Bakkah

Bakkah (Arabic: بَكَّةُ [ˈbɛk.kɛh]), is a place mentioned in surah 3 ('Āl 'Imrān), ayah 96 of the Qur'an, a verse sometimes translated as: "Indeed, the first House [of worship] established for mankind was that at Bakkah [i.e., Makkah] - blessed and a guidance for the worlds." (Quran 3:96)

According to Muslim scholars Bakkah is an ancient name for Mecca, the most holy city of Islam. (The word Mecca is only used once in the Quran in verse 48:24 ("And it is He who withheld their hands from you and your hands from them within [the area of] Makkah after He caused you to overcome them. And ever is Allāh, of what you do, Seeing."))

Most Muslims believe Mecca and Bakkah are synonyms, but to Muslim scholars there is a distinction: Bakkah refers to the Kaaba and the sacred site immediately surrounding it, while Mecca is the name of the city in which they are both located.

According to Lisān al-'Arab of Ibn Manẓūr, the site of the Kaaba and its surroundings was named Bakkah due to crowding and congestion of people in the area. The Arabic verb bakka (بَكَّ), with double "k", means to crowd like in a bazaar. This is not to be confused with another unrelated Arabic verb bakā (بَكَىٰ) (single k) which is the past tense of yabkī (يَبْكِي), to cry.

Islamic tradition identifies Bakkah as the ancient name for the site of Mecca. An Arabic word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure.

One meaning ascribed to it is "narrow", seen as descriptive of the area in which the valley of the holy places and the city of Mecca are located, pressed in upon as they are by mountains. Widely believed to be a synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the Kaaba.

The form Bakkah is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the b and m were interchangeable. The Quranic passage using the form Bakkah says: "Surely the first House ˹of worship˺ established for humanity is the one at Bakkah—a blessed sanctuary and a guide for ˹all˺ people." Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:42, 42:7) call it Umm al-Qura, meaning "mother of all settlements".

In Islamic tradition, Bakkah is where Hagar (Hājar) and Ishmael (Ismā'īl) settled after being taken by Abraham (Ibrāhīm) to the wilderness, a story comparable to the Book of Genesis (21:14-21). Genesis tells that Abraham gave Hagar food and a skin of water, but that Hagar and Ishmael ran out of water to drink in the outskirts of Beersheba. In Arab tradition, Hagar runs back and forth between Safa and Marwa—two elevated points—seven times to search for help before sitting down in despair, at which point an angel appeared and hit the ground with his heel (or his wing) and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground.
However, the account in Genesis focuses more about the outcasting of Hagar, the mother of Ishmael and an Egyptian slave to Sarah (Abraham's wife and half sister in Genesis), from Abraham (who remains in Beersheba) due to Ismael provoking Sarah on the day of Isaac's weaning, and she travels alone with Ismael, who she later gets an Egyptian wife for during their stay at the Desert of Paran. Unlike Arab tradition, Genesis accounts that Hagar set a dying Ismael underneath a bush and then sat down a bowshot distance's away as to not watch him die, and when he began to cry, God called from Heaven to Hagar to take Ismael and continue traveling, where then he opened her eyes, revealing a well.