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
It sits in the Hejaz region of the west, about 70 km inland from the Red Sea coast, in a narrow valley 277 m above sea level.
Q 02Which nearby city serves as Mecca's principal gateway and port on the Red Sea?
Jeddah
Caliph Uthman designated it the main port for pilgrims in 647 CE; today its King Abdulaziz airport handles Hajj traffic.
Q 03What does the Arabic word 'Kaaba' literally mean?
Cube
Muslims also call it Baytullah, the House of God, and it fixes the direction of prayer for the entire faith.
Q 04According to Islamic tradition, Ibrahim rebuilt the Kaaba together with which son?
Ishmael
Ibrahim had left the boy and his mother in the valley; some men of the Yemeni Jurhum tribe reportedly helped with the building.
Q 05The direction of prayer, towards the Kaaba, is called what?
Qibla
Before a revelation in Medina, Muhammad and his followers had prayed facing Jerusalem.
Q 06Which name does the Quran use for Mecca in the verse calling it the site of the first house of worship?
Bakkah
Another Quranic name is Umm al-Qura, 'Mother of all Settlements', which is also the name of the city's only university.
Q 07Ptolemy's 2nd-century list of Arabian cities includes which name long identified with Mecca?
Macoraba
The identification is now disputed; historian Patricia Crone argued Ptolemy's 'Moka' in Arabia Petraea was a different place.
Q 08Which tribe ruled Mecca and controlled the Kaaba's shrine at the time of Muhammad's birth?
Quraysh
Muhammad was born into its Banu Hashim clan; the tribe's chief idol, Hubal, stood in the Kaaba until the conquest of 630.
Q 09The 'Year of the Elephant', about 570, is named for the failed attack on Mecca by which ruler?
Abraha of Himyar
Tradition says his lead elephant Mahmud refused to cross into the city and the army was destroyed by birds carrying pebbles.
Q 10The Cave of Hira, where the Quran was first revealed, is on which mountain outside Mecca?
Jabal al-Nour
Its name means Mountain of Light; the mountain is only about 640 m high but 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
Yathrib was later renamed Medina; the date equates to 16 July 622 in the Julian calendar.
Q 12Which 628 treaty let Muhammad's followers make pilgrimage the next year and preceded the conquest of Mecca?
Hudaybiyyah
Its breach by allies of the Meccans in 630 gave Muhammad the pretext to march on the city.
Q 13Before Islam, roughly how many pagan idols is the Kaaba said to have housed?
360
Possibly one for each day of the year; the chief among them was Hubal.
Q 21The Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. In which month of the Islamic calendar does it take place?
Dhu al-Hijjah
The rites run from the 8th to the 12th or 13th of the twelfth and last month, so the Gregorian date shifts about eleven days earlier each year.
Q 22How many times do pilgrims walk counter-clockwise around the Kaaba in the tawaf?
Seven
The same number governs the walk between Safa and Marwa and the pebbles thrown at each pillar in Mina.
Q 23The walk between the hills of Safa and Marwa commemorates whose desperate search for water?
Hagar
The hills are about 450 m apart, so the full set of crossings adds up to roughly 3.15 km.
Q 14According to Ibn Battuta, images of which two figures were among those in the pre-Islamic Kaaba?
Jesus and Mary
Other traditions say Muhammad spared paintings of Isa and Maryam while destroying the rest.
Q 15The Black Stone is set into which corner of the Kaaba?
Eastern
Tradition says Muhammad, aged 35, settled a clan dispute by having every leader hold a cloth to carry the stone before he set it himself.
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
They kept it until 951, when they returned it in exchange for a deal with Baghdad to stop attacking pilgrim caravans.
Q 18The Zamzam Well lies about how far east of the Kaaba?
20 m
Tradition holds it sprang up to save a mother and her infant son in the desert, and was rediscovered by Muhammad's grandfather Abd al-Muttalib.
Q 19The cloth covering the Kaaba, replaced each year on the Day of Arafah, is called what?
Kiswah
The Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi began the annual replacement in 777 after realising the accumulated layers might crush the building.
Q 20Which caliph first sent the Kaaba's covering from Egypt, white linen woven by Coptic Christians?
Umar
Egypt remained the source of the cloth for centuries; the caliph Mu'awiya later switched to silk.
Q 24The white seamless garments and ritual purity a pilgrim enters before the Hajj are called what?
Ihram
Men wear two unsewn white cloths; nail-clipping, perfume, hunting and marriage are all forbidden while in the state.
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
The granodiorite hill, about 20 km southeast of the city, is where tradition places Muhammad's Farewell Sermon.
Q 26Mount Arafat's alternative name, Jabal ar-Rahmah, means what?
Mountain of Mercy
Some Muslims believe it is where Adam and Eve were reunited and forgiven after the Fall; a 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
With room for up to 3 million people it has been called the largest tent city in the world.
Q 28The Stoning of the Devil at Mina re-enacts an episode from the life of which prophet?
Abraham
He is said to have stoned Satan for tempting him to disobey God's command to sacrifice his son.
Q 29What is the minimum number of pebbles a pilgrim needs to complete the stoning ritual?
21
The largest pillar alone is pelted on Eid al-Adha, then all three walls on each of the next two days.
Q 30The multi-level Jamaraat Bridge, from which the pillars are pelted, was first built in which year?
1963
One fire-safety expert noted it could move 500,000 people an hour, the largest-ever football crowd every 24 minutes.