Mecca is an old, old place. In it, stands the Kaaba, the House of God built by Ibrahim and his son Ismail, may Allah’s peace be upon them. Pilgrims used to flock to Mecca from all over Arabia to visit the Kaaba. But with the passage of time, people forgot that the purpose of going there was to worship God and they started to worship idols. At one time, there were as many as three hundred and sixty idols and statues in and around the Kaaba.
Mecca was a mercantile city, that is, a city of merchants. The aristocrats of Quraysh were businessmen, who traded north and south, winter and summer. Their caravans were always on the move. In the winter they headed to Yemen in the south; in the summer to Damascus in the north.
