Mecca of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city, although the official transliteration used by the Saudi government is "Makkah", which is closer to the Arabic pronunciation. The word "Mecca" in English has come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people, and because of this some English speaking Muslims have come to regard the use of this spelling for the city as offensive. The Saudi government adopted "Makkah" as the official spelling in the 1980s, but is not universally known or used worldwide. The full official name is "Makkah al-Mukarramah" ()
Black mecca of Harlem" was also the title of a 2010 book by Temple University professor Zain Abdullah about Muslim West African immigrants in New York City, using "Mecca" not only in the generic sense of "a place that people are drawn to" but also playing on the original meaning of Mecca as the Muslim holy city. Rarely are places other than Atlanta and Harlem mentioned as black meccas, though in questioning the status of Atlanta as a black mecca, comparisons are often made to other cities with large black populations with cities over 200,000 people, such as Birmingham, Detroit, St. Louis,