manuscript ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... in the numberless churches scattered throughout the city that the devotional spirit of the inhabitants is manifested. Moscow is the Mecca of Russia, where all are devotees. The external forms of religion are every where apparent—in the palaces, the barracks, the institutions of learning, the traktirs, the bath-houses—even in the drinking cellars ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... have fancied that the scapegrace good-for-naught who left the town for the town's good would make it immortal; and, coming back to die and lie down forever beside the Avon, would bring a world of pilgrims to a new Mecca, the shrine of the supreme unique poet of all ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... despise what they call the world. For the real world, the cosmos of rational thought and action, has never existed for them. At Tangier, Mecca, Jerusalem or Timbuctu, they have sat eternally in the same coffee-houses or mosques, and listened eternally to the same theological chatterings; which accounts for a certain "family likeness" between all of these mentally starved ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... among his audience nodded assent. Their mullah taught them that the gods of the Hindu were devils. But who knew? Mecca was far away, and the jungle with its demons was very near them. Among the various creeds in India there is a wide tolerance and a readiness to believe that there may be something of truth in all the faiths that men profess. A Hindu will hang a wreath of marigolds on the ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... is the Mecca of the student of mediaeval sculpture. The array of statues on the exterior is amazing, and a walk around the great structure reveals unexpected riches in corbels, gargoyles, and other grotesques, hidden ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... important place of trade, so much so that De Barros, their famous historian, wrote of it that, "the native town was a good league in length along the shore, and that there were many merchant vessels there from Calicut, Aden, Mecca, Java, and Pegu, and other places." This splendid trade, however, began to decline in the time of the Dutch, and shortly after we had opened Penang in 1785 ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... sank behind the highlands of Abyssinia while the Effendi awaited the Governor's return in the guard-room of the fort. Thereupon his guide, being an orthodox Mahomedan, faced towards Mecca, knelt by the roadside, and bowed his forehead in the dust. Another devout follower of the Prophet joined him, and the two chanted their prayers in unison. It is said that hymns are seldom sung with such gusto as in convict settlements, and, appraised by this standard, Mulai Hamed ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... whatever, only the precursors of more sweeping exterminations of the Arab race, which will be effected after the war, if the Allied Powers do not step in to save it. The Faithful of the Holy City, Mecca, have revolted and thrown off the Turkish yoke, and while the war lasts, and Turkish troops are otherwise occupied under Teutonic supervision, they will be able to maintain their independence, for there is no considerable body of Turks which can ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... explorers by land as well as by sea. Lewis di Varthema rivalled his countryman Marco Polo by an extensive journey in the first decade of the century. Like Burckhardt and Burton in the nineteenth century he visited Mecca and Medina as a Mohammedan pilgrim, and also journeyed to Cairo, Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus and then to the distant lands of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... auto-kit with delectable sandwiches, cakes and other dainties, and the party of amateur collectors started out on their quest. The chauffeur smiled at their eagerness to arrive at some place on the Boston Post Road that might suggest that it led to their Mecca. He kept on, however, until after passing through Stamford, then he turned to the left and followed a road that seemed to leave all suburban life behind, ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!" ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... make trial of their swords. The sword of Alfred was a simple sword: its name was Hewer. And the sword of Charlemagne was a French sword, and its name was Joyeuse. But the sword of Haroun was of the finest steel, forged in Toledo, tempered at Cordova, blessed in Mecca, damascened (as one might imagine) in Damascus, sharpened upon Jacob's Stone, and so wrought that when one struck it it sounded like a bell. And as for its name, By Allah! that was very subtle—-for it had no ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe) is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father, nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in Paradise women have no place ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... be a curious compound of incense, cabbage, garlic and eau de cologne, with a suggestion of camel. The room was entirely filled with Syrians. One row of benches was occupied by a solemn group of white-bearded patriarchs who looked as if they had momentarily paused on a pilgrimage to Mecca. All over the room rose the murmur of purring Arabic. The stenographer was examining a copy of Meraat-ul-Gharb, the clerk a copy of El Zeman, and in front of the judge's chair had been laid a ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... courts; but he refused to rest until he had discovered the great object of his life—the art