Mecca both residents and pilgrims. Mecca's culture has been affected by the large number of pilgrims that arrive annually, and thus boasts a rich cultural heritage. As a result of the vast numbers of pilgrims coming to the city each year, Mecca has become by far the most diverse city in the Muslim world. In contrast to the rest of Saudi Arabia, and particularly Najd, Mecca has, according to "The New York Times", become "a striking oasis" of free thought and discussion and, also, of "unlikely liberalism" as "Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken
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