Mecca scholarship governed by the Hashemite Sharifs. In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abū-Tāhir Al-Jannābī and centered in eastern Arabia. The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349. In 1517, the Sharif, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph but retained a great degree of local autonomy. In 1803 the city was captured by the First Saudi State, which held Mecca until 1813. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, which had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517. The Ottomans
Mecca century was Ibn Battuta. In his travels, he provides us with an important description of the city. Around the year 729, Ibn Battuta arrived in Mecca. Immediately when Battuta arrived in Mecca it felt like a holy sanctuary and thus he started the rites of the pilgrimage. He remained in Mecca for a couple of years. During Battuta's second year there, his caravan arrived "with a great quantity of alms for the support of those who were staying in Mecca and Medina" (p. 51). Giving these alms to the poor also helped to fulfill another pillar of faith, while he