of preserving it for centuries, and of making gold as much as he needed. This wandering mode of life at last proved fatal to him. He had been on a visit to Mecca, not so much for religious as for philosophical purposes, when, returning through Syria, he stopped at the court of the Sultan Seifeddoulet, who was renowned as the patron of learning. He presented himself in his travelling attire in the presence of that monarch and his courtiers; and, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... wilderness, we were astir in the grayest of our second Thursday's dawn, and were soon in readiness for our final portage over the crests of the Heights of Land to the river, which out of our long and severe march had become to us a veritable Mecca. Our way was up a gentle range of hills, whose tops, but a few yards wide, divide the waters which flow southward to the great Gulf from those which seek their far northward trend through the Red River of the North. The first division of our party reached the Mississippi ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... fame coincides in time. There was again the allocution of Pius X, known as the Motu proprio, which sought to reform ecclesiastical music and has, however fruitless it may have been elsewhere, made the services in Westminster Cathedral, under Dr. Terry's direction, a Mecca for musicians of all faiths who are interested in the great sixteenth-century masterpieces. There are also the aristocratically Catholic composers of latter-day France, centring round Vincent d'Indy and the Schola Cantorum and looking back for inspiration ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... beautiful homes of these wonderful people were filled with the most rare and costly works of art. An illustration of how necessary all these luxuries of life finally became to the Mohammedans is found in the statement that the sheik of a tribe on a pilgrimage to Mecca carried with him a whole caravan of dependents and slaves. He had silver ovens in which to bake fresh bread every day, and his camels bore leathern bags filled with snow that he might drink iced sherbet ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... after year we have journeyed to the Mecca of the petitioner—the legislative halls. There we have asked protection for our boys from the temptation of the open saloon; we have asked that around our baby girls the wall of protection might be raised at least a little higher than ten years; we have asked for reform schools for boys, where ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... fountain, pathway, and wall," says an ancient chronicler, "was regarded as a holy mystery." 24 And unfortunate was the Indian noble who, at some period or other of his life, had not made his pilgrimage to the Peruvian Mecca. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... became more ominous. It was reported in the Press that a Wazoo, inflamed apparently with ghee, or perhaps with bhong, had rushed up to the hills and refused to come down. It was said that the Shriek-el-Foozlum, the religious head of the tribe, had torn off his suspenders and sent them to Mecca. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... now go to Benares, the fountain-head of the Hindu faith, the city which is to it what Mecca is to Mohammedanism and more than Jerusalem is to Christianity. And Benares is so important that I must give more than a paragraph to my ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... calling it Camoteia. This place was consecrated and henceforth regarded with great veneration. Until the arrival of the Spaniards the natives rendered it the homage of their continual gifts; the same as we do Jerusalem, the cradle of our religion; or the Turks, Mecca, or the ancient inhabitants of the Fortunate Isles venerated the summit of a high rock on the Grand Canary. Many of these latter, singing joyous canticles, threw themselves down from the summit of this rock, for their false priests had ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... candles in the windows, were as guiding stars to these children in the wilderness. Twice in the early days, so their folklore told them, miraculous intervention had saved their city from the invader; and was she not impregnable still? And as he gazed happily across the uplands towards his Mecca, the habitant could conceive of no power which might prevail against her stony ramparts. To this day the emblems of their faith abound, scattered along the wayside; and here and there a little wooden cross, set ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... every one in Boston talks like me—if every one is as "intellectual" as your poor correspondent. She is for ever throwing Boston up at me; I can't get rid of Boston. The other one rubs it into me too; but in a different way; she seems to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels toward Mecca, and regards it as a kind of focus of light for the whole human race. Poor little Boston, what nonsense is talked in thy name! But this New England maiden is, in her way, a strange type: she is travelling all over Europe alone—"to see it," she says, "for herself." For herself! What ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James

