Mecca Trivia
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60 free Mecca trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Mecca trivia quiz covers the holiest city in Islam, from its place in the story of Abraham and Hagar to the 601-metre clock tower that now looms over the Grand Mosque. The easier questions cover what most people know: the country it sits in, the cube-shaped Kaaba, the direction of prayer, the annual Hajj and the rule that keeps non-Muslims out of the city. The harder end goes into history and detail: the Year of the Elephant, the pagan idols cleared from the Kaaba in 630, the Qarmatians who carried off the Black Stone for two decades, the Ottoman architect who added minarets to the Great Mosque, the Sharifs who ruled the city for almost a thousand years, the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque, the European travellers who slipped in disguised as pilgrims, and the exact sequence of Hajj rites at Safa and Marwa, Arafat, Muzdalifah and Mina. There are also questions on the Zamzam Well, the kiswah cloth, the tent city, the Jamarat Bridge and the high-speed line to Medina. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city, its sites and the events of its history before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our Saudi Arabia, world religions, Islam and Middle East geography quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Mecca lies in which country?
Saudi Arabia
Mecca lies in western Saudi Arabia's Hejaz region, about 70 km inland from the Red Sea, in a narrow valley ringed by hills.
Q 02Which nearby city serves as Mecca's principal gateway and port on the Red Sea?
Jeddah
Jeddah, about 70 km west of Mecca on the Red Sea, has been the pilgrims' port since Caliph Uthman designated it in 647; most Hajj pilgrims land there before travelling inland.
Q 03What does the Arabic word 'Kaaba' literally mean?
Cube
Kaaba comes from the Arabic for 'cube', describing the roughly cubic granite shrine about 13 metres high; Muslims also call it Baytullah, the House of God.
Q 04According to Islamic tradition, Ibrahim rebuilt the Kaaba together with which son?
Ishmael
Ishmael (Ismail), whom Ibrahim had left with his mother in the barren valley, helped his father raise the Kaaba; Quran 2:127 describes the two raising its foundations together.
Q 05The direction of prayer, towards the Kaaba, is called what?
Qibla
The qibla is the direction of the Kaaba; for about 16 months after the migration to Medina, Muslims prayed towards Jerusalem until a revelation in 624 turned the qibla to Mecca.
Q 06Which name does the Quran use for Mecca in the verse calling it the site of the first house of worship?
Bakkah
Quran 3:96 says the first house of worship for mankind was at Bakkah, a name traditionally taken as an older form of Makkah, the city's name in Arabic.
Q 07Ptolemy's 2nd-century list of Arabian cities includes which name long identified with Mecca?
Macoraba
Ptolemy's Geography lists Macoraba in Arabia Felix, which scholars long equated with Mecca; Patricia Crone challenged the identification in her 1987 book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam.
Q 08Which tribe ruled Mecca and controlled the Kaaba's shrine at the time of Muhammad's birth?
Quraysh
The Quraysh, who took control of Mecca and the Kaaba in the 5th century under Qusayy, ruled it at Muhammad's birth; he was born into their Banu Hashim clan.
Q 09The 'Year of the Elephant', about 570, is named for the failed attack on Mecca by which ruler?
Abraha of Himyar
Abraha, the Aksumite-born ruler of Himyar in Yemen, marched on Mecca around 570 with war elephants; tradition says his elephant Mahmud balked and birds pelted the army with stones (Quran 105).
Q 10The Cave of Hira, where the Quran was first revealed, is on which mountain outside Mecca?
Jabal al-Nour
The Cave of Hira lies near the summit of Jabal al-Nour, the 'Mountain of Light', about 640 metres high on Mecca's outskirts; the climb takes one to two hours.
Q 11Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Yathrib in 622, the starting point of the Islamic calendar, is known as what?
The Hijrah
The Hijrah of 622 gave the Islamic calendar its epoch, fixed at 1 Muharram, 16 July 622 in the Julian calendar, though the journey itself took place that September; Yathrib became Medina.
Q 12Which 628 treaty let Muhammad's followers make pilgrimage the next year and preceded the conquest of Mecca?
Hudaybiyyah
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, agreed in 628 just outside Mecca, set a ten-year truce and allowed the Muslims' pilgrimage of 629; its breach by Meccan allies led to the conquest of Mecca in 630.
Q 13Before Islam, roughly how many pagan idols is the Kaaba said to have housed?
360
Q 21In which month of the Islamic calendar does the Hajj take place?
Dhu al-Hijjah
The Hajj falls in Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth and last month of the Islamic year, with rites from the 8th to the 12th or 13th; the Gregorian date moves about eleven days earlier each year.
