Makkah, Holy city in western Saudi Arabia.
Makkah serves as the most sacred city in Islam and is situated in a narrow valley within the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia approximately seventy kilometers inland from Jeddah.
The city became the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad in five hundred seventy CE and later served as the center from which Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula and beyond.
Muslims worldwide face toward Makkah five times daily during prayer and perform Tawaf by walking seven times counterclockwise around the Kaaba during the annual Hajj pilgrimage rituals.
Access to Makkah is restricted exclusively to Muslims and the city is connected by the Haramain High-Speed Railway which links it with Medina and Jeddah for pilgrim transportation.
The Zamzam Well within the city has provided water to pilgrims for centuries and is believed by Muslims to have been divinely revealed to Hagar in ancient times.
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