... morality for men and women? Certainly none but the ordinary female stump politician will dare answer these questions in the affirmative. If that be so, it seems ridiculous to point to Australia and New Zealand as the Mecca ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... churchmen that Gordon Pasha, at his own expense, built a mosque for the devout Mohammedans whom he ruled, and that his name, as worthy to be remembered in Moslem annals, is inscribed upon the walls of the Mosque at Mecca. That General Gordon was a staunch Christian goes without saying, but he was no churl who could not esteem and respect the faith of his fellow-men. But the case is well summed up in Lord Kitchener's subsequent letter ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... Cagliostro—"pupil of the sage Althotas, foster- child of the Scheriff of Mecca, probable son of the last king of Trebizond; named also Acharat, and 'Unfortunate child of Nature;' by profession healer of diseases, abolisher of wrinkles, friend of the poor and impotent; grand-master of the Egyptian Mason-lodge of High Science, spirit-summoner, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... sight joyful huzzas resounded through the fortress, and we did indeed all feel that Allah, by disrupting the forces of the enemy, was fighting on our side. And as I spread my prayer carpet, and prostrated myself toward Mecca, the pious thought in my heart was one that had many times been inculcated by my noble grandsire himself: 'Let the wise man reflect that he can in no way succeed without the ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... to thee!— Home, wife and children, native soil, and all That once they deemed life's sweetest, at thy call; Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted; Wearied for months at sea—yet ever painted Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain Invalidated pain, Cured the sick soul—made nugatory ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... known Baltimore before the days of modern cities. He had known it before it had cut its hotels after the palace pattern, and when Rennert's in more primitive quarters had been the Mecca for epicureans. He had known its theaters when the footlight favorites were Lotta and Jo Emmet, and when the incomparable Booth and Jefferson had held audiences spellbound at Ford's and at Albaugh's. He had known Charles Street before it was extended, and he had known its Sunday parade. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... other passengers in the saloon, laughing, eating, singing, playing cards. The society in the Zouave was as cheerful as it was diverse. There were some officers on their way to rejoin their units, a bevy of tarts from Marseille, a rich Mahommedan merchant, returning from Mecca, some strolling players, a Montenegran prince, a great joker this, who did impersonations.... Not one of these people was sea-sick and they spent the time drinking champagne with the captain of the Zouave, a fat "Bon viveur" from ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... ecstatically at the Languedocian capital. It is a metropolis of beggardom, a mendicant's Mecca, a citadel of Jules Richepin's cherished Gueux. Here, indeed, Elia need not have lamented over the decay of beggars, "the all sweeping besom of societarian reformation—your only modern Alcides' club to rid time of its abuses—is ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... lived on as before, and gave less in return, at which my father made wry faces, but said nothing in regret. After us others also set free their people, and presently this part of Virginia was a sort of Mecca for escaped blacks. It was my mother did that; and I believe that it was her influence which had much to do with the position of East Virginia on the question of the war. And this also in time had much to do with this strange story of mine, and much to do with the presence ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... before him. He was a one-eyed man, with a fringe of grizzled beard and a face which was fat, but which looked as if it had once been fatter, for it was marked with many folds and creases. He had a green turban upon his head, which marked him as a Mecca pilgrim. In one hand he carried a small brown carpet, and in the other a parchment copy of the Koran. Laying his carpet upon the ground, he motioned Mansoor to his side, and then gave a circular sweep of his arm to signify that the prisoners should ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... it for, do you think? She has no dreams of European aggression, or her soldiers would be fighting there now. China is hers for the taking, a rich prize ready to fall into her mouth at any moment. But the end and aim of all Japanese policy, the secret Mecca of her desires, is to repay with the sword the insults your country has heaped upon her. It is for that, believe me, that her arsenals are working night and day, her soldiers are training, her fleet is in reserve. While you haggle about a few volunteers, ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... since that catastrophe the manufacture of rugs has not regained its former prosperity; yet great improvement has been shown in recent years, and the same vegetable dyes are still in use. The Shiraz is often called the Mecca rug, as it is the one frequently selected by pilgrims to that city. Deep rich blues are often seen in a Shiraz rug, and frequently stripes extend throughout the centre, as well as in the border, where diamond ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... Constantinople in 1453. And in 1529 Suleyman the Magnificent was at the gates of Vienna. Suleyman's reign forms the climax of Turkish history. The Turks had become a central European power occupying Hungary and menacing Austria. Suleyman's dominions extended from Mecca to Buda-Pesth and from Bagdad to Algiers. He commanded the Mediterranean, the Euxine, and the Red Sea, and his navies threatened the coasts of India ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... golden roofs of scores of temples give back the sunlight, and the moaning chant of praying lamas is always