Q 22How many times do pilgrims walk counter-clockwise around the Kaaba in the tawaf?
Seven
Pilgrims circle the Kaaba seven times counter-clockwise in the tawaf, starting at the Black Stone; the sa'i between Safa and Marwa is likewise seven crossings.
Q 23The walk between the hills of Safa and Marwa commemorates whose desperate search for water?
Hagar
Hagar (Hajar), left in the barren valley with her infant son, ran back and forth between Safa and Marwa seeking water until Zamzam sprang up; the hills are about 450 metres apart.
Tradition puts 360 idols in and around the Kaaba before the conquest of 630, the chief of them Hubal; Muhammad had them all destroyed.
Q 14Al-Azraqi reported that images of which two figures hung in the pre-Islamic Kaaba?
Jesus and Mary
The 9th-century Meccan historian al-Azraqi wrote that Muhammad, clearing the Kaaba of images in 630, spared a painting of Jesus (Isa) and Mary (Maryam); the rest were effaced.
Q 15The Black Stone is set into which corner of the Kaaba?
Eastern
The Black Stone sits in the Kaaba's eastern corner, about 1.5 metres up, where pilgrims begin each circuit; tradition says Muhammad, aged 35, set it in place himself after a clan dispute over the honour.
Q 16What is often claimed about the Black Stone's origin, though it has never been analysed?
That it is a meteorite
It is now in fragments held by a silver frame after being smashed by a catapult stone during the Umayyad siege of 683.
Q 17Which sect sacked Mecca in 930 and carried the Black Stone off to al-Ahsa?
The Qarmatians
The Qarmatians of Bahrain, an Ismaili sect, sacked Mecca during the Hajj of 930 and held the Black Stone in al-Ahsa for more than twenty years before returning it in the early 950s.
Q 18The Zamzam Well lies about how far east of the Kaaba?
20 m
Zamzam lies about 20 metres east of the Kaaba, inside the Grand Mosque; tradition says it sprang up to save a mother and her infant son, and that Muhammad's grandfather Abd al-Muttalib re-dug it.
Q 19What is the name of the embroidered cloth that covers the Kaaba?
Kiswah
The kiswah, black silk embroidered with gold-thread Quranic verses, has been renewed annually since the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi ordered the old layers stripped in 777 for fear their weight would damage the Kaaba.
Q 20Which caliph first sent the Kaaba's covering from Egypt, white linen woven by Coptic Christians?
Umar
Umar ibn al-Khattab, caliph from 634 to 644, had the Kaaba draped in qabati, white Egyptian linen woven by Copts and paid for from the treasury; Mu'awiya later added silk coverings.
Q 24The white seamless garments and ritual purity a pilgrim enters before the Hajj are called what?
Ihram
Ihram is both the state of ritual purity and the dress: men wear two unsewn white cloths, and while in ihram cutting nails or hair, perfume, hunting and marriage are forbidden.
Q 25The vigil on the plain of Arafat, on the 9th day of the pilgrimage month, is considered what?
The most important day of the Hajj
Standing at Arafat on the 9th of the pilgrimage month is the most important day of the Hajj, without which the pilgrimage is invalid; tradition places Muhammad's Farewell Sermon on this granodiorite hill 20 km southeast of Mecca.
Q 26Mount Arafat's alternative name, Jabal ar-Rahmah, means what?
Mountain of Mercy
Jabal ar-Rahmah, the Mountain of Mercy, takes its name from the belief that Adam and Eve were reunited and forgiven there after the Fall; a white pillar marks the spot.
Q 27Mina, the valley 8 km southeast of Mecca where pilgrims sleep during the Hajj, is nicknamed what?
City of Tents
Mina's roughly 100,000 air-conditioned fibreglass tents earn it the nickname City of Tents; with room for well over 2 million pilgrims it is called the world's largest tent city.
Q 28The Stoning of the Devil at Mina re-enacts an episode from the life of which prophet?
Abraham
Abraham (Ibrahim) is said to have thrown stones at Satan, who tempted him three times to disobey God's command to sacrifice his son; the three pillars at Mina mark the spots.
Q 29What is the minimum number of pebbles a pilgrim needs to complete the stoning ritual?
49
Pilgrims throw 7 pebbles at the largest pillar on Eid al-Adha, then 7 at each of three pillars on each of the next two days: 7 + 21 + 21 = 49, or 70 with a third day.
Q 30In which year was the first Jamaraat Bridge at Mina built?
1963
The first Jamaraat Bridge, a single-level pedestrian span, was built in 1963; it was replaced between 2006 and 2009 by a five-level structure designed to move hundreds of thousands of pilgrims an hour.