A city in western Saudi Arabia, an oasis town located in the Red Sea region of Hejaz, east of Jiddah. The birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, it is the holiest city of Islam. Lying in a narrow valley in an arid region, it nevertheless prospered from trade and from the cult associated with its central shrine, the Kaaba. Muhammad’s life was crowned by the incorporation of pilgrimage to the Kaaba into Islam. The city soon lost its commercial significance, its prosperity resting henceforth on the pilgrimage. It was sacked in 930 by the Qarmatians, a radical Ismaili sect, and fell under Ottoman suzerainty in 1517. The centre of the Arab revolt against the Ottomans in World War I, it was briefly capital of an independent Kingdom of the Hejaz from 1916; but this was conquered by Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud in 1925 and later formed part of Saudi Arabia.