Mecca

Who holds it

Name

Mukthir ibn Isa ibn Fulayta

Title

Emir of Mecca

Since

571 (1176), alone since 1193

Born

not pinned

Family

Hawashim sharifs

Confidence

high

see Mecca

Lord in 1200

Mukthir ibn Isa, emir of Mecca (Mukthir)

Overlord

Khutba for the caliph al-Nasir and the Ayyubid ruler of Egypt.

What the town holds

• the Haram and the sanctuary with Mina, Muzdalifa and Arafat

How things stand that morning

Under Mukthir ibn Isa; quiet between pilgrimages.

Wealth

See the realm record.

Council

The emir and his kin rule. The judge (qadi) of Mecca and the imams of the four Sunni schools at the Haram are not named for 1200 in the sources read; the Banu Shayba keep the Ka'ba; the Meccan notables will later choose Qatada as emir.

Communities

Meccans of Quraysh and the sharifian houses (Zaydi in rite), Sunni scholars of the four schools, settled foreigners from the Maghrib, Egypt, Iraq, Persia and Yemen; no Christians or Jews may live in the sanctuary.

Fairs and markets

The pilgrimage season (Dhu al-Hijja; in 596 AH about September 1200) is the great fair; the Rajab 'umra (about April-May 1200) brings the Sarat highlanders with provisions; the market street between al-Safa and al-Marwa is busy all year.

Militia

No town militia is recorded; the emir's household slaves and kinsmen keep order.

Walls and castle

The emirs' castle on Mount Abu Qubays above the Haram; the sources read describe no full city wall for 1200.

Trade and crafts

Lodging, guiding and supplying pilgrims; trade in Indian spices, cloth and Yemeni goods brought through Jeddah; Egyptian grain; dates from Wadi Fatima and Nakhla, fruit from Ta'if.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. Dhu al-Hijja 596 (about September 1200)The pilgrimage.Depends on: Safe roads and grain. Stopped by: War or famine.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Ibn Jubayr's eyewitness description of 1183-1184; no description of 1199-1200 itself.

On the map: The sanctuary and its valleys, not a farming district.

Primary sources for Mecca

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). Read online
• The Road to Knowledge of the Dynasties of Kings, Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (about 1400 to 1440, at Cairo). A late compilation, but for Ayyubid Egypt it keeps lost material: for 596 to 598 AH it records al-Adil's entry into Cairo, the removal of the boy al-Mansur Muhammad, the oath to al-Kamil as heir, the appointments at Cairo, the low Niles of 1199 and 1200 and the famine and plague of 1200 to 1202 with grain prices, the reports of cannibalism and the death tolls, together with Yemen, the Hijaz and the Mecca emirate. Read online
• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
• The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online