Mecca

Almost a decade after claiming prophet-hood in Mecca in 610, Muhammad was forced to flee to Medina in 622 after facing prosecution for insulting and criticizing the gods and beliefs of the Meccan pagans. Ultimately, after erecting the Islamic state from his base in Medina, Muhammad was able to return to Mecca, this time as conqueror, in 630. Since Muhammad's death in 632, political leadership of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, as well as Medina, the second holiest city in Islam, has been a significant basis for political claims of authority.

In the Qur'an, the city is also referred to as "Bakkah" as well as "Umm al-Qura" (lit. "mother of all settlements"). The city is described in Islamic scriptures as having been founded by Abraham as he constructed the Kaaba with his son Ishmael (Ismail), though there is an absence of any archaeological evidence to support this narrative.

Islamic scriptures further maintain that Mecca was the trade capital of the Hijaz and Arabia at large, though even this lacks an archaeological basis.

Problems with Mecca as the birthplace of Islam

Traditionally, Mecca is assumed to be the birthplace of Islam. Starting with Abraham, who founded Al-Masjid-al-Haram, the Mosque of the sanctuary, or Holy Shrine, which encloses, or possibly is, the Ka’bah, or Cube, which holds the Black Stone. The holiness of which was confirmed by the prophet Muhammad, who was born and worked in Mecca, and started his preaching career in the city.

Very little is known through archaeological and historically relied-upon channels about the early and pre-Islamic history of Mecca, as the city is neither referred to unambiguously by any document prior to the rise of Islam, nor is there any architecture in Mecca that has been determined to have persisted from the life of Muhammad at the beginning of the seventh century.^[1] Indeed, even while contemporary Romans produced detailed descriptions of Arabia at large and Western Arabia (the Hijaz) in particular, no references can be found to anything that could be described as a pilgrimage or trade centre at Mecca.

A place called Macoraba in Arabia is mentioned in a geographic work by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE. Many academic scholars believe this is a reference to Mecca (first proposed in the 16th century), and some even think that the name derives from an ancient South Arabian word for temple, mkrb. Others historians such as Patricia Crone and Ian D. Morris have argued that there is no good reason to believe Macoraba and Mecca are the same place. The idea has never been backed by any significant academic investigation, nor has any other ancient source been shown to describe Mecca or its temple.^[2]

Historian Patricia Crone is widely considered to have established that Mecca was of no wider importance at the time of Islam's emergence, was not on the major trade route, and traded in goods like leather, wool and other pastoral products.^[3] She also pointed out that the audience of the supposedly Meccan verses of the Qur'an are prosperous farmers who have an interest in the sea and ate fish, activities difficult in the arid wastes around Mecca^[4].

In sum, the problems with Mecca are

1. No mention in ancient sources.

2. Not on ancient trade routes.

3. No archaeological remains, in spite of extensive excavations for new buildings.

4. The Abrahamic sanctuary is located by the Quran in Becca/Bakkah rather than Mecca/Makkah (Quran 3:96).

5. Its climate is not compatible with the address of the supposedly Meccan verses of the Quran to prosperous fish eating farmers.

6. Who are said to share their location with Lot of Sodom and Gomorrah (Quran 37:133-138, Quran 11:89),which were somewhere near the Dead Sea.

7. There is a rock inscription near Mecca which dates the building of Al-Masjid-al-Haram to 78 AH / 697-698 CE^[5].

The first three points only tell against traditional descriptions of Mecca as a bustling centre of trade. They are compatible with the existence of a sanctuary patronised by local tribes. But this raises the difficulty of the absence of Christians in the area, given that the Quran is so heavily influenced by Christianity.

Problem seven about the inscription can be dismissed by the claim that the Arabic word translated as ‘built’ also means ‘rebuilt’^[6]. It should be noted however that this is compatible with the hypothesis that while there was a local sanctuary at Mecca, it became the Holy Mosque only in 78 AH.

The Becca problem could just be a scribal error. But then why was it not corrected before an authoritative text was issued? Furthermore, if the Quran is to be taken seriously as a source of historical knowledge, some explanation is required of why Abraham should have wanted to travel so far south from the Promised Land. Both problems could be solved by accepting that Becca is not Mecca, but somewhere further north.

