Jeddah
Jeddah
جدة | |
|---|---|
City and metropolis | |
 Seal | |
| Nickname: The Bride of the Red Sea | |
| Motto: Jeddah Is Different | |
 Location of Jeddah within Mecca Province | |
  Jeddah Location of Jeddah within Saudi Arabia | |
| Coordinates: 21°32′36″N 39°10′22″E / 21.54333°N 39.17278°E | |
| Country |  Saudi Arabia |
| Province | Mecca Province |
| Governorate | Jeddah Governorate |
| Government | |
| • Type | Municipality |
| • Body | Jeddah Municipality |
| • Mayor | Ehsan Bafaqeeh[1] |
| Area | |
| 1,600 km2 (620 sq mi) | |
| • Urban | 1,793 km2 (692 sq mi) |
| • Metro | 2,485 km2 (959 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 12 m (39 ft) |
| Population (2022)[2] | |
| 3,751,722 | |
| • Density | 2,300/km2 (6,100/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP, constant 2015 values) | |
| • Year | 2023 |
| • Total (Metro) | $235.6 billion[3] |
| • Per capita | $48,500 |
| Time zone | UTC+03:00 (SAST) |
| Postal Code | 5 digit codes beginning with 21 (e.g. 21577) |
| Area code | +966 12 |
| HDI (2021) | 0.871[4] – very high |
| Website | jeddah |
| Official name | Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Mecca |
| Criteria | Cultural: ii, iv, vi |
| Reference | 1361 |
| Inscription | 2014 (38th Session) |
| Area | 17.92 ha (44.3 acres) |
| Buffer zone | 113.58 ha (280.7 acres) |
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Jeddah[a] is the largest city in Mecca Province, the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh, and the country’s main commercial center. It is in the Hejaz region on the Red Sea coast. The city’s metropolitan area is coterminous with Jeddah Governorate. Its prominence grew in 647 CE when the Caliph Uthman of the Rashidun Caliphate designated it as the main port serving travelers to Mecca.[5][6]
Jeddah is the largest city in Hejaz and the ninth-largest in the Middle East. It also serves as the administrative center of the OIC. Jeddah Islamic Port, on the Red Sea, is the thirty-sixth largest seaport in the world[7] and the second-largest and second-busiest seaport in the Middle East.
Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, 65 kilometers (40 mi) to the east, while Medina, the second-holiest city, is 360 kilometers (220 mi) to the north. Economically, Jeddah is focusing on further developing capital investment in scientific and engineering leadership within Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East.[8] Jeddah was ranked fourth in the Africa, MiddIe East, and -stan countries region in the Innovation Cities Index in 2009.[9]
Etymology and spelling
[edit]There are at least two etymologies of Jeddah, according to Jeddah Ibn Al-Qudaa'iy, the chief of the Quda'a clan. The more common account has it that the name is derived from جدة Jaddah, the Arabic word for "grandmother". According to folk belief, the Tomb of Eve, who is considered the grandmother of humanity, is located in Jeddah.[10]
The Maghrebi traveler Ibn Battuta visited Jeddah during his world trip around 1330. He wrote the name of the city into his diary as "Jiddah".[11]
The British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and other branches of the British government formerly used the older spelling of "Jedda", contrary to other English-speaking usages, but in 2007, it changed to the spelling "Jeddah".[12]
T. E. Lawrence felt that any transcription of Arabic names into English was arbitrary. In his book Revolt in the Desert, Jeddah is spelled in three different ways on the first page alone.[13]
On official Saudi maps and documents, the city name is transcribed "Jeddah", which is now the prevailing usage.
