For the non-Muslim, Mecca is the most forbidden of Holy Cities--and yet, in many ways it is the best known. Muslim historians and geographers have studied it, and countless pilgrims and travelers--many of them European Christians in disguise--have left behind lively and well-publicized accounts of life in Mecca and its associated shrine-city of Med "The author ... has sought to assemble, arrange, and explain the accounts of Muslims as well as non-Muslims--from sincere to fraudulent--about the Holy Land.... F. E. Peters has definitely succeeded in accomplishing his goal.... [He] has definitely done an outstanding job of explaining the accounts of various travelers to the Holy Land."