الحرم المكي الشريف والاعلام المحيطة به

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
INTRODUCTION
All Praise be to the Allah of the Worlds and may Peace and Blessings be on our Prophet Muhammad and his kith and kin.
For more than two decades I longed to know the various positions of the boundaries of Holy Makkan Haram for I had the honour of participating with certain committees entrusted with that task, along with my father, his eminence Shaikh Abdullah Bin Omar Bin Deheish (may Allah have mercy upon him) when he was the President of the Courts of Holy Makka. We flew over some boundary positions in a helicopter, and some years later, I supervised the placement of one of the marks showing the position of the boundary on one of the main roads leading the Sacred City.
After I distanced myself from my main avocations including the judicial cadre, I yearned to inform myself, of what had been written on the subject of the history of the Sacred Land both in the days bygone and more recently. By the grace of Allah I had the opportunity to study a copy of the manuscript book entitled Akhbar Makka Fi Qadeem Iddahr Wa Hadeesihi by Imam Muhammad Bin Ishaq Al-Fakihi Al-Makki (died in the second half of the third century of Hijra).' I got the
1
Muhammad Bin Ishaq Bin Al-Abbas Al-Fakihi, Abu Abdulla Al Makki, was a Makkan historian and was a contemporary of Al Azraqi. He died sometime after the year 272H./885 A.D. The manuscript of Al Fakihi quoted refers to his book Akhbar Makka. It is a valuable and distinguished book dealing with various useful topics and has a information about the history of Makka and fills a large gap in this field. It is considered one of the most important books of the time on the subject. By Allah's grace I conducted research in it and published it in six volumes with copious notes. For further details see the publication referred to.
opportunity of editing this book with the help of Allah Almighty. I did so with diligence, and it was published alongwith its appendices and indices in six volumes.
While I was editing Al-Fakihi's book, I was yearning once again to know the various positions of the boundaries of the Holy Haram of Makka, but this time I wanted to visit them became personally. I more and more enthusiastic vis-a-vis the researches I started scrutinizing the geographical details in the book. The method I followed was the following: I visited every single position Al- Fakihi mentioned, described it, took photos of it and ascertained its new name. As for the ones that I did not know, I asked experts about them and took those who could guide me to their positions to verify them personally. Thus I went round these positions scores of times, photographed them, linked their present with their past as much as possible and mobilised all my materialistic and literary resources to achieve my goal. Among the positions that Al- Fakihi referred to as part of the Holy Haram boundaries were hills, mountain roads, valleys and so forth. He also stated that marks of the Haram could be found on these locations. I, therefore, went towards them with great enthusiasm and gusto. I climbed hills, and I cannot adequately describe the extent of my delight and satisfaction when I discovered the marks mentioned by Al Fakihi. I was even more delighted when I discovered the remains of white lime2 on these ancient marks.
The joy of discovery made me forget the fatigue and pain of climbing hills and the pain
2
White lime used in constructions in the past.