The only plausible solution to problems five and six, the fish eating farmers familiar with the cities of Lot, is to accept that some verses of the Qur’an were not written in either Mecca or Medina (which has an even lower rainfall than Mecca), or indeed anywhere in the Hijaz. To admit this undermines the project popular with scholars, of trying to explain the differences of style and doctrine to be found in the Qur’an by a sequential development in the career of its prophet. The problem is not simply a matter of determining the order in which verses were revealed, but where, when and by whom they were first written down^[7].

If Mecca is not the birthplace of Islam, where did it start? Further progress requires, not only more evidence, but an alternative theory.

The Petra hypothesis

Among other factors, because geographical descriptions provided of Mecca in Islamic scriptures fail to map reliably onto the geography of the actual city of Mecca, because ample archaeological evidence demonstrates that for roughly a century after Muhammad's death Muslim prayed toward Petra as their qibla^[8], and because studies have demonstrated the prevalence of Syriac words in the Qur'an, many critical scholars have been led to hypothesize that the Mecca we know today may not have been the Mecca known by early Muslims. Mounting evidence suggests that the city Muhammad lived in, preached in, and came to conquer, may in fact have been Petra, located in Syria, or at least somewhere in the vicinity of northern Arabia, though this is disputed. This interpretation collides heavily with the explicit statements of Islamic scriptures and conforms more readily with Islamic scriptures' implicit, geographical descriptions of Mecca, as well as with the archaeological evidence available to us today.

A general objection to the Petra hypothesis is that it is difficult to understand how the real birthplace of Islam could have been erased so completely from Muslim traditions^[9]. But there are numerous examples of partially successful attempts to rewrite history for political reasons. It is often noted that there is surprisingly little documentary evidence surviving from the first two centuries of Islam. Perhaps because the first Muslims were practical men more concerned with consolidating their new empire than writing about it. Or perhaps because by the second century a consensus had been reached about the value of the founding myth of Mecca, and all evidence to the contrary was destroyed.

Van Putten^[10] has argued in detail that the dialect of the Quran is Hijazi rather than Nabatean, but this is of doubtful relevance to the Mecca/Petra debate. It is uncontroversial that the first official edition of the Qur'an was produced under Uthman at Medina, so it would have been natural to use the local dialect^[11].

Dan Gibson^[12] has recently provided both an alternative to the Mecca hypothesis and new evidence, by measuring the orientations of early mosques. The Quran orders Muslims to face the Holy Mosque (Quran 2:144), and the accepted interpretation is that they must face Mecca when praying. As an aid, mosques are built facing Mecca. Which is to say, the prayer wall is built perpendicular to a straight line to Mecca, and worshippers face this wall. The question then is in which direction are early mosques orientated? And if not to Mecca, when did it change?

Gibson has found that the earliest mosques face Petra rather than Mecca, but there was a gradual reorientation to Mecca over a period of centuries. Which suggests that the original Holy Mosque of Islam was at Petra, but was then changed to Mecca for political reasons, presumably encouraged by earthquakes at Petra.

Petra is the more plausible candidate for the original Muslim shrine. It was an important trade centre, even if declining by the time of the Prophet. Agriculture was possible, including the cultivation of olives mentioned in the Quran. And it had an archbishop, thus a large Christian population, likely of an anti Trinitarian variety which is compatible with Islamic monotheism^[13]. Gibson offers various other arguments in favour of Petra, and Peter Townsend argues more generally for a north Arabian location^[14].

A point against Petra is that it is not near the Dead Sea and thus the cities of Lot, or not near enough. But if Mecca is the only competition for the original shrine, it is much nearer. If Petra contained a sanctuary, it is possible that it would have been visited by farmers from further north. In any case, the Quran is inconsistent in a number of ways. The best that can be hoped for is to get a partial match to what it suggests about its historical context.

Given the seriousness of the issue for both Muslims and non Muslim scholars, it is understandable that there is much hostility to Gibson’s hypothesis. Yet the reaction from scholars in the field has been silence rather than the lively debate which might have been expected. The best that can be found is a detailed rejection by David King^[15], a long time specialist on the study of mosque orientation. King’s criticism is long, repetitive and abusive. Fortunately, most of it can be ignored, since it deals with centuries of mosque building. Only the earliest are relevant to the question of the birthplace of Islam. Given the rock inscription, 78AH is a convenient cut off date.

