Mecca - Etymology and Usage

Etymology and Usage

"Mecca" is the familiar form of the English transliteration for the Arabic name of the city, and the word has additionally come to be used to refer to any place that draws large numbers of people. The strictly correct English transliteration is "Makkah". The spelling of the name in English was officially changed to this form by the Saudi government in the 1980s, but is not universally known or used worldwide. The full official name is Makkat al-Mukarramah (مكة المكرمة, or ), which means "Mecca the Honored", but is also loosely translated as "The Holy City of Mecca".

The ancient or early name for the site of Mecca is Bakkah (also transliterated Baca, Baka, Bakah, Bakka, Becca, Bekka, etc.). An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure. Widely believed to be a synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the Kaaba.

The form Bakkah is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the b and m were interchangeable. Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:92, 42:5) call it Umm al-Qura, meaning "mother of all settlements."

Another name for Mecca, or the wilderness and mountains surrounding it, according to Arab and Islamic tradition, is Faran or Pharan, referring to the Desert of Paran mentioned in the Old Testament. Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Hijaz and the site where Ishmael settled was Mecca. Yaqut al-Hamawi, the 12th century Syrian geographer, writes that Faran is "an arabized Hebrew word. One of the names of Mecca mentioned in the Torah." There is a Tal Faran ("Hill of Faran") on the outskirts of Mecca.