What is the difference between Mecca and Mekkah?

Answer 1

There is no difference between the two except spellings. Mecca is written by English speaking people. Makka is the Arabic name of the same holy city of the Muslims where the House of Almighty Allah is situated built by Hazrat Inraheem (Abraham) AS.

Answer 2

You may be referring to "Makkah." In either case, it's considered the holiest city in Islam. Pilgrims go to Saudi Arabia to visit the holy city of Mecca and to see the Kaaba (pictured above); in fact, making the Hajj (pilgrimage) is a requirement for every Muslim. Mecca (or Makkah) is especially important because it is where the Prophet Muhammad was born, and where Muslims believe he received his first revelations from Allah (God). The reason for the two possible spellings is that Arabic (like Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese, to name a few) does not have the same sounds and the same alphabet that English does. So when trying to translate from Arabic to English, we use "transliteration"-- trying to make the word sound as close to the original as possible.

Answer 3

This is a question of linguistic resurgence. Historically, in English, we used the terms for places based on how Englishmen heard the title. For example, we called the capital city of China as Peking, because that's similar to how the Venetians heard the name. Of course, the Chinese call the city Beijing. Over time, Beijing has come to replace Peking in English as there has been a resurgence of the original title in English. Mecca was the historic English name for the city, while Makkah is the name in Arabic.

I personally find that in cases where the name in the original language is substantially similar to the historic English one, like in Mecca/Makkah vs. Peking/Beijing, it is silly to embrace the Non-English term as it obfuscates and confuses without a high corresponding value for being correct.