Ta'if

Ta'if, in the highlands of the Hejaz southeast of Mecca in western Saudi Arabia, was a cooler, agricultural town and a centre of the powerful Thaqif tribe in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times. The Prophet Muhammad preached there and the town submitted to Islam late; the companion Abdullah ibn Abbas (d. 687), the great early Qur'an interpreter, is reported to have died at Ta'if.