Mecca Trivia
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59 free Mecca trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 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.
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Q 01Which archangel is said to have brought Muhammad the first verses of the Quran in a cave above Mecca?
Gabriel
Gabriel (Jibril) appeared to Muhammad in the cave about 610, tradition says, and commanded him to read; when he answered that he could not, the angel gripped him until the first verses came.
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, became the gateway in the 7th century, when the caliph Uthman made it Mecca's official port; for centuries pilgrims coming by sea landed there.
Q 03What does the Arabic word 'Kaaba' literally mean?
Cube
Cube is the literal meaning of Kaaba, though the shrine is not quite one: it stands taller than it is wide, on a slightly oblong base. Muslims also call it Bayt Allah, the House of God.
Q 04In Islamic tradition, which prophet helped his father raise the foundations of the Kaaba?
Ishmael
Ishmael (Ismail) raised the Kaaba's foundations with his father, and Quran 2:127 has the pair praying as they work: 'Our Lord, accept this from us.'
Q 05The direction of prayer, towards the Kaaba, is called what?
Qibla
Qibla is the direction of the Kaaba; after the move to Medina, Muslims briefly prayed towards Jerusalem until a Quranic revelation turned them towards Mecca. In a mosque a niche, the mihrab, marks it.
Q 06Which name does the Quran use for Mecca in the verse calling it the site of the first house of worship?
Bakkah
Bakkah is how Quran 3:96 names the site of the first house of worship for mankind; one traditional explanation ties the name to the crowds that press together around the House.
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 took over the Kaaba from the Khuza'a under their leader Qusayy, generations before Muhammad was born into the tribe; guarding the shrine and its pilgrims made them masters of Mecca.
Q 09The 'Year of the Elephant', about 570, is named for the failed attack on Mecca by which ruler?
Abraha of Himyar
Abraha of Himyar, a Christian who ruled Yemen for the kings of Aksum, led elephants against Mecca in the year tradition gives for Muhammad's birth; the Quran's sura 'The Elephant' tells of birds pelting his army with stones.
Q 10The Cave of Hira, where the Quran was first revealed, is on which mountain outside Mecca?
Jabal al-Nour
Jabal al-Nour, the 'Mountain of Light', stands just outside Mecca; Muhammad used to retreat to the small cave near its top to pray alone, and tradition places the first revelation there about 610.
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 became year one only later: the caliph Umar began counting from the first day of the lunar year in which it fell, 16 July 622 in the Julian calendar. 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
Dhu al-Hijjah is the twelfth and last month of the Islamic year; because that lunar year runs about eleven days short of the solar one, the Hajj drifts through every season over the decades.
Q 22How many times do pilgrims walk counter-clockwise around the Kaaba in the tawaf?
Seven
Seven circuits make up the tawaf, walked counter-clockwise; pilgrims try to touch or kiss the Black Stone as they pass, though that is not required, and then go seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa.
Q 23The walk between the hills of Safa and Marwa commemorates whose desperate search for water?
Hagar
Tradition counts 360 idols around the Kaaba, with Hubal chief among them; a hadith has Muhammad striking them with a stick as he entered Mecca in 630, declaring that truth had come and falsehood was finished.
Q 14Al-Azraqi reported that the pre-Islamic Kaaba held a painting of which two figures?
Jesus and Mary
Jesus and Mary appeared in a painting inside the Kaaba, the 9th-century Meccan historian al-Azraqi wrote; one report in his chronicle says Muhammad spared it when the other images were erased in 630.
Q 15Tradition says Muhammad settled a clan quarrel over the Black Stone by having the rivals lift it together on what?
A cloak
A cloak, or a sheet of cloth in some tellings, was spread out and the stone laid on it; the clan elders each took hold and lifted, and Muhammad set it in the Kaaba's wall with his own hands, so no clan lost face.
Q 16What is often claimed about the Black Stone's origin, though it has never been analysed?
That it is a meteorite
That it is a meteorite is the popular claim, but no laboratory has ever tested the stone. It survives as fragments bound in silver and is said to have first broken apart in the siege of 683, when the Kaaba burned.
Q 17Which sect sacked Mecca in 930 and carried the Black Stone off to al-Ahsa?
The Qarmatians
The Qarmatians, a radical Ismaili sect from eastern Arabia, sacked Mecca during the Hajj of 930 and held the Black Stone for ransom for about twenty years before it came back to the Kaaba.
Q 18Pilgrims drink from, and carry home water from, which well inside Mecca's Grand Mosque?
Zamzam
Zamzam lies a few steps from the Kaaba; tradition says it burst from the sand for a mother and her thirsty infant, and that Muhammad's grandfather Abd al-Muttalib dug it out again after it had long been buried.
Q 19What is the name of the embroidered cloth that covers the Kaaba?
Kiswah
The kiswah, black silk embroidered in gold with verses from the Quran, is replaced every year; the old cloth is cut into pieces, which are kept, displayed or given away.
Q 20For centuries, into the 1900s, the Kaaba's covering was woven in and sent each year from which country?
Egypt
Egypt clothed the Kaaba from early on: the caliph Umar is recorded draping it in linen woven by Coptic Christians, and Egyptian workshops later made the covering, carried to Mecca at the head of the pilgrim caravan.
Hagar (Hajar), left in the barren valley with her infant son, ran back and forth between the two hills looking for water until a spring welled up; pilgrims retrace her steps in the rite called the sa'i.
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: two seamless white cloths for men, plain enough that rich and poor look alike.
Q 25On which plain near Mecca do pilgrims stand in prayer on the 9th of the pilgrimage month, the Hajj's essential rite?
Arafat
Arafat fills with pilgrims who stand in prayer from noon to sunset; anyone who misses this standing has not completed the Hajj, and tradition holds that Muhammad gave his Farewell Sermon here.
Q 26Jabal ar-Rahmah, a hill Hajj pilgrims visit near Mecca, means what?
Mountain of Mercy
Mountain of Mercy is what Jabal ar-Rahmah means; a tradition holds that Adam and Eve, cast out of paradise far apart, found each other again near this hill.
Q 27Mina, the valley near Mecca where pilgrims spend several nights of the Hajj, is nicknamed what?
City of Tents
City of Tents is Mina's nickname because the Hajj keeps pilgrims there for several nights, close to the pillars they stone; a tent city big enough for more than two million people now fills the valley.
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 29After a deadly 2004 crush, the pillars Hajj pilgrims stone at Mina were replaced with what?
Walls
Walls took the pillars' place: each is a far wider target, so many more pilgrims can throw at once instead of pressing toward a single post.
Q 30Which West African emperor's lavish 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca is said to have crashed the price of gold in Cairo?
Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa of Mali crossed the Sahara with a fortune in gold; chroniclers give him a caravan tens of thousands strong and say he gave away so much in Cairo that gold stayed cheap there for at least twelve years.