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
Journey to Mecca Journey to Mecca Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta is an IMAX ("giant screen") dramatised documentary film charting the first real-life journey made by the Islamic scholar Ibn Battuta from his native Morocco to Mecca for the Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage), in 1325. The 20-year-old Muslim religious law student Ibn Battuta (1304–1368), whose full name was Abu Abdullah Muhammed Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta, set out from Tangier, a city in northern Morocco, in 1325, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, some 3,000 miles (over 4,800 km) to the East. The journey took him 18 months