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
Mecca-Cola drink of — the October 2003 Summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), held in Malaysia. In a BBC documentary produced in 2003, Qibla Cola's Zafer Iqbal and Mecca Cola's Mathlouthi are shown promoting their "Message in a Bottle". In 2012 the Federal Supreme Court of the United Arab Emirates decided that "Mecca-Cola" could not be registered as a trademark, due to a law disallowing religious connotations in trademarks. Mecca Cola is now distributed in 64 countries across the world. Distribution in each country started on a unique date. A partial list of countries where it is distributed