Mecca fire of 1997 Mecca fire of 1997 The Mecca fire of 1997 was a fire that occurred in the tent city near Mecca in Saudi Arabia 15 April 1997, killing between 217 and 300 people. The fire erupted in the overcrowded tent city, Mina, where an estimated two million Muslim pilgrims were gathered on for the first day of the Hajj, the ritualistic pilgrimage to Mecca. The fire erupted at 11:45 a.m. (), and was caused by exploding canisters of cooking gas, according to witnesses. The fire was fanned by winds of nearly causing the destruction of an estimated 70,000 tents. Officially, 1,290
Sharifate of Mecca of Mecca was always from the Hashemite clan of Muhammad. This situation was ended in 1803, when fundamentalist Wahhabis deposed the ruling Emir of Mecca, Sharif Ghalib. The Wahhabis started to be a threat on the Hejaz from the 1750s onwards. They had risen as a religious movement in Dira’iyya in the Nejd in 1744-1745. Their doctrine found few sympathisers in the Hejaz, and the Mufti of Mecca pronounced them heretics. They were able to take the two holy cities in 1801. In 1803 the Wahhabis, led by Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, attacked Mecca. Sharif Ghalib fled to Jeddah, which was