Bakkah

The Kabba in Mecca.

Bakkah (Arabic: بكة‎‎) is an ancient name for Mecca, the most holy city of Islam. Most people believe they are synonyms, but to Muslim scholars there is a distinction: Bakkah refers to the Kaaba and the sacred site immediately surrounding it, while Mecca is the name of the city in which they are both located.

According to Lisan Al Arab of Ibn Manzor, the site of Kaaba and its surroundings was named Bakkah due to crowding and congestion of people in the area. The Arabic verb bakka (بكَّ), with double "k", means to crowd like in a bazaar. This is not to be confused with another unrelated Arabic verb baka (بَكَى)(single k) which is the past participle of yabki (يَبْكِي), to cry.

Bakkah is mentioned in sura 3 (Al-i-Imran), ayah 96 of the Qur'an,Translation: " Verily the first House set apart unto mankind was that at Bakka, blest, and a guidance unto the worlds.".

Bakkah and Mecca

Bakkah (also transliterated Baca, Baka, Bakke, Bakah, Bakka, Becca, Bekka, etc.) is the ancient name for the site of Mecca. An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure.

One meaning ascribed to it is "narrow", seen as descriptive of the area in which the valley of the holy places and the city of Mecca are located, pressed in upon as they are by mountains. 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. The Quranic passage using the form Bakkah says: "The first sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah, a blessed place, a guidance for the peoples." Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:92, 42:5) call it Umm al-Qura, meaning "mother of all settlements".

In Islamic tradition, Bakkah is where Hagar and Ishmael (Ismā'īl) settled after being taken by Abraham (Ibrāhīm) to the wilderness, a story related in the Bible's Book of Genesis (21:14-21). Genesis tells of how after Hagar and Ishmael ran out of water to drink. In Arab tradition, Hagar runs back and forth between two elevated points seven times to search for help before sitting down in despair, at which point the angel speaks as recorded in Genesis 21:17-19:

God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.' Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and let the boy drink.

Here, the tradition holds that a spring gushed forth from the spot where Hagar had laid Ishmael, and this spring came to be known as the Well of Zamzam. When Muslims on hajj run between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, it is to commemorate Hagar's search for help and the resulting revelation of the well of Zamzam.

It is also believed that Hagar and Ishmael settled in Bakkah, and the Quran relates that Abraham came to Mecca to help his son Ishmael build the Kaaba adjacent to the well of Zamzam.

Ibn Ishaq, the 8th-century Arab Muslim historian, relates that during the renovation of Kaaba undertaken by the Quraysh before Islam, found an inscription in one of the corners of the foundation of the building that mentions Bakkah. Composed in Syriac, it was incomprehensible to the Quraysh until a Jew translated it for them as follows: "I am Allah, the Lord of Bakka. I created it on the day I created heaven and earth and formed the sun and the moon, and I surrounded it with seven pious angels. It will stand while its two mountains stand, a blessing to its people with milk and water."

The name Bakkah is woven into the kiswa, the cloth covering the Kaaba that is replaced each year before the Hajj.

Valley of Baca

The Valley of Baca is mentioned in the Book of Psalms Chapter 84, in the following passage:

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

The original Hebrew language phrase for the Valley of Baca is emeq ha-Baka.

External links

• Mecca & Baca Islamic site