History
[edit]
Pre-Islam
[edit]Traces of early activity in the area are attested by Thamudic inscriptions excavated in Wadi Briman[14] (وادي بريمان), east of the city, and Wadi Boweb (وادي بويب), northwest of the city. The oldest mashrabiya found in Jeddah dates back to the pre-Islamic era.[15]
Some believe that Jeddah was inhabited before Alexander the Great, who led a naval expedition to the Red Sea, by fishermen who considered it a center from which they sailed, as well as a place for rest and well-being.[16] According to the Ministry of Hajj, Jeddah has been settled for more than 2,500 years.[17]
Excavations in the old city have been interpreted to give the fact that Jeddah was founded as a fishing hamlet by the Yemeni Quda'a tribe (Arabic: بني قضاعة), who left to settle in Makkah (Mecca) after the collapse of Marib Dam in Yemen in 115 BC.[18]
Under the Caliphates
[edit]Jeddah first achieved prominence around A.D. 647, when the third Muslim Caliph, Uthman Ibn Affan, turned it into a port making it the port of Makkah instead of Al Shoaib port, which was southwest of Makkah.[19]
The Umayyads inherited the entire Rashidun Caliphate including Hejaz and ruled from 661 to 750. In 702, Jeddah was briefly occupied by pirates from the Kingdom of Axum.[20] However, Jeddah remained a key civilian harbor, serving fishermen and pilgrims travelling by sea for the Hajj. It is also believed that the Sharifdom of Makkah, an honorary Viceroy to the holy land, was first started in this period of the Islamic Caliphate.[21] Jeddah has been established as the main city of the historic Hijaz province and a historic port for pilgrims arriving by sea to perform their Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.[22]
In 750 in the Abbasid Revolution, the Abbasids successfully took control of almost the whole Umayyad Empire, excluding Morocco (Maghrib) and Spain (Al-Andalus).[23] From 876, Jeddah and the surrounding area became the object of wars between the Abbasids and the Tulunids of Egypt, who at one point gained control of the emirates of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Hejaz. The power struggle between the Tulunid Governors and the Abbasids over Hejaz lasted for nearly twenty-five years, until the Tulunids finally withdrew from Arabia in 900.[24]
In 930 AD, the main Hejazi cities of Medina, Mecca and Taif were heavily sacked by the Qarmatians. It is probable, though not historically confirmed, that Jeddah itself was attacked.[citation needed]
Soon after, in early 935, the Ikhshidids, the new power in Egypt, took control of the Hejaz region. There are no historical records that detail the Ikhshidid rule of Hejaz. At this point in time, Jeddah was still unfortified and without walls.[citation needed]
The Fatimids, Ayyubids, and Mamluks
[edit]
In 969 AD, the Fatimids from Algeria took control in Egypt from the Ikhshidid Governors of Abbasids and expanded their empire to the surrounding regions, including The Hijaz and Jeddah. The Fatimids developed an extensive trade network in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea. Their trade and diplomatic ties extended all the way to China and its Song dynasty, which eventually determined the economic course of Tihamah during the High Middle Ages.[25][26]
After Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem in 1171, he proclaimed himself sultan of Egypt, after dissolving the Fatimid Caliphate upon the death of al-Adid, thus establishing the Ayyubid dynasty. Ayyubid conquests in Hejaz included Jeddah, which joined the Ayyubid dynasty in 1177 during the leadership of Sharif Ibn Abul-Hashim Al-Thalab (1094–1201). During their relatively short-lived tenure, the Ayyubids ushered in an era of economic prosperity in the lands they ruled and the facilities and patronage provided by the Ayyubids led to a resurgence in intellectual activity in the Islamic world. This period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas (Islamic schools) in their major cities. Jeddah attracted Muslim sailors and merchants from Sindh, Southeast Asia and East Africa, and other distant regions.[25]
In the year 1258, after the fall of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Empire, to the Mongols, Hejaz became a part of the Mamluk Sultanate.[27]
The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, having found his way around the Cape and obtaining pilots from the coast of Zanzibar in AD 1497, pushed his way across the Indian Ocean to the shores of Malabar and Calicut, attacked fleets that carried freight and Muslim pilgrims from India to the Red Sea, and struck terror into the surrounding potentates. The Princes of Gujarat and Yemen turned for help to Egypt. Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri accordingly fitted out a fleet of 50 vessels under the Governor of Jeddah, Hussein the Kurd (aka. Mirocem). Jeddah was soon fortified with a wall, using forced labor, as a harbor of refuge from the Portuguese, allowing Arabia and the Red Sea to be protected.
Ottoman Empire
[edit]
In 1517, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria during the reign of Selim I.[28]
The Ottomans rebuilt the weak walls of Jeddah in 1525 following the defense of the city against the Lopo Soares de Albergaria's Armada at the