WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca: Difference between revisions

WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca (view source)

Revision as of 22:50, 6 September 2023

8,946 bytes added , 6 September 2023

Proposal for additions to the Mecca article

Fernando

62

edits

@@ Line 80: / Line 80: @@
 :It will take me some time to check out your very helpful suggestions, although I am familiar with most of the authors you mention.  In the meantime I think it would be useful to get the extra Crone reference and the Gibson/King debate into the existing article.  And questioning its assumption that Becca = Mecca.  What are the conventions about changing an existing article?
 :
-::Sounds good. I'm an admin here and wrote a lot of the articles, but I'm not involved in the new user on-boarding process or what ASmith may have advised. I believe there are a bunch of pages via the New Contributors link on the sidebar explaining standards, how to add quote templates etc. An example of a recent newly expanded article which covers an academic debate is the one on Prophecies in the Quran, particularly the section on the Romans prophecy which has a good sprinkling of quotes and citations yet concise enough to hold the reader's interest. Normally new users are expected to make small simple edits to start with, so the gradual approach sounds ok to me. Our pending edits feature is currently broken so you won't have to wait for each edit to be approved. At some point when you've finished ASmith or I can tweak, add templates where necessary etc. [[User:Lightyears|Lightyears]] ([[User talk:Lightyears|talk]]) 22:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
+::Sounds good. I'm an admin here and wrote a lot of the articles, but I'm not involved in the new user on-boarding process or what ASmith may have advised. I believe there are a bunch of pages via the New Contributors link on the sidebar explaining standards, how to add quote templates etc. An example of a recent newly expanded article which covers an academic debate is the one on Prophecies in the Quran, particularly the section on the Romans prophecy which has a good sprinkling of quotes and citations yet concise enough to hold the reader's interest. Normally new users are expected to make small simple edits to start with, so the gradual approach sounds ok to me. Our pending edits feature is currently broken so you won't have to wait for each edit to be approved. At some point when you've finished ASmith or I can tweak, add templates where necessary etc. [[User:Lightyears|Lightyears]] ([[User talk:Lightyears|talk]]) 22:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC) '''06/09/23'''
+:Thanks again.
+:Please find below a proposed expansion of the article on Mecca.  I have used ......... to indicate where the existing text will remain.  I would need to standardise the format of the references, and add more quotes from the Quran.  The endnotes have not come out very well.
+:
+==== Problems with Mecca as the birthplace of Islam	to repace 'Dearth of archaeological evidence' ====
+Traditionally, Mecca is assumed to be the birthplace of Islam.  Starting with Abraham, who founded Al-Masjid-al-Haram, the Mosque of the sanctuary, the House of God, or the Ka’bah, the cube, which holds the Black Stone.  The holiness which was confirmed by the prophet Muhammad, who was born and worked in Mecca, and started his preaching career in the city.
+…………..
+In sum, the problems with Mecca are
+. No mention in ancient sources.
+. Not on ancient trade routes.
+. No archaeological remains, in spite of extensive excavations for new buildings.
+. The Abrahamic sanctuary is located by the Quran in Becca/Bakkah rather than Mecca/Makkah (3.96).
+. Its climate is not compatible with the description of the audience of the supposedly Meccan verses of the Quran as prosperous fish eating farmers<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote1sym|i]]</sup>.
+. Who are said to share their location with Lot of Sodom and Gomorrah (37.133-138),which were somewhere near the Dead Sea.
+. There is a rock inscription<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote2sym|ii]]</sup> near Mecca which dates the building of the Ka’bah to 78 AH / 697-698 CE.
+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’.  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, then some explanation is required of why Abraham should have wanted to travel so far south from Canaan.  Both problems could be solved by accepting and Becca is not Mecca.  In which case the sanctuary of Abraham has been lost.
+The only plausible solution to problems five and six, the fish eating farmers familiar with the city of Lot, is to accept that some verses of the Qur’an were not written in either Mecca or Medina (which is even more arid than Mecca), or indeed anywhere in the Hejaz.  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<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote3sym|iii]]</sup>.
+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'''
+………………………'''.'''
+Dan Gibson<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote4sym|iv]]</sup> 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 Ka’bah, 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 when did it change to Mecca?
+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<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote5sym|v]]</sup>. Gibson offers various other arguments in favour of Petra, as does Peter Townsend<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote6sym|vi]]</sup>.
+A point against Petra is that it is not near the Dead Sea and thus the city of Lot, or not near enough.  But if Mecca is the only competition for the original shrine, it is much nearer.  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 non Muslim scholars, it is understandable that there is much hostility to Gibson’s hypothesis.  Yet little has been published against it.  There is a trenchant criticism from David A. King, a long time expert on mosque orientation.  His main point seems to be that geographical orientation is irrelevant to understanding early mosques, because their builders had no way of determining the direction of Mecca, and did not try.  Rather they orientated their buildings with the Ka’bah rather than towards it, by aiming for the same alignment with the fixed stars.  There are a number of problems with this suggestion.
+Primarily, Gibson 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.  It is also a fact that after a period of uncertainty, later mosques succeed in facing Mecca with a greater than random success rate.  Anyone who dislikes Gibson’s Petra hypothesis needs to show either that his measurements are wrong, or the statistical analysis faulty.
+If the early mosque builders were not trying to face Mecca, what were they trying to do?  The accepted interpretation of the Quran is that Muslims must face it when praying, so it is generally assumed that mosques are built to indicate the required direction.  It is an implication of King’s theory that some early builders interpreted the word translated as ‘face’ to mean ‘facing in the same direction as you would if you were at the Ka’bah’.  Which is a bit of a stretch.  Another possibility is that at certain times and places the builders had no way of determining the direction of the Ka’bah, so they did the best they could by giving their mosques the same orientation to the fixed stars.  It is not clear from the data that they succeeded even in this.  Or indeed that they were trying.  Many mosques face south, in obedience to the Prophet’s command to pray towards Mecca when he was in Medina.
+It is also relevant to point out that modern Muslims have no doubt about how to interpret the order to face the Ka’bah.  (And have accepted the need to abandon [[Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth#Direct%20references%20to%20a%20flat%20Earth%20in%20the%20Qur'an|the flat Earth geography of the Quran]], and come to terms with the complications of spherical geometry<sup>[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote7sym|vii]]</sup>.) Why should early Muslims have interpreted the Quran any differently?
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote1anc|i]]As	pointed out by Patricia Crone, ''How	Did the Quranic Pagans Make a Living?'' ,	also in her ''Collected Studies'' (2016).
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote2anc|ii]]<nowiki>https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/inscriptions/haram1</nowiki>
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote3anc|iii]]More	evidence for multiple authors is provided by Tommaso	Tesei.
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote4anc|iv]]Most	recently in ''Let	the Stones Speak''.
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote5anc|v]]<nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra</nowiki>,	‘Climate’ and ‘Byzantine Period’.
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote6anc|vi]]''The	Mecca Mystery'' (2018).
+[[WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca#sdendnote7anc|vii]]<nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibla</nowiki>	‘Calculations	with spherical trigonometry’ and	‘North America’.