Word: mecca
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Coupled with the realization of developers that if they built it, biotech would come, the area became a mecca for biotechnology...
...Grand Mosque of Mecca standing before the ancient Kaaba, a rectangular stone room sheathed in black silk and cotton embroidered in gold with Koranic verses. I am about to perform one of the most significant duties of a Muslim: to circumambulate the Kaaba seven times, counterclockwise, after proclaiming, "Bismillah! Allah-o-Akbar!" (In the name of God! God is Great...
...many do.) Having performed the Hajj becomes a lifelong distinction celebrated with an honorific: I can now call myself Hajji Maseeh Rahman. And the Hajj is done en masse during one five-day period in the final month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Two million faithful have come to Mecca this year from virtually everywhere - Bosnia, the Ivory Coast, Michigan - and it feels like the most interesting year to be a Hajji since 1183, when a band of Crusaders tried crashing. It's been a rough year for far-flung Muslims, often minorities in their homelands, with allegiances torn...
...this creates spectacular delays. After landing at noon, it took me three hours to get through immigration, sandwiched between Afghans and Indonesians, and another four hours before my bus left the airport. (Pilgrims are allowed to go only to Hajj sites). I reached my lodgings in Mecca at midnight: it took 12 hours to travel...
...weeks every year, Mecca becomes the most crowded city on earth. Set in a small valley surrounded by barren hills, the town lives on one trade, as reflected in an old local saying: "We sow no wheat or sorghum, the pilgrims are our crops." Scores of languages can be heard, and a multiplicity of cuisines is available: Arab, Indonesian, Turkish, Indian, Pakistani, Lebanese...