How do Meccans earn a living in the off-season?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been meaning to ask this for some time. The recent tragedy at Mecca (see http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=353793) reminded me.

From what I’ve read, Mecca is a town in a rather barren, isolated place, compared to, say Medina. Very little local agriculture. In Mohammed’s day, the city of Mecca owed its existence, and such prosperity as it had, to its position astride the north-south trade routes (and its status as a religious pilgrimage destination, even in pre-Islamic times). But nowadays, I would expect the local economy of Mecca is largely dependent on Muslim pilgrims making their hajj there, and, of course, staying in local hotels and eating in local restaurants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj

Only, you can’t make your hajj at just any time of year. You have to go during the month of Dhu al0Hijjah (a month of the Islamic lunar calendar, so it moves around WRT to the Western solar calendar; but it’s usually December or January). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhu_al-Hijjah

So, the rest of the year – how do Meccans make a living? Is there some local industry not connected with the religious-tourism industry?

2

There’s also the Umrah, which is the non-Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. But, yeah, the economy of Mecca is mostly built around tourism, and it settles down a lot when it’s not Hajj season.

3

Funny, I was just wondering if many Saudis who are not in the tourism industry travel abroad during the Hajj just to escape the crowds, traffic, etc.

As for the residents of Mecca, maybe they take off much of the rest of the year… and go Meccanik Dancing!

[d&r]

4

Just to correct this, the Islamic year is eleven days shorter than the Gregorian, so the months move up every year. The month of Dhu-l-Hijjah will eventually coincide with every point in the Gregorian year, not just the winter months.

5

Hijack: Is the islamic calender the only one that doesn’t correspond to an actual solar year over the long term? What motiviation would they have for a calender in which seasons shift continuously?

6

As far as I know.

Cos that’s what Muhammad did and what is implied by the Qur’an – months are calculated solely by sighting the moon. Muhammad also forbade adjusting the length of the year to make it match the solar year. Incidentally, this also means one never knows whether a month is going to be 29 or 30 days long in advance, and that different regions of the world will often have differing reckoning of months.