Whichever explanation is more plausible, there is no doubt that, even before the beginning of the Christian era, Mecca was a well-established mercantile city that included a sacred temple, the Kaba, which was already a national centre of adoration. At some early date there was instituted a carefully systematized, twofold form of worship based upon well-tried Hebrew models: the Lesser and Greater Pilgrimages. Devotees who were able to satisfy their consciences by performing the ritual of the Lesser Pilgrimage only, went about it thus: they came to Mecca, generally during the sacred month of Rejeb, feverishly kissed the blessed Black Stone--the most divinely hallowed rock in a country that reverenced every one of her millions of stones--imbedded in the eastern corner of the Kaba, sedately walked seven times around the saintly edifice, and then marched in a more hasty manner seven times to and fro between two spots near by, over a route which Hagar was supposed to have trod. But the Greater Pilgrimage demanded a more strenuous faith. Those who elected to perform its stricter stipulations could do so only during the month of Dhul-Hijja, which was even more holy than Rejeb; and, besides accomplishing the requirements already specified, they were obliged to travel on foot to Arafat, a small hill some twelve miles east of Mecca, and to struggle manfully up its steep sides. Before entering the hallowed territory of Mecca, the votaries of both pilgrimages donned a special raiment, and, when all the religious activities were completed, they shaved their heads and pared their nails. Favored thus by nature and superstition, Mecca had grown apace. For centuries different clans vied with each other in an effort to gain control of her destiny--a control that was eminently desirable, for by the fifth century Mecca was _Mecca_, in the most modern sense of the word. The dialect spoken by her citizens had come to be regarded as the standard of purity by which all other tribes were judged; and pilgrims from every extraneous Arabian clan, except the untamable Bedouins, came yearly to pay their vows and drink from the sacred fount of Zemzem--whose waters were a bit brackish, to be sure, but still satisfactorily sacred. During that century a sect called the Koreish finally won a foothold that gave every evidence of being permanent. Despite occasional bickerings among themselves as to matters of patronage and patriarchal succession, they always agreed when an outside enemy appeared; and successive victories over those who vainly sought to supplant them led to their exaltation throughout all Arabia.