In answer to the video "The Unknown History of Islam 04 - Modern Mecca, Ancient Qibla"
Mecca was, as shown earlier, an isolated, seasonal city, far from any trading route. Advanced archeological research in Mecca and its surroundings has been very limited. In addition the dynasty of the Saud family that now rules over the area that has become known by its proper name; Saudi Arabia, destroyed old constructions, pretexting it might lead to improper veneration. The prophet however is reported as prohibiting the destruction of ancient edifices
"do not pull them down, as these are the ornaments of AlMadina".
Both the Quran and ahadith call upon the observation of the archaelogical remains of past nations to whom prophets were sent, so as to learn from their errors. The Thamudic monuments and their idols were present in the prophet's time but were never destroyed. These sites should therefore be preserved. Most reports of artefacts and rock inscriptions therefore come from amateurs in the field, or during the construction projects the city of Mecca and its environs recently underwent. Some of these findings, spanning different periods of human history, include drawings of hunting and of animals, carvings, writings, scattered on rocks, mountains, caves. Tools were recovered dating to prehistoric times. This pattern is found throughout the peninsula, including in the current Meccan province, all testifying to consistent human presence and activity in the whole peninsula and Mecca's surroundings since ancient times.
Satellite imagery of the Meccan region has revealed an array of human constructions proving continuous habitation in the area. These structures, observable from altitude, represent gates, kites, triangles, keyholes among other things, and are dated beyond to 9000 years old. Some are believed to have been used for hunting purposes, while others are of unknown function. A burial site with hundreds of tombs was discovered east of Jeddah, at a lava field dated between 4000-1000BCE.
All these data are no evidence of a town thousands of years ago at Mecca's location but neither does Islamic tradition state so. What Islam says is that when Ibrahim settled his wife Hagar and son Ismail at Mecca's location, the place was uninhabited. Ismail and his mother lived at that site and dedicated themselves to the worship of One God. Nomadic tribes would pass by and interact with them, including the Jurhum with whom Ismail married.
The prophet narrates
"The House (i.e. Ka`ba) at that time was on a high place resembling a hillock, and when torrents came, they flowed to its right and left. She lived in that way till some people from the tribe of Jurhum or a family from Jurhum passed by her and her child, as they (i.e. the Jurhum people) were coming through the way of Kada'. They landed in the lower part of Mecca where they saw a bird that had the habit of flying around water and not leaving it. They said, 'This bird must be flying around water, though we know that there is no water in this valley.' They sent one or two messengers who discovered the source of water, and returned to inform them of the water. So, they all came (towards the water)." The Prophet (ﷺ) added, "Ishmael's mother was sitting near the water. They asked her, 'Do you allow us to stay with you?" She replied, 'Yes, but you will have no right to possess the water.' They agreed to that." The Prophet (ﷺ) further said, "Ishmael's mother was pleased with the whole situation as she used to love to enjoy the company of the people. So, they settled there, and later on they sent for their families who came and settled with them so that some families became permanent residents there. The child (i.e. Ishmael) grew up and learnt Arabic from them and (his virtues) caused them to love and admire him as he grew up, and when he reached the age of puberty they made him marry a woman from amongst them".
With the passage of time idols were introduced by Ismail's descendants, progressively making the small Ishmaelite settlement known throughout pagan Arabia, leading to its development into a town.
With the passage of time idols were introduced by Ismail's descendants, progressively making the small Ishmaelite settlement known throughout pagan Arabia, leading to its development into a town.
Judeo-Christian critics often point to absence of evidence to undermine Mecca and the Kaaba's antiquity yet no archaeological evidence for Solomon's first temple's existence, let alone its location, has been discovered despite years of excavations, on a scope far surpassing any exploration activity invloving Mecca.
There is no archeological evidence even for the second temple built on the first one's rubbles after the Babylonians sacked it in 587BCE. It was supposedly rebuilt by the Jewish exiles returning from their Babylonian captivity 40 years later, even though in this case we do have extra-biblical written sources attesting to it. The only conclusive archeological evidence that exists is for Herod's temple (started in 20BCE and ended 80years after his death), supposedly built instead of the second temple which the rabbis thought was too modest in comparison to Solomon's first Temple.
In fact no evidence exists for any of the events described in the Book of Genesis, such as the Jericho wall toppled by Joshua. More damning is that despite active digging like never before, from the Temple Mount to the Kidron Stream, via the neighborhood of Silwan, including the so-called City of David, with the exception of a few controversial sites, the imperial capital of a mighty unified kingdom as described in Scripture, of David and Solomon has not been found. Even the Timna copper mines, dubbed “King Solomon’s Mines” could hardly have been under Solomon's control; in the 10th century BC, no trace of powerful enough kingdom, to manage and require that ammount of copper, stretching as far south as Timna exists.