in the air. Even in the main street I have seen the prostrate forms of ragged pilgrims who have journeyed far to this Mecca of the lama faith. If they are entering the city for the first time and crave exceeding virtue, they approach the great temple on the hill by lying face down at every step and beating their foreheads upon the ground. Wooden shrines of dazzling whiteness stand in quiet streets or cluster by themselves ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... of that land of our forefathers—England—now to be realized. I shall see London, walk its streets, and linger amid its historic places. Don't smile at this almost boyish enthusiasm, Doctor. London has always been the Mecca ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... costumes of every country are consulted and suited. The brown cloak of the Spaniard, the poncho of the Chilean, the bright red or yellow robe of the Chinese, the green turban of the pilgrim from Mecca, the black blanket of the Caffre, and the red blanket of the American Indian may all be found in bales ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... way he founded the colonies of Mozambique and Sofala, and sailed to Travancore. During the passage he fell in with a ship which was carrying many Indian Mussulmans to Mecca, laden with rich presents for the shrine of the Prophet. This he pillaged and burned, with all of her 300 passengers except twenty women and children, whom he saved more for his own pleasure, no doubt, than from any pity for them. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... away; Let not the fear of hell his spirit grieve, The tomb is still, whatever fools believe: Laugh at the tales which withered sages bring, Proverbs and morals; let the waxen king, That rules the hive, be born without a sting; Let Guise by blood resolve to mount to power. And he is great as Mecca's emperor. He comes; bid him not stand on altar-vows, But then strike deepest, when he lowest bows; Tell him, fate's awed when an usurper springs, And joins to crowd out ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... repeat that if you tell him to say just the opposite he will be quite ready to do it. The faith of children and the faith of many men is a matter of geography. Will they be rewarded for having been born in Rome rather than in Mecca? One is told that Mahomet is the prophet of God and he says, "Mahomet is the prophet of God." The other is told that Mahomet is a rogue and he says, "Mahomet is a rogue." Either of them would have said just the opposite had he stood in ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... truth. He felt that he had done what he could. Southern soldiers and generals as well as Northern comrades and friends brought to his bedside messages of affection and good cheer. At length he fell asleep. His tomb on the height above the Hudson has become a Mecca for innumerable multitudes. ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... impossible, that I realized I needed more training. I could have remained where I was; the church people were quite satisfied, and I sang in concert whenever opportunity offered. But something within urged me on. We decided to take a year off and spend it in study abroad. Paris was then the Mecca for singers and to Paris we went. I plunged at once into absorbing study; daily lessons in voice training and repertoire; languages, and French diction, several times a week, and soon acting was added, for every one said my voice was ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... advocacy of the Fabian Society. This is very far from the truth. The great provincial municipalities took over the management of their water and gas because they found municipal control alike convenient, beneficial to the citizens, and financially profitable: Birmingham in the seventies was the Mecca of Municipalisation, and in 1882 the Electric Lighting Act passed by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was so careful of the interests of the public, so strict in the limitations it put upon the possible profits to the investor, that electric lighting was blocked ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... proportions. With money behind one, the problem of where to live approaches more nearly to the simple question of where do you wish to live, and a rich daughter-in-law would have surely seen to it that she did not have to leave her square mile of Mecca and go out into the wilderness of bricks and mortar. If the house in Blue Street could not have been compounded for there were other desirable residences which would have been capable of consoling Francesca for her ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... Mahometan era of the Hegira. Mahomet is driven from Mecca, and is received as prince ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... to you as a fugitive to this house will be the ruler of this city." He then called the city Yottreb after his own name, and the scroll descended from father to son till the Apostle of God arrived as a fugitive from Mecca, when the inhabitants went out to meet him, and presented him with it. They afterwards became his auxiliaries and were known as the Ansar. But we must now return to King Zul Yezn. He marched several days toward Abyssinia, and at last arrived in a beautiful ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... without the consent of parent or guardian, and irrespective of the age of the applicants for the same. Though preferring Shelby, Tom agreed to Claxon on my insisting on the latter place, which was the Mecca for runaway couples from our section of the state. If I were going ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... elderly, respectable-looking personage, wearing a green bournous over white under-clothes. He was to act as mediator between them and the inhabitants of the countries they were to visit. He was now on his homeward journey from a pilgrimage to Mecca. