Great Mosque of Mecca Great Mosque of Mecca The Great Mosque of Mecca, also called "Al-Haram Mosque" (, "the Forbidden Mosque", "the Holy Mosque" or "the Sacred Mosque") or "Grand Mosque of Makkah", is the largest mosque in the world, and surrounds the Islamic "Qiblah", that is the "Ka‘bah" in the Hejazi city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Muslims face the Kaaba while praying. One of the Five Pillars of Islam requires every Muslim to perform the "Ḥajj", one of the largest annual gatherings of people in the world, at least once in their lifetime when able to do so, including circumambulating the Kaaba. It
Mecca (, Kaaba). This form is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the "b" and "m" were interchangeable. Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:92, 42:5) call it "Umm al-Qurā" (), meaning "Mother of All Settlements"/"mother of villages". Another name of Mecca is "Ṫihāmah" (). Another name for Mecca, or the wilderness and mountains surrounding it, according to Arab and Islamic tradition, is Faran or Pharan, referring to