Editing Mecca (section)

==Demographics==
{{see also|List of neighbourhoods in Mecca}}
Mecca is very densely populated. Most long-term residents live in the Old City, the area around the [[Great Mosque of Mecca|Great Mosque]] and many work to support pilgrims, known locally as the ''Hajj'' industry. 'Iyad Madani, the Saudi Arabian Minister for Hajj, was quoted saying, "We never stop preparing for the Hajj."<ref>{{cite web|title=A new National Geographic Special on PBS 'Inside Mecca'|url=http://www.anisamehdi.com/projects/insidemecca/pressrelease.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100415162252/http://www.anisamehdi.com/projects/insidemecca/pressrelease.htm|archive-date=15 April 2010|access-date=6 April 2010|publisher=Anisamehdi.com}}</ref>

Year-round, pilgrims stream into the city to perform the rites of '[[Umrah]], and during the last weeks of eleventh Islamic month, [[Dhu al-Qi'dah]], on average 2–4&nbsp;million Muslims arrive in the city to take part in the rites known as Hajj.<ref name="ebmm">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Makkah al-Mukarramah and Medina|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]: Fifteenth edition|volume=23|pages=698–699|year=2007}}</ref> Pilgrims are from varying [[ethnic group|ethnicities]] and backgrounds, mainly [[South Asia|South]] and Southeast Asia, Europe and Africa. Many of these pilgrims have remained and become residents of the city. By the 19th century, people of [[South Asia]]n origin had come to constitute 20% of the population.<ref>{{Cite book |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-62040-268-9 |location= |title=Mecca: The Sacred City|author=Ziauddin Sardar|date=2014 |page=257 }}</ref> The Burmese are an older, more established community who number roughly 250,000.<ref>{{cite news|date=14 September 2016|title=After the hajj: Mecca residents grow hostile to changes in the holy city|newspaper=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/14/mecca-hajj-pilgrims-tourism|url-status=live|access-date=23 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161024024802/https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/14/mecca-hajj-pilgrims-tourism|archive-date=24 October 2016}}</ref> Adding to this, the discovery of oil in the past 50 years has brought hundreds of thousands of working immigrants.

Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca under [[Basic Law of Saudi Arabia|Saudi law]],<ref name="peters 206" /> and using fraudulent documents to do so may result in arrest and prosecution.<ref>{{cite news|date=14 March 2006|title=Saudi embassy warns against entry of non-Muslims in Mecca|publisher=ABS-CBN News|url=http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=32627|access-date=27 April 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060426192447/http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=32627|archive-date=26 April 2006}}</ref> The prohibition extends to [[Ahmadiyya|Ahmadis]], as they are considered non-Muslims.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Robert W. Hefner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_kQ4yo-GIWUC&pg=PA198|title=Islam in an Era of Nation-States: Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia|author2=Patricia Horvatich|publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0-8248-1957-6|page=198|access-date=5 June 2014}}</ref> Nevertheless, many non-Muslims and Ahmadis have visited the city as these restrictions are loosely enforced. The first such recorded example of a non-Muslim entering the city is that of [[Ludovico di Varthema]] of [[Bologna]] in 1503.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Lure Of Mecca|url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197406/the.lure.of.mecca.htm|magazine=Saudi Aramco World|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113084034/http://saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197406/the.lure.of.mecca.htm|archive-date=13 January 2010|access-date=6 April 2010}}</ref> [[Guru Nanak]], the founder of Sikhism, is said to have visited Mecca<ref>{{Cite book|last=Inderjit Singh Jhajj|url=https://archive.org/details/GuruNanakAtMecca|title=Guru Nanak At Mecca}}</ref> in December 1518.<ref>Dr Harjinder Singh Dilgeer says that Mecca was not banned to non-Muslim till nineteenth century; ''Sikh History in 10 volumes'', Sikh University Press, (2010–2012), vol. 1, pp. 181–182</ref> One of the most famous was [[Richard Francis Burton]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1853|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1853Burton.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100412091714/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1853Burton.html|archive-date=12 April 2010|access-date=6 April 2010|publisher=Fordham.edu}}</ref> who traveled as a [[Qadiriyyah|Qadiriyya]] [[Sufism|Sufi]] from [[Afghanistan]] in 1853.

[[Mecca Province]] is the only province where [[Expatriates in Saudi Arabia|expatriates]] outnumber [[Saudis]].<ref>{{Cite web|publisher=General Authority for Statistics|date=2016|title=Demographics Survey 2016|url=https://www.stats.gov.sa/sites/default/files/en-demographic-research-2016_2.pdf|website=Demographics Survey 2016|access-date=2 July 2020|archive-date=1 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201080848/https://www.stats.gov.sa/sites/default/files/en-demographic-research-2016_2.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>