When you think about the crowds that gather for pilgrimage every year in Mecca: what a potentially powerful political force. Mecca itself, and even the Ka`ba area, were a site for battle in Islamic history. It was shelled several times, and the Qaramitah moved the (black stone and tried to move the) Ka`bah itself. Their revolutionary fighters chanted around (and against) the Ka`bah:

فلو كان هذا البيت لله ربنا لصب علينا النار من فوقنا صبًا

لأنا حججنا حجة جاهلية محللة لم تبق شرقًا ولا غربًا

وإنا تركنا بين زمزم والصفا جنائز لا تبغي سوى ربها ربا