The answer, while accurate, was wrong. Burton went in disguise. Some Jewish members of the Mossad have done it, too, but they were in disguise as well.
What the guy was asking, AFIK, was has anyone, like the Archbishop of Amman, or someone who is obviously NOT a Muslim, made the trip in public?
I’ve heard that it might be possible, but it’s extraordinarily rare. anyone know for sure?
It’s illegal for non-Muslims to visit Mecca and the Saudi government enforces the law.
There are religious police in Mecca. Everyone in Mecca is required to carry and produce an ID. Saudi ID’s are stamped with your religion and anyone visiting from another country has to have a special ID proving they’re a Muslim in order to visit Mecca.
The Saudi regime supports Wahhabism, which is a strict fundamentalist form of Islam. And the Saudi regime is an absolute dictatorship. So the government has a strong interest in keeping an eye on people in Mecca in order to insure that theological or political opponents of the regime aren’t gathering there. This is especially true after 1979, when a anti-government group seized control of the Grand Mosque and held it for two weeks.
And there’s the issue just of crowd control. Mecca is a city with two million residents. But tens of millions of Muslims have a religious duty to visit the city every year. So the government has to stop the city from being overrun with pilgrims trying to get in.
So, bottom line, I’d say no non-Muslim has openly visited the city.
The Saud family began consolidating their control over the various regions in the area in 1902, finally establishing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Of course, the city of Mecca and its holy status to Muslims goes back many centuries before that.
So, assuming the OP’s interpretation of the question if probably the correct one, the question is still open: Did non-Muslims openly visit Mecca (before 1932)?
Has Mecca officially been closed to non-Muslims since the days of Mohammed, or since the days of the early Caliphate in the first few generations after Mohammed?
The prohibition on non-Muslims entering the Grand Mosque is explicitly stated in the Quran: “O you who have believed, truly the idolaters are unclean, so let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year.” The prohibition on approaching the Grand Mosque grew to cover the entire city of Mecca and the nearby city of Medina as well (although I believe some of the suburbs of Medina are outside the restricted zone). I can’t however find when access of Mecca was first banned. But there are references to Europeans masquerading as Muslims to enter Mecca as far back as the sixteenth century, so presumably the ban on non-Muslims was in place in order for such a subterfuge to be necessary.
The answer is yes, Mecca was under the control of non muslim Arab Pagans until 630 AD.
Guru Nanak of Sikishm fame is also supposed to have visited in 1500 something.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
The prohibition on non-Muslims entering the Grand Mosque is explicitly stated in the Quran: “O you who have believed, truly the idolaters are unclean, so let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year.” The prohibition on approaching the Grand Mosque grew to cover the entire city of Mecca and the nearby city of Medina as well (although I believe some of the suburbs of Medina are outside the restricted zone). I can’t however find when access of Mecca was first banned. But there are references to Europeans masquerading as Muslims to enter Mecca as far back as the sixteenth century, so presumably the ban on non-Muslims was in place in order for such a subterfuge to be necessary.
[/QUOTE]
Thats not really true. The verse in question, Quran 9:28 was traditionally interpreted to mean the pre Islamic pagans, not non muslims generally… indeed if you read the preceeding verses, its clear that the talk is about the conditions in Mecca in the immediate post liberation period.
Quran, Surah Al-Tawbah
IIRC the first prohibition was made during the Crusades. Which is when it was extended to Madina-al-Nabi as well.
It’s a nice idea if someone provides a link to the column, even if it’s not the OP:
Incidentally, as we discussed in several previous threads, it’s mathematically impossible for more than a fifth of the world’s Moslems to do a hajj (visit to Mecca in the appropriate time). This is just because of the number of Moslems in the world and the number of people who can fit into Mecca at one time. One twentieth of the world’s Moslems may actually be a better guess for how many can ever do a hajj.