The basis of King’s position is the repeated assertion that ‘For the interpretation of orientations of historical mosques, modern qibla directions are irrelevant.’ This claim is clearly false. If, for instance, it were discovered that all mosques face Mecca to within a reasonable degree of accuracy, it could be concluded that the builders understood the command of the Quran in the obvious way, had the technical ability to fulfil it, and believed the Holy Shrine to be at Mecca. The problem for the traditional history of Islam is that while no early mosques do face Mecca, a large proportion face Petra.

King seems to think that mosque builders were not even trying to face Mecca in any obvious sense, because they had no way of doing so. A hypothesis which raises theological difficulties which he does not consider. If early Muslims had no way of establishing the direction to the Holy Shrine, they had no way of obeying the command of the Quran to face it when praying. The Quran repeatedly warns that anyone who disobeys will be tortured for all eternity in hell. Are we to suppose that all Muslims living distant from the Shrine before the invention of GPS are currently suffering eternal punishment? Have Muslims currently worshipping in misaligned mosques mended their ways?

In sum, King offers no plausible alternative to the obvious interpretation of the Quranic command to pray towards the Holy Shrine, and Gibson has supplied the best evidence to date of where the builders of the first mosques thought it was. He claims to have established that too many of the early mosques face Petra to be due to chance. How they did this is a matter of speculation, but their success is a statistical fact. Anyone who dislikes Gibson’s Petra hypothesis needs to show either that his measurements are wrong, or the statistical analysis faulty.

Another possible line of criticism is to question whether Gibson has correctly identified the prayer wall on the buildings he has included in his survey, not all of which are mosques, and in any case early mosques did not have a mihrab to identify the prayer wall. However, Gibson does take care to justify his identification of prayer walls, so unless further data is obtained on site, there is no reason to question his judgement.

It is also relevant to point out that modern Muslims have no doubt about how to interpret the order to face the Kaabah. (And have accepted the need to abandon the flat Earth geography of the Quran, and come to terms with the complications of spherical geometry^[16].) Why should early Muslims have interpreted the Quran any differently?

A note on terminology

‘Qibla’ is commonly used to mean either the actual orientation of a mosque, or the direction towards the Kaaba. It would be better to adopt the second usage, so that there is an empirical question as to whether orientation and qibla coincide. Or, more realistically, to what degree of accuracy they coincide. Even with this clarification the question is vague, since the answer will depend on whether the Kaaba is assumed to be at Mecca, or some other location favoured by the builder.

Gibson in his glossary defines 'qibla' as 'The direction one should face when performing Islamic rituals. According to Surah 2 Muslims should face Masjid al-Haram'. So the direction will depend on where one thinks the Masjid al-Haram is, or was. But it is uncontroversial that the original direction of prayer was towards Jerusalem, which is not in contention as the site of the original Masjid. (Although a more plausible location for Abraham.) Gibson also says things like 'And so in one town we have evidence of three different qiblas' (page 95). Which can only mean the actual orientation of the buildings, rather than the correct orientation. To be consistent, the definition needs to be changed to 'The location the builders thought one should face.....'

In the article on the Ka'bah yet another definition is given. 'In this capacity, as the direction of prayer, the Ka'aba is referred to as the Qibla.' A building is not a direction.

Altogether, it might be best to stop using the word 'qibla' to avoid verbal confusions about such a contentious issue. The empirical question is then about the orientation of old mosques.

Not that the idea of the orientation of a building is entirely clear. What is in question is the orientation of the prayer wall, which is what the congregation faces when praying. The orientation is the direction of a straight line drawn perpendicular to this wall. It is assumed that the idea of the direction of a line on the Earth’s surface is clear enough, and can be determined by modern technology. The idea of a straight line as the shortest distance between two points would probably have been acceptable to the earliest mosque builders. The direction of a straight line can then be specified by any two places it passes through, without the need for an external frame of reference.

Qur'an

Hadith

• Medina
• Hajj
• Kaaba
• Muhammad