Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The amirate of Mecca was established by sharifs of Hasanid ancestry in the middle of the fourth century a. h./tenth century a.d. The territory traditionally under its direct control included the holy city of Mecca and its immediate hinterland, the nearby hill town of Ṭā'if, and the Red Sea port of Jedda. In addition, the sharifs often exercised a tenuous hold over certain tribal areas in the Sarāt Mountains south of Ṭa'if, as well as the coastal plain south of Jedda, known as the Tihāma.
1 For the geographical extent of the amirate of Mecca during the medieval period, cf. al-Qalqashandī, Shihāb al-D¯n Abū 'l-'Abbās Aḥmad b. 'Alī, Ṣubḥ al-a'shā f¯ ṣinā'at al-inshā (Cairo, 1910–1920), iv, 255–60Google Scholar; al-Idrīsī, Muḥammad b. ‘Abd Allāh, Nuzhat al-musht¯q fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (Naples, 1965–1977), n, 138–9Google Scholar; al-Iṣṭakhrī, , Kitāb al-Mas¯lik wa'l-mamālik, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1967), 19Google Scholar; Baṭṭūṭa, Muḥammad b. ‘Abd Allāh b., Tuḥfat al-nuẓẓār fī gharā'ib al-amṣ¯r wa ‘ajā’ib al-asfār (Beirut, 1964), 164.Google Scholar
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