In our search for truth, history can become a problem. Those who write and record history have a lot of power to shape our views. History can be weaponized through censure, erasure, and careful introduction of narrative convenient to those in control. For this reason I urge those influenced by Islam to investigate it carefully. Is it true?
First we focus on Mecca, the center of Islam. According to classic Islamic sources we learn that Mecca was a key trade city of Arabia, of great spiritual and economic importance when Muhammad was born (570 CE). The problem? There is no archeological or historical evidence that Mecca existed at that time.
According to Islam, Mecca is the location where Adam and Eve settled after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. Abraham is said to have spent considerable time there. It is said to have been at the heart of two major trade routes. None of this can be confirmed by any historical documents, coins, or archeology. In contrast, Najran, a small city 700km south of Mecca (further from Rome and the center of civilization), has plenty of history. This is found in layers of archeology, in the writings of Strabo (64 BCE – 24 CE), Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE), and Claudius Ptolemy (100 – 170 CE). But their documents never mention the city of Mecca. Procopius of Caesarea (500-564 CE) provides a rich history of western Arabia, but again no mention of Mecca. The oldest historical reference to Mecca dates from 741 CE (i.e. 109 years after Muhammad’s death) where it is referred to in a document known as the ‘Continuatio Byzantia Arabica’.
Mecca is absent from the monumental ‘Universal History’ of the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (90 – 30 BCE). Islamic scholars point out that he referred to a temple of the Arabs, but this is in a section dealing with north-western Arabia. (Diodorus and C. H. Oldfather, Diodorus of Sicily. 2, 2 (London; Cambridge, Mass.: Heinemann ; Harvard University Press)., 216-217) Islamic scholars claim that Ptolemy referred to a city in the Arabian Peninsula called “Macoraba”, which they assume was Mecca. Not only are these names quite different, but Ptolemy does not indicate it was in that area. Ptolemy identifies only six cities in Arabia worthy of the title ‘metropolis’ including Najran, but not Macoraba, and no Mecca.
Where was the Quran written, if not near Traditional Mecca?
Usually historians will look for other clues to determine where something comes from, but the Quran has a remarkable lack of context. It seems that whoever wrote or compiled it deliberately removed or avoided references to contemporary events, people, and locations. Was there an intentional attempt to erase references to location? It is rather surprising how few geographical or historical references can be found in the Quran! It seems to have been scrubbed clean of geography. For example, Mecca occurs exactly once in 48:24. Where was this Mecca?
Of the nearly 150,000 words in the Arabic Quran, only 65 indicate location. Author Dan Gibson in a book entitled “Qur’anic Geography” analyzes these and 54 refer to three tribes: the people of Ad (23), the people of Thamud (24), and the Midianites (7). A search for these tribes finds them all in Northern Arabia, far from Mecca. Early mosques were built to face in that direction.
Gibson’s research shows that the original city of Islam was probably Petra, a significant city of ancient Syria. Today we can go and visit Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabatean kingdom from 2nd century BCE to 106 CE, which controlled trade up and down the Arabian peninsula, located in modern day Jordan. “It was in Petra that Muhammad directed the destruction of all the idols except one, the Black Stone. This stone remained in the Ka’ba in Petra until it was later taken by the followers of Ibn al-Zubayr deep into Arabia to the village of Mecca for safe keeping from the Umayyad armies. And today it is to this stone that Muslims face, rather than to their holy city and the qibla that Muhammad gave them.” (Jeremy Smyth, “The Mecca Question”)
Could occupations provide some evidence of location? Muhammad’s enemies are referred to as “mushrikun” who raise crops and keep livestock. This would be impossible around Mecca, an arid desert.
Linguistic clues can help to find a context of origin. Obviously, the Quran was written in Arabic… or was it? Most Muslims would regard the idea of the Quran not written in Arabic as ridiculous. But let’s examine the evidence:
- The Quran makes several statements that it was written in pure Arabic. Why? Why this need to convince its readers?
- We find that there are many foreign (non-Arabic) words in the Quran, from Persian, Greek, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Coptic, and Syriac. Syriac was the lingua-franca of the Roman Province of Syria. Aramaic was a version of Syriac, spoken by Jesus and his disciples. The Syriac loan words found in the Quran are: Allah, 1:1(Ilah in Syriac); Adn, 9:72 (Eden); Sura, 9:124 (chapter); taghut, 2:257 (idols); zakat, 21:110 (alms).
Some suggest that much or all of the Quran was originally not written in Arabic but in Syriac. The original Arabic of the traditional Quran was written like Hebrew without vowels. Adding vowels later can introduce mistakes. The German linguist Cristoph Luxenberg studied many of the strange riddles of the Quran and believes that the solution is to remove the vowels, and replace them with Syriac vowels. For more on this see “A Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to Decoding the Text of the Koran” (Berlin: H. Schiller, 2007). For our purposes, these observations would indicate that the Quran originated in the Syrian province or its borderlands.
Does the Quran borrow much from Jewish and Christian sources? Consider that the name Muhammad is found only four times in the Quran, while Moses occurs 136 times, Abraham (69), Mary (34), and Jesus (25). Many of the stories of biblical characters are confused or distorted. It speaks of Mary, the mother of Jesus being worshipped as a god. (5:116) But Christian doctrines were well formed within the empire by this date, so this shows that whoever compiled the Quran was perhaps on the edge of the Roman empire where Christian sects would be found. The Ebionites were a 1st–4th century Jewish-Christian sect that accepted Jesus as the Messiah but rejected his divinity and the virgin birth, viewing him as a human prophet adopted by God at his baptism. Christians in the Quran are referred to as “Nasara” (Nazarenes) rather than “Masihi” as the Arab Christians usually referred to themselves.
