Talk:Mecca: Difference between revisions

The section on Gibson's Petra theory ends with the following paragraph.

'A significant linguistic problem with a Nabatean origin theory has been raised by Marijn van Putten, a leading academic scholar on early Arabic and in particular Quranic Arabic, who has argued in detail that the dialect evident in the Uthmanic rasm of the Quran (also found in the Sanaa 1 palimpsest, so predates canonization) is Old Hijazi and not Nabatean.'

This seems to assume that the overwritten version of Sanaa 1 is older than the Uthmanic, which became the standard. But all that can be inferred safely from the manuscript is that the overwritten copy of the non Uthmanic version was written before the top copy of the Uthmanic version. Sinai discusses evidence that the overwritten version was in fact later, and may have been derived from the Uthmanic version. (When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77 (2014) pp. 39-40. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/24692711 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/24692364).

According to al Bukhari, hadith 4987, Uthman ordered the use of the dialect of the Quraish, who, according to tradition, were the dominant tribe at Mecca. (https://sunnah.com/bukhari/66/9). Which implies that some at least of the components to be incorporated into his version were not originally in the dialect of Mecca.

Fernando

Fair point, I've removed the palimpsest element. However, I didn't reintroduce the hadith point as that interpretation doesn't take into account the last part of the sentence: "Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, 'In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." Lightyears (talk) 22:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response. I think the last section on Gibson's Petra Theory, 'Other criticisms..' would be better named 'King's criticisms', and fails to engage critically with his assertions. I recommend adding the following section after it. When I get time, I'll comment on King's detailed criticisms of Gibson's classifications of early mosques.

The need for a revised statistical analysis One of the problems with King’s criticism of Gibson is that it ignores the use of statistics. While it is correct that Gibson’s classifications need to be reviewed impartially, one rejected case of a Petra direction will make little difference to the weight of statistical evidence.

The hypothesis to be tested is that the first Al-Masjid-al-Haram, or Holy Shrine, which Muslims are directed to face when praying, was at Petra rather than Mecca. It is not known when the change was made to Mecca, but given the rock inscription about the building/rebuilding of the Kaaba at Mecca, 78AH is a plausible date. This does not imply that the prayer direction was immediately changed, since there was presumably political conflict about the issue.

Taking Gibson’s list on his qibla tool up to 707, which is the date of the first building Gibson classifies as directed towards Mecca, there are 35 in total. He classifies 4 as parallel, 3 as between, 1 as Jerusalem, and 1 as Mecca. ‘Parallel’ means parallel to the direction between Petra and Mecca, ‘between’ pointing between Petra and Mecca. The remaining 26 he classifies as being directed towards Petra. It may be that some of these cases are unconvincing, or irrelevant because not mosques. So what needs to be done is to review the classifications, and repeat the statistical analysis. Just looking at the figures, a large proportion of Gibson’s Petra classifications would need to be changed to unknown or irrelevant to put his hypothesis in doubt. Better still, some of the buildings he classifies as directed towards Petra would need to be reclassified as Mecca. Certainly one uncertain case discussed above is not enough.

King repeatedly asserts that ‘modern directions’ are irrelevant to understanding old mosque orientations, because the builders had no way of determining them. This is a confusing way of putting things, because directions are physical facts, whether ancient or modern, although the way they are specified involves conventions which are not universal. The predominant modern convention is the use of the four cardinal points: north, south, east and west, which give two cardinal axes. The ancients were capable of determining east – west by observing sunrise and sunset at the equinoxes, and north and south easily follow. They were also familiar with the use of maps. The direction of a line between two locations can then be understood as the angle it makes on a map with either of the two cardinal axes.

The difficulty for the first mosque builders would be to accurately locate both their mosque and the Al-Masjid-al-Haram on a map. One possibility is that they used days and direction of travel. A simpler method of establishing the direction of one location from another is the use of homing pigeons, since the direction can be established without the use of a map. (This is not a joke. According to wikipedia, homing pigeons can fly over one thousand miles, twice the distance between Petra and Baghdad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homing_pigeon) In both cases, the smaller the distance, the more accurate the direction is likely to be.

King does not seem to realise that his repeated assertion that pre modern mosque builders had no way of establishing direction is open to empirical test. If a statistically significant proportion of early mosques are directed towards Petra, then their builders must have had some reliable way of establishing its direction. It is then a secondary problem to discover what their method might have been.

Of the sample discussed above, the 4 parallel mosques are in north Africa, distant from both Petra and Mecca. So it is understandable that the builders should have adopted some locally approved convention. Nor is a between direction is incompatible with the Petra hypothesis, since in a period of political uncertainty, the builders might have been hedging their bets. So there are no clear counterexamples to Gibson's hypothesis, and what appears to be statistically significant evidence in support of it.

Basic statistics To get an idea of the weight of evidence on Gibson’s side, consider a crude model of the probabilities involved. The orientation of a mosque is a straight line perpendicular to its prayer wall. Allowing for some inaccuracy, it can be accepted that a given mosque is directed to a particular location if this line in within 10 degrees plus or minus of a line to that location. Given the convention that a circular angle is 360 degrees, a circle drawn around the mosque will contain 18 segments of 20 degrees each. The chance of a particular location falling within a given segment is therefore 1/18.

Taking Gibson’s list on his qibla tool up to 707, which is the date of the first building Gibson classifies as directed towards Mecca, there are 35 in total. He classifies 4 as parallel, 3 as between, 1 as Jerusalem, and 1 as Mecca. ‘Parallel’ means parallel to the direction between Petra and Mecca, ‘between’ pointing between Petra and Mecca. The remaining 26 he classifies as being directed towards Petra. Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz is outside the 10 degree error range, at 11.1, the Qasr Humeima is doubtful, and perhaps it is best to ignore the Chinese case. This leaves 22 directed towards Petra.

The probability of a combination of outcomes is obtained by multiplying their individual probabilities. So if the probability of a coin coming down heads is 1/2, the probability of two heads in a row is 1/4, three 1/8 and so on. The probability of an unbroken sequence of heads rapidly decreases with the number of tosses. The probability of Petra falling within the 20 degree error arc of 22 mosques is 1/18 multiplied by itself 22 times, which is a practical impossibility.

To put the point in another way, imagine a roulette wheel with 18 numbers. What is the probability of the same number coming up 22 times? Or, if the same number does come up 22 times, what is the probability that the wheel is biased?

It should be stressed that the above is a crude ways of doing statistics, and Gibson rightly commissioned a professional analysis. But it might be enough to show that the mass of data he has collected should not be ignored.

Fernando

I don't think any of this is compelling content and we already have more than enough text now on what is an obscure theory. If it ever gains traction in wider academic circles perhaps we will revisit. Lightyears (talk) 22:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I've added a brief numerical analysis. You seem to be assuming that statistics can safely be ignored.