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... first of the human race who had landed there; that he was looking for the sea, which ought to be before us, in order to discover the places where, he had been told, some Arab camps were to be found, among whom he had friends who had accompanied him in a journey to Mecca. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... dental library in the world is owned by Dr. H. J. McKellops, of St. Louis. Upon his cheerful invitation, the writer visited that "Mecca," and through his kindness and assistance a complete search was made, which resulted in obtaining a great portion of the following historical facts with reference to the use of ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler

... pushed into the region, and the Government began granting leases on easy terms to operators. In 1823 one of these men arrived with soldiers, supplies, skilled miners, and one hundred and fifty slaves; and thereafter the "diggings" fast became a mecca for miners, smelters, speculators, merchants, gamblers, and get-rich-quick folk of every sort, who swarmed thither by thousands from every part of the United States, especially the South, and even from Europe. "Mushroom towns sprang up all over the district; deep-worn native paths became ore ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... life that made him a new man, a stronger moral force in the Baptist denomination. I remember, too, when McKinley was inaugurated in 1897. Men and women, old and young, from all sections of the country, of varying degrees of culture, of divers religious creeds, came to Crummell's house as a mecca. Some had been thrilled by his sermons and commencement addresses; others caught the inspiration of their lives from his works, "Africa and America," "The Future of Africa," and "The Greatness of Christ, and Other Sermons." Today his memory is treasured in Washington, in cities of the north ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... cousins compared with you," he had also observed, "and Paris, for my sister and her husband, is the end of the world. London therefore will be more or less another planet. It has always been, as with so many of us, quite their Mecca, but this is their first real caravan; they've mainly known 'old England' as a shop for articles in india-rubber and leather, in which they've dressed themselves as much as possible. Which all means, however, that you'll see them, all of them, wreathed in smiles. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... both the painter and the poet in the absence of all local limitation to his popularity. Here, indeed, the painter is the least favoured by the nature of his art. The immediate presence of the prophet could only be felt at Mecca; the perfection of painting can only be seen at Rome. The poet has a wider range, and can be prized and appreciated wherever the language is known in which he writes. But the musician is still more highly privileged. He speaks with a tongue intelligible alike to every nation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... of discord shrills the tune of shame and death, Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by Nazareth: All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but greed's or ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... to Spain, bore the glorious news, together with the, sacred, standard of the Prophet, the holy of holies, inscribed with the name of Allah twenty-eight thousand nine hundred times, always kept in Mecca during peace, and never since the conquest of Constantinople lost in battle before. The King was at vespers in the Escorial. Entering the sacred precincts, breathless, travel-stained, excited, the messenger found ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and Araby, SAID was hungrier than all; Hafiz said he was a fly That came to every festival. He came a pilgrim to the Mosque On trail of camel and caravan, Knew every temple and kiosk Out from Mecca to Ispahan; Northward he went to the snowy hills, At court he sat in the grave Divan. His music was the south-wind's sigh, His lamp, the maiden's downcast eye, And ever the spell of beauty came And turned the drowsy world to flame. By lake and stream and gleaming hall And modest copse and the ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the invasion referred to—the coming to The Beaches of the foreign contingent, so called: people of fabulous means, multi-millionaires who were captains in one or another form of industry and who sought this resort as a Mecca for the social uplifting of their families and protection against summer heat. At their advent prices made another jump—one which took the breath away. Several of the most conservative owners parted with their estates after naming a figure which they supposed beyond the danger ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... of Sulu was Kamaludin, and during his reign one Sayed Alli, a merchant, arrived at Sulu from Mecca. He was a sherif, and soon converted one-half of the islanders to his own faith. He was elected sultan on the death of Kamaludin, and reigned seven years, in the course of which he became celebrated throughout the archipelago. Dying at Sulu, a tomb was erected ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... quaint figure with which to enrich my sketch-book—a sarong-weaver, or a beggar crouching by the wayside, or a Hadji, with his large umbrella and green