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
Siege of Mecca (683) August 683 and proceeded to sack Medina—one of the impious acts for which the Umayyads are denounced in later Muslim tradition. After taking Medina, Muslim set out for Mecca, but on the way he fell ill and died at Mushallal, and command passed to his lieutenant Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni. For his sack of Medina, subsequent tradition remembers Muslim ibn 'Uqba as the "heathen incarnate" (J. Wellhausen). Husayn's army arrived before Mecca in September. Ibn al-Zubayr and his supporters refused to surrender, and after they were defeated in a first engagement, a siege of the city began, in which the