Portal:Saudi Arabia/Selected City
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Jeddah is the major urban center in western Saudi Arabia, the largest in the Western Province, and the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city Riyadh. The population of the city currently stands at over 3.4 million. It is considered as the commercial capital of Saudi Arabia and the wealthiest city in the Middle East and western Asia.
Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, which able-bodied Muslims are required to visit at least once in a lifetime.
[edit] History
The city was founded as a fishing village over 2,500 years ago, but first achieved prominence in 647 A.D., when the Muslim caliph Othman ibn Affan turned it into a port for Muslim pilgrims making the required hajj to Mecca.
Jeddah was for centuries the main city of the historic Hejaz province and historic port for pilgrims arriving by sea on their pilgrimage or hajj to Mecca.
At the end of the 17th century, the Ottoman Turks conquered Hejaz, including the holy city of Mecca and Jeddah. The Ottomans rebuilt the city walls of Jeddah following their victory over Lopo Soares de Albergaria's armada in the Red Sea.
During World War I, Sharifs of Hejaz whom were the Ottoman commanders of the area had revolted against Turkish empire seeking independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.
A few years later, King Ibn Saud, whose clan originated in the central Nejd province, conquered Mecca (1924), Medina, and Jeddah, and deposed the Sharif of Hejaz, Hussein Bin 'Ali Al Hashem, who fled to Cyprus, settling eventually in Amman, Jordan, where his descendants became the Hashemite royal family.
In this way, as part of Hejaz, Jeddah came under the sway of the Sa'ud dynasty. In 1926, Ibn Sa'ud added the title King of Hejaz to his position of Sultan of Nejd. Today, Jeddah has lost its historical role in peninsular politics, historic Hejaz province along the west coast having been subdivided into smaller provinces, with Jeddah falling within the new province of Makkah with its provincial capital Mecca .