turban, the latter marking the fact of his having accomplished a pilgrimage to Mecca. But, interesting as were these human studies, my pleasantest recollections of Buitenzorg centre in the visit which I paid to the Botanical Gardens, under the guidance of the curator, ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... mosques and Mohammedanism!' The effect of this home- thrust was terrific. Tipkisson (who is a Baptist) was hooted down and hustled out, and has ever since been regarded as a Turkish Renegade who contemplates an early pilgrimage to Mecca. Nor was he the only discomfited man. The charge, while it stuck to him, was magically transferred to our honourable friend's opponent, who was represented in an immense variety of placards as a firm believer in Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Ludamar, the women raise their hair to a great height by the addition of a pad, (as the ladies did formerly in Great Britain,) which they decorate with a species of coral, brought from the Red Sea by pilgrims returning from Mecca, and sold at a ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... dishes and lucent jellies; her housekeeping and her hospitality are famous. She is a bright talker, witty, charming, with the soft inflections which make the vibrant tunefulness of the Virginian woman's voice so tender and sweet a thing in the ear. Mount Seward is to her the Mecca of memory. If ever she has a daughter she will send her there, and—who knows?—that girl ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... morning the missal books of the Greek Church will be laid along the bulwarks of the ship, and a couple of Russian priests, coming from Jerusalem, will be busy muttering mass. A yard to right or left a Turkish pilgrim, returning from Mecca, sits a respectful observer of the scene. It is prayer, and therefore it is holy in his sight. So, too, when the evening hour has come, and the Turk spreads out his bit of carpet for the sunset prayers ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... much disappointed; it is likely, Mr. Catlin having only visited the northern borders of Texas, and the poorest village of the whole Comanche tribe. If, however, he had proceeded as far as the Rio Puerco, he would have seen the true Mecca breed, with which the Moslems conquered Spain. He would have also perceived how much the advantages of a beautiful clime and perpetual pasture has improved these noble animals, making them superior to the primitive stock, both in size, speed, and bottom. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... me off ten pounds of meat.' He gave her the meat, wrapped in a banana leaf, and she put it in the basket, saying, 'Hoist up, O porter!' and went on to a grocer's, of whom she took pistachio kernels and shelled almonds and hazel-nuts and walnuts and sugar cane and parched peas and Mecca raisins and all else that pertains to dessert. Thence to a pastry-cook's, where she bought a covered dish and put therein open-work tarts and honey-fritters and tri-coloured jelly and march-pane, flavoured with lemon and melon, and Zeyneb's combs and ladies' fingers and Cadi's ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... and then, having brushed his wispish hair, he descended the stairs, determined to do or die. Perhaps he would not have plumped himself straight into the drawing-room had not the manikin clad in sixpences assumed that the drawing-room was his Mecca ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... narrow track curling through a lawn studded with shrubbery. There was a moment's view of all Washington beyond the valley of the moon-illumined river. Its lights gleamed in a patient vigilance. It had the look of the holy city that it is. The Capitol was like a mosque in Mecca, the Mecca of the faithful who believe in freedom and equality. The Washington Monument, picked out from the dark by a search-light, was a lofty steeple ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... citadel of Hindooism, containing about a hundred and fifty thousand permanent inhabitants and as many more floating population, composed of pilgrims constantly coming and going. What Jerusalem is to the Jew, Rome to the Roman Catholic, Mecca to the Mohammedan, Benares is to the Hindoo. It is supposed by many to be the oldest known habitation of man. Twenty-five centuries ago, when Rome was unknown and Athens was in its youth, Benares was already famous. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... and I went East together. In the early morning Boston broke on us like a Mecca as we rolled out of the old Albany station, joint lords of a "herdic." How sharply the smell of the salt-laden east wind and its penetrating coolness come back to me! I seek in vain for words to express the exhilarating effect of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Islam are there not many who rule? In Tehran, for instance, there is the young Ahmed Shah. Then among the Bakhtiaris there is an Ilkhani, at Mohamera there is the Sheikh of the Cha'b, and in the valleys of Pusht-i-Kuh none is above the Father of Swords. I do not forget, either, the Emirs of Mecca and Afghanistan, or the Sultan in Stambul. And among them what Firengi shall say who is the greatest? And so it is in Firengistan. Yet as for this paper, it is written in the tongue of a king smaller than ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... is a kind of portico indicating the direction of Mecca. It is placed at the end of each mosque, as the altar is in our churches, and the faithful are supposed to face it when ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... quite briefly to the Mohammedan pilgrimages to Mecca, the Catholic