WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca: Difference between revisions

WikiIslam:Sandbox/Fernando/Mecca (view source)

Revision as of 23:46, 11 September 2023

2,043 bytes added , 11 September 2023

Expansion of the Note on terminology, and elaboration of a possible objection to Gibson

Fernando

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 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 that 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<ref>More evidence for multiple authors is provided by [https://www.academia.edu/75302962/_The_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81n_s_in_Context_s_Journal_Asiatique_309_2_2021_185_202 Tommaso Tesei].</ref>
+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 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<ref>More evidence for multiple authors is provided by [https://www.academia.edu/75302962/_The_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81n_s_in_Context_s_Journal_Asiatique_309_2_2021_185_202 Tommaso Tesei].</ref>
 If Mecca is not the birthplace of Islam, where did it start?  Further progress requires, not only more evidence, but an alternative theory.
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 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<ref><nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra</nowiki>, ‘Climate’ and ‘Byzantine Period’.</ref>. Gibson offers various other arguments in favour of Petra, and Peter Townsend argues more generally for a north Arabian location<ref>''The Mecca Mystery'' (2018).</ref>.
-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.
+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.  If Petra contained a sanctuary, it is plausible 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 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 being orientated with 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.  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 obviously mosques.  But this would require visiting the sites, rather than just examining ancient texts.
+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 being orientated with 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.
+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 obviously 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.
 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.
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 It is not clear whether the Masjid-al-Haram and the Kaaba are the same, or the Kaaba is in the Masjid.  For the purposes of the present discussion the distinction is irrelevant.  (‘Kaaba’ is the spelling favoured by my spell checker.)
-‘Qibla’ is commonly used to mean 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.
+‘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 ambiguous, since the answer will depend on whether the Kaaba is assumed to be at Mecca, or where the builder thought it was.  The question could be made more precise by distinguishing between the Mecca qibla and the builder's intended qibla.  Where the builder's intention has to be inferred from the likely candidates for the location of the Kaaba.
+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 direction the builders thought one should face.....'  Or perhaps he should insist that the only true qibla is towards Petra.
+In the article on the [[Ka'aba|Kaaba]] yet another definition is given.  'In this capacity, as the direction of prayer, the Ka'aba is referred to as the ''Qibla''.'
+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 simply about the orientation of old mosques.
-Assuming that the idea of the orientation of a mosque 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.
+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,
 :Thanks for the updates, it is well written. We will also do a bit of editing ourselves to the article in due course, as mentioned. If you need any help with templates when you refine the references, [[WikiIslam:Source_Editing|this page]] explains how to quote or cite verses using the Quote, Quran, and Quran-range templates, as well as the various hadith citation templates. See also [[WikiIslam:Citing,_Linking,_and_Quoting|this page]]. A useful method is to look at the source edit page for an existing article to see how templates are typically used and how different types of sources are typically cited (the Islamic views on the shape of the earth article is a good one for that purpose). [[User:Lightyears|Lightyears]] ([[User talk:Lightyears|talk]]) 22:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
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