Grand Mosque of Mecca

Al-Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque) in Mecca is the holiest site in Islam and the largest mosque in the world. The mosque surrounds the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building draped in black silk that Muslims around the world face during the five daily prayers and around which pilgrims perform the tawaf — the seven counter-clockwise circumambulations that form a central rite of both the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages. The site has been a place of worship since the time of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham), who Muslim tradition holds rebuilt the Kaaba together with his son Ismail (Ishmael). The mosque has undergone repeated and dramatic expansions throughout Islamic history — under the early caliphs, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamluks and the Ottomans — and has been transformed beyond recognition by the major Saudi expansions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which have brought the total capacity well above two million worshippers during the Hajj season. The complex now includes multiple levels of prayer galleries, the historic mas'a (the gallery between the hills of Safa and Marwah where pilgrims perform the sa'i rite), the well of Zamzam, and a vast outer plaza. Performing the Hajj at least once is one of the Five Pillars of Islam for those Muslims who are physically and financially able, and the mosque receives many millions of pilgrims and visitors each year from every part of the Muslim world.