Mecca scholarship governed by the Hashemite Sharifs. In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349. In 1517, the Sharif, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained a great degree of local autonomy. In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State, which held Mecca until 1813. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, which had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517. The Ottomans
The Road to Mecca (book) he surpasses either of these great predecessors as a prose stylist and interpreter of the Islamic faith The Road to Mecca (book) The Road to Mecca, also known as Road to Mecca or Road to Makkah, is the autobiography of Muslim scholar, intellectual, political theorist and spiritual writer Muhammad Asad. The book received critical acclaim upon publication, including reviews in prestigious New York City periodicals. One reviewer, writing in New York Herald Tribune Book Review, called it an “intensely interesting and moving book.” New York World-Telegram wrote: As suffused with Arab lore as Sir Richard Burton and almost as adventuresome