Mecca: Difference between revisions

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''<ref>Numerous videos by Dan Gibson arguing for the Petra hypothesis are available on YouTube, and there is a recent summary of the evidence at nabataea.net.</ref>, 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.