Makkah, the birthplace of Islam was a Hijazi trading haven rich from the Red Sea caravan trade between Yemen and Byzantine Syria, a place where a Syrian monk, a Persian Zoroastrian priest’s renegade son and an Abyssinian slave could all exchange ideas of human possibility and witness the seal of prophethood on a young orphan son of the Quraish. The Queen of Sheba visited Jerusalem to close a frankincense deal with Sulaiman, King of Jerusalem.