Islam made Mecca and the Kaaba known to the world, obviously as it spread beyond Arabia. Prior to that, its importance, greatness and historicity was confined to the Arabs and their oral tradition. When it was built by Abraham, who had the habit of building worship sites along his journeys as stated throughout Genesis, it wasnt to be the universal qibla from the start. As stated in 3:96 it was the first house dedicated to the One God, for all mankind. All previous places of worship were meant for a particular community. That universal character however came to fruition with the rise of the last prophet. It was initially a monotheistic settlement, from where God would manifest his promises of blessings to Ismail and his seed, the place where per Abraham's words in the Torah Ishmael "might live before the Lord".
It is interesting pointing at this point to a Rabbinical exegisis, by the famous Saadia Gaon in the 10th century. He identifies the mysterious town of Mesha mentioned in Gen10 where some among the Semitic ancestors of Abraham had lived, as Mecca. This could have been among the factors that led Abraham in returning to that location specifically. And it is known that historically, people from the Arabian Peninsula migrated towards the fertile lands of Iraq where Abraham lived. It isnt far-fetched to suggest that Abraham himself made such migration.
Again, we have a 1st centuryBC author, Diodorus Siculus, writing about ALL Arabs revering a singular Temple. The only one which ever commanded the universal homage in Arabia, was the one in Mecca. If that is the case then the very idea that there was none until a few years prior to Islam is a statement divorced from reality and not grounded in any historical or traditional evidence. We're not speaking of pyramids or some monuments no longer used, but of a living monument kept in high regard by an entire population past, present and future. We're not talking of a single person making a grandiose claim on the origins of a population and its hometown, but of an entire population's claims based on ancestral knowledge. Diodorus places that 1st century BC temple in an area of simple people who hunt land animals, off a particular coast in the Red Sea.
The accounts of those that live by the coast and eat fish are also mentioned, without mention of the Temple being in their area, which gives further evidence that the Temple was located inland. He doesn't equate it with the northern Nabateans and he doesn't do it with the Southern Arabian kingdoms.
Something very important to note is that Diodorus isn't even an authority on Arabia, he didn't venture into Arabia but was simply relating history according to 2nd-3rd hand records. But assuming Diodorus did not mean the Meccan Kaaba as the singular Temple revered by all the Arabs, how does one explain the error of judgment committed by the likes of Muir and Gibbon, the same error, when neither of them are known to be sympathetic to Muslims, meaning they had every reason not to admit to Diodorus' allusion to the Kaaba? Gibbon was known for his accuracy in quoting primary sources, providing in-depth detail regarding his use of sources for his work, which included documents dating back to ancient Rome.
So, again where is the single temple revered by all of Arabia in the 1st centuryBC, if it wasnt the one in Mecca? Although William Muir viewed the story of Ishmael's settlement in Mecca as "A travestied plagiarism from Scripture" he still could not deny the antiquity of that belief among the Arabs of Hijaz. He maintained that Abraham’s association with the Kaaba “must be regarded as of ancient date even in Mahomet’s time". Others yet like Nöldeke and Schwally, suggested that the Kaaba's Abrahamic connection may have been created before the Prophet by Arabian Jews or Christians who, despite abandoning paganism, would have wanted to continue participating in the Kaaba’s rites. Muir therefore posits that Muhammad could not have invented it, rather that it was brought by the northern Nabateans after they settled in the area of Mecca.
Then there is another Greek writer, Ptolemy, writing in his 2nd century work on geography that also covers the western region of the Arabian Peninsula, of "Macoraba". He puts it at a Latitude of 22 and another city which he calls "Lathrippa" at 23. Historians reading Ptolemy's work know that a margin of error of around 2 degrees was common to him, as happened with other known cities like Byzantium. If we correct the 2 degree margin, we get extremely close to where both Mecca and Yathrib actually are. There is unanimity that Lathrippa stands for Yathrib, or Medina, but the views vary concerning Macoraba, although more scholars lean in favor of it being a reference for Mecca. Many different etymological suggestions were proposed to explain the connection between Mecca and Macoraba, they are all irrelevant to the fact that nothing historically can account for mentioning a city at that location but Mecca. Also, Mecca and Macoraba arent further from oneanother phonetically than “Lathrippa” is from “Yathrib”. The word mkrb, and which sounds close to Macoraba, is known from late Sabaic texts (Old South Arabian language spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD) with the meaning “shrine, temple, synagogue, assembly hall”. Ptolemy wasnt an Arab anyway. He was transliterating his own phonetical perception of a word he heard either from an Arab who might have stated the name with a description, in his own dialect, such as Makka al mukarrama, which is close phonetically to Macoraba, or from a non-Arab who reported to him about the city and who was in turn repeating the name as he understood it. To further corroborate, in ancient 7th-8th century Greek and Syriac texts, Christian writers used Magaritai and Mahgraye as cognates for the Arabic "Muhajirun", in reference to the early Muslim conquerors.
Also and throughout time, the name of one and the same place might vary. The Quran itself attests to this with Mecca, formerly known as Becca. Nothing is certain but the simple fact that Macoraba is placed geographically near modern Mecca and the fact that the name itself sounds plausibly close enough, should in and of itself raise eyebrows. And it is evident that almost every thing – apart from longitude which is a general problem with Ptolemy’s Geography-fits well with Mecca and that is where the consensus came from; Yathrib a little to the north and a river bed a little to the south.
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