The Holy Cities of Arabia

1930

Brasch DS207 RZ35 1930

London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Mecca lies near the western coast, halfway down the Arabian Peninsula. The city is the birthplace of Muḥammad (570 AD) and where the prophet received the revelations of the Qur’an; it is the most holy site for the Islamic faith. Within the Grand Mosque of Mecca lies the Kaaba (pictured here). All Muslims, who are able, are expected to embark on a pilgrimage, or Hajj, there at least once in their lifetime. In 1925, Eldon Rutter (b. 1894), a British Islamic convert, posed as a Syrian merchant to make his journey to Mecca and his way into the cloth-draped Kaaba itself. Rutter’s recollections of his journey from Egypt to the holy city inform his book, The Holy Cities of Arabia, a veritable ‘treasure house of descriptive writing, social anthropology, Islamic history and scholarship’ (Shipman, 2016).