Whoever compiled the Quran also borrowed from apocryphal (false) gospels, especially the “The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior” (written at the beginning of the 5th century). (James R. White, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House, 2013). 236-238) Some examples are: 19:29-31 and 3:46 where it is said that Jesus could speak while still in the cradle, 3:49 and 5:110 that refer to Jesus as a child making a live bird from clay. In 19:22-26 the Quran tells a story of Allah speaking to Mary giving birth under a tree to eat the dates during her labor pains. This comes from the same false gospel, but was originally taken from the infancy narratives of the Buddha. The Quran, rather than being the product of a true prophet who introduced a completely new revelation of God, is a compilation of stories and thoughts imported from other religious texts. The Quran is an example of syncretism, the merging of various religions and beliefs into a new hybrid form.
“As late as the 730’s CE (i.e. 100 years after Muhammad supposedly died), the Christian theologian John of Damascus (676-749 CE) wrote about the sacred scriptures of the Muslims as being a collection of texts rather than a single document… One of the clearest conclusions that we can draw from this snapshot was that the Qur’an was, even at this very late stage, a document that was still in flux.” (Peter Townsend, “The Mecca Mystery – Probing the Black Hole at the Heart of Muslim History” (2019) 6.4)
Could the Hadiths help us find Mecca?
The other main source of Islamic history are the Hadiths (or “reports”, usually translated as “traditions”). These documents are oral traditions passed on for generations about the life and sayings of Muhammad. By 850 CE there were thousands of these traditions, many contradictory, all claiming to be passed directly from the time of the prophet. Muslim scholars classify these Hadiths as sahih (authentic or sound), hasan (good) and da’if (weak). Those who collected these traditions and compiled them lived 200-400 years after Muhammad. Shi’a Muslims do not accept the same collections as the Sunnis do. Apparently anyone could improve his argument or credibility by quoting a supposed saying of the prophet. Imagine if people in Europe today quoted the life and sayings of Napoleon, claiming it is what they heard from their grandparents and their ancestors 5 generations before. Who would take that seriously?
Muslim tradition states that Mohammad was illiterate (although legitimate questions can be raised on this). However, many of his followers were not, in fact Muslim tradition states that they were tasked with working as his secretaries. This raises some good questions about the Hadiths:
- Why rely exclusively on oral retellings for generations for something so important? Why did they not simply commit their precious memories of the prophet to paper?
- Why continue this practice for 200+ years, when it is so easy for these sayings to be corrupted or lost?
- Why do the earliest Muslim rulers never refer to these Hadiths?
It seems obvious that they were invented later to serve the political agendas of Muslim leaders. That seems to fit human nature. But why are Western universities and research institutions not questioning these traditional sources when in other areas of history they would be dismissed as legendary material?
The hadiths contribute much more geographic detail, regarding Mecca, including mountain passes, grasslands, cultivated fields, trees, and grapevines. But again, these would be far from the current location of Mecca. There are also many cases of Muhammad’s warriors using their spoils of war to buy property in Syria. Why there, unless they lived close enough to defend it?
The hadiths also show Persian/Zoroastrian influence. The Quran never mandates that women wear veils in public, it only encourages them to cover their chest (24:31). This was not an ancient Arab custom but the wives of Persian noblemen were required to cover their faces (Gavin Hambly, “The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 7, Vol. 7,” (2008). 955). Hadiths indicate that Muhammad’s wives faces were veiled, and he is supposed to be an excellent example (33:21), hence the custom in Islam today.
When did Islam really begin?
Since later Islamic accounts appear to be modified to fit various agendas we must look for early physical records and artifacts. The “Dome of the Rock” (691 CE) constructed in Jerusalem during the reign of Abd al-Malik (who ruled from Damascus as caliph from 685 to 705 CE) in the Marwanid period provides this evidence:
- First reference to Islam and to Muslims. Before this they were known in the region as Arab invaders.
- First Muslim repudiation of the divinity of Jesus. Various inscriptions are strongly anti-Christian.
- First expression of the the Shahada (i.e. the Muslim confession of faith: ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God’).
- First incontestable accurately dated passages from the Quran in inscriptions (although they differ from the Quran Muslims use today, showing that the Quran was not finalized but developing).
The Sufyanids, the first three Arab rulers (661-684 CE), followed a broad monotheism which even left room for strongly Christian symbolism (cf. the appearance of the cross on their coins and inscriptions). A decisive change occurred under the Marwanid rulers (from 684 CE onwards). This repudiation of Christianity and development of Islam as a distinct religion led by someone named Mohammed, happened decades after he supposedly lived.
What would the Marwanid rulers gain by focusing this new religion in Mecca?
“Headquartering their new religion in Syria or Northern Arabia would always leave the followers of Islam open to the charge that they plagiarized their ideas from Judaism, Christianity or pre-existing forms of Arab paganism.” (Townsend, 8.11) Starting a religious tradition in an empty desert, over which they had control, where few people had ever visited, would prevent others from fact checking or contradicting their account of back-projected events. They could control history and make it serve their purposes.
To summarize we suggest that truth seeking Muslims ask:
- Why is there no geographic or historical evidence for the existence of Mecca before Islam?
- Why are early Mosques not facing Mecca but much further North, perhaps Petra?
- Was the Quran originally written in Arabic?
- Why were the Quran and Hadiths not written down immediately as divine revelations?
- How much of Islam was invented for political power and influence?
- Was Muhammad the historical person claimed by Islam?
- Why are there no historical references to the Quran and Muhammad until 60 years after his death?
- If Mecca was invented, how can we trust any traditions connected with Islam?