pilgrimages to Lourdes, and to many other spots whence men return comforted by their faith, and to the holy Hock at Trier. Thus we shall also create a center for the deep religious needs of our people. Our ministers will understand us first, and ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... artists in the cities of two hemispheres, and, since sincere painting had been his pole-star, he had gone where his art's wanderlust beckoned. His most famous canvas, perhaps, was his "Prayer Toward Mecca," which hangs in the Metropolitan. It shows, with a power that holds the observer in a compelling grip, the wonderful colors of a sunset across the desert. One seems to feel the renewed life that comes to the caravan with the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... time. And you can never return to the old dust-and-daisy communion with nature, yet you are appalled at the loneliness and the terrible sacrifices made by a man in your situation. Your spiritual ambition has outstripped your courage. You are an adventurer, rather than an earnest pilgrim to Mecca. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... keeping wine in my house," cried Scheich Ibrahim, "and from ever coming to a place where any is found! A man who, like me, has been a pilgrimage four times to Mecca, has renounced ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... patrons, or aristocratic friends. He tried residence in Geneva and Lausanne, but while he found political liberty, he was not accorded by the pious Swiss the social freedom to which he was accustomed in France. Finally he purchased a place at Ferney. His home here became the Mecca to which the literary celebrities of Europe made pilgrimages. At Ferney he established watch-manufacturing, competing with the Swiss; here also he built a church, inscribing upon it "Deo crexit Voltaire." In pure mischievousness he entered upon an indecent controversy with the bishop ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... result of our having been in prison, our headquarters has never ceased being the mecca of many discouraged "inmates," when released. They come for money. They come for work. They come for spiritual encouragement to face life after the wrecking experience of imprisonment. Some regard us as "fellow prisoners." Others regard ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... revellers had long ago given them up, and were now down in the old laundry spreading forth their array of goodies. After wasting considerable time, Marie suddenly bethought her of the above fact, and instantly skipped off to that Mecca. ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina, and the king's official title is the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The modern Saudi state was founded in 1932 by ABD AL-AZIZ bin Abd al-Rahman AL SAUD (Ibn Saud) after a 30-year campaign to unify most of the Arabian Peninsula. A male descendent of ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... and treasures of Homeric kings. His message back to scholars who waited tensely for his verdict was, "It looks to me like the civilization of an African people." A new world opened to archeologists and the AEgean became the Mecca of the world. Traces of this prehistoric civilization began to make their appearance far beyond the limits of Greece itself. From Cyprus and Palestine to Sicily and Southern Italy, and even to the coasts of Spain, the colonial and industrial enterprise of the Myceneans has left ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... Exile perforce became the religion of a community and not of a state; and Israel for the first time constituted a Church. But it was a Church with no visible home. Christianity for several centuries was to have a centre at Rome, Islam at Mecca. But Judaism had and ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams

... his rug, with his face turned in the direction of Mecca, as near as he can judge, and going through with the strange rigmarole of bows and muttered phrases that constitute ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... the Mecca of the Hindoos, and the number of pilgrims who visit it is incalculable. Casi (its ancient name, signifying splendid), is alleged to be no part of this world, which rests on eternity, whereas Benares is perched on a prong of Siva's trident, and is hence beyond the reach of earthquakes.* ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... prayer and the trim of a spear, or the edge of a sword. Amir Khan was the law, the army regulation, the one thing to obey. As to the matter of prayers, for those who were not followers of the Prophet, who carried no little prayer carpet to kneel upon, face to Mecca, there was, it being a Rajput town, always the shrine of Shiva and his elephant-headed son, Ganesh, to receive obeisance from the Hindus. And those who had come as players, wrestlers, were welcomed joyously, for, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... pilgrim, a name which has procured for me a great deal of unmerited respect, because that honoured title is seldom conferred on any but those who have made the great pilgrimage to the tomb of the blessed Prophet of Mecca. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... a lovely lady, and gentle handmaids will she have to awaken her withal," observed Malique. "Soft and fair as one of the Houris promised to the faithful in paradise. By the holy sepulchre of Mecca, such a morsel as this would not be disagreeable even to the fastidious palate of ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... religious observance with them," said the Other. "A kind of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die ...
— Reginald • Saki

... ground, swaying with a sleepy chant. The teacher's only function was represented by his huge cane, which he plied often and skilfully. Outside the door was a barber shaving a pilgrim's head. The pilgrim was a Muslim, going on the Haj to Mecca. These pilgrims are looked on with mingled feelings; their piety is admired, but also distrusted. A local saying is, "If thy neighbor has been on the Haj, beware of him; if he has been twice, have no dealings with him; if he has been thrice, move into ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... three religions, said Elizabeth—not counting the dispensation from Mecca, about which Turk and Hun might be permitted to continue their struggle on the crepuscular limits of civilization. Everywhere else there should be toleration only for the churches of Peter, of Luther, and of Calvin. The house of Austria was to be humbled—the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Wright; not that the race commenced with the former, or has terminated with the latter; the records of history supply us with examples of "lying augurs," in every period previously to the career of the Impostor of Mecca, and our daily experience furnishes us with proofs that the tribe is by no means extinct. As in religion, so has it been, and still continues, in philosophy, and the whole circle of science: pretenders to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... when the planet attained its full diameter. The moment the pious Mussulman, from the high hills in the rear of my settlement, espied the river winding to the sea, he turned to the east, and raising his arms to heaven, and extending them towards Mecca, gave thanks for his safe arrival on the beach. After repeated genuflections, in which the earth was touched by his prostrate forehead, he arose, and taking the path towards Kambia, struck up a loud chant in honor of the prophet, in which ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... is one of the miracles ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus. Such stories are rife among the Mahomedans themselves. "I know," says Khanikoff, "at least half a score of mountains which the Musulmans allege to have come from the vicinity of Mecca." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina occurred June 20, 622, and was called the hegira, or departure of the prophet. That event marks the commencement of the Mahometan era, which is called there-from the Hegira. According to the civil calculation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... his religion, we of the present day should never have heard either of him or it. "Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes. For ten years, the religion advanced with a slow and painful progress, within the walls of Mecca. The number of proselytes in the seventh year of his mission may be estimated by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen women, who retired to Aethiopia." (Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 244, et seq. ed. Dub.) Yet this progress, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... all the lower order of animals in his capacity for being trained. Mohammedans are trained to pray five times a day with their faces turned towards Mecca; and they do it regularly. Christians are trained to make the sign of the Cross on certain occasions, and to bow, and so forth; so that religion on the whole is a real masterpiece of training—that is to say, it trains people what they are to think; and the ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... the houses were wide open, communicating with one another. The carved oak fronts of the houses and shops, done ingeniously with strange pargetting, and adorned with wondrous windows, are so adorably queer, with their stagey effects, that I don't wonder Chester has become a kind of Mecca for travellers from my native land, where ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... sea power. Once Germany had taken actual command at Constantinople, once the railroad from Hamburg to the Bosphorus was open, it was possible to threaten Britain in Egypt, and perhaps ultimately in India by the Bagdad and Mecca railways. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... Mother Earth begins to stir, And like a Hadji who hath been To Mecca, wears a caftan green; When jasmines and azalias fill The air with sweets, and down the hill Turbid no more descends the rill; The wonder of thy hazel eyes, Soft opening on the misty skies— Dost smile within ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... Hindustan in the eighth and ninth centuries carried back the habit to their own country; and Massoudi, the traveller of Bagdad, who wrote the account of his voyages in A.D. 943, states that the chewing of betel prevailed along the southern coast of Arabia, and reached as far as Yemen and Mecca.[1] Ibn Batuta saw the betel plant at Zahfar A.D. 1332, and describes it accurately as trained like a vine over a trellis of reeds, or climbing the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... the son of Abdallah and Aminah (usually known as Mohammed, or "he who will be praised,"); reads like a chapter in the "Thousand and One Nights." He was a camel-driver, born in Mecca. He seems to have been an epileptic and he suffered from spells of unconsciousness when he dreamed strange dreams and heard the voice of the angel Gabriel, whose words were afterwards written down in a book called the Koran. His work as a caravan ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon



Words linked to "Mecca" :   topographic point, Hejaz, Hedjaz, Caaba, spot, Saudi Arabia, place, Hijaz, Kaaba, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh



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