Psalms 84 which despite asking for the location of Baca, no one has attempted to provide. No doubt because they know the Torah would refute any attempt to take the location away from modern day Saudi Arabia.
Seems a bit clutching at straws to claim that every word that has a rough resemblance to Mecca, must be Mecca even though it is a different word, in a different place and makes little sense in the context.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage [.
6
As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.[d]
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
Jews going to Jerusalem, via Mecca, or something else.... hmmm...
Apparently it means Balsam Tree and is the singular word of:
2 Samuel 5:23-24Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
23 When David consulted Adonai, he said, “Don’t attack! Circle behind them, and engage them opposite the
balsam trees. 24 When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the
balsam trees, advance; because then Adonai has gone out ahead of you to defeat the army of the P’lishtim.”
Different word, different place, wrong context, not the destination but neutral people are supposed to find it a persuasive argument?
see Jewish Scholars happy to debate with Christians, but they have no interest in debating Muslims. They can not deny Ishmael pbuh was to beget Princes and from them would a Great Nation arise. What are they going to do; deny Jews were in Mecca and Medina awaiting a Prophet from Arabia as foretold in the Torah?
Are they going to deny their own Scholars, who say yes, Islam is a genuine Religion dedicated to the worship of HaShem, blessed be his name.
What prophet are they awaiting?
I don't dispute it held no great importance outside of Arab traditions.
People would travel to Syria and in small talk mention various places of interest back home. Ptolemy would later use this information to plot place names and locations on his map. He miscalculated the circumference of the Earth and was out on his calculations, and he never went to verify for himself, but none the less there are indications of important places in Arabia to be found on his map.
None of which are Mecca. Other places are mentioned though.
If it was holy to all Arabs it would have been well known as a site of regional importance, especially considering the large numbers of Arabs serving in the militaries of Rome and Persia.
Arabs weren't these mysterious, isolated people but well integrated into the empires.
Islamic accounts show he sent delegations out from Mecca to various places. We also record Christians came to Mecca to meet with the Prophet pbuh.
The Heraclius and Kusrow stories are obviously fabrications though.
The Quran also appears to be addressing an audience familiar with Biblical narratives so of course Muhammed met with Christians, the 'Pagan backwater' narrative is clearly exaggerated.
I wasn't aware there were sites of pilgrimage other than Mecca. Yes I know there were shrines dedicated to local tribes, but not places of Pilgrimage open to others
References to places in Northern Arabia, such as the one in Diodorus. Obviously Petra in an earlier era
Yes this is true of all people and Nations. Even today people make movies to try and rewrite History.
So you will see why most neutrals who look at it find the traditional Islamic narrative to be historically dubious.
Motzki is a reliable Hadith Scholar according to you. What do those Hadiths tells us about Mecca and Medina from the early 7th Century? Enough to prove both places were real and the importance of the Kaaba to Arabs.
I actually didn't suggest which of the scholars competing views I found most persuasive, you just asked who I'd read.
Anyway, if for the sake of discussion we say Motzki is reliable, his argument relates to them being authentically 1st C AH (as opposed to 2nd or 3rd), not that they are all necessarily factually correct.
We know the Kaaba was a significant site within the 1st C AH, what we don't know is whether or not it was a major site of pilgrimage for all Arabs since time immemorial.
There was only 1 Cubed Temple in Arabia, that all Arabs of Arabia venerated between Petra and Yemen, (Gibbon)
Dushara in Petra and Najran are attested to, perhaps others.
Also re: Gibbon scholarship has moved on a bit in the past 250 years
If Arabs from the Saudi Arabian area were soldiers in the Roman Army and taking annual leave, then why would they need to come from across the Red Sea with 10,000 troops to confront the pirates? We read they were ill equipped and underestimated the conditions of the desert Desert, which defeated them, and that part of Arabia was never conquered by them, then or in the future. Likely any garrisons they had stationed would have been near Petra.
Yes they were mostly Northern Arabians. Arabs nonetheless though, who apparently venerated the place above all others if the stories are to be believed.
It was the Pagan Nomadic Tribes and folks from small towns and villages that would visit the Kaaba. There's no evidence showing people from further afield would take time off to visit. Sure there were trade caravans, and ships that went out to India, Egypt, Persia, Syria and Africa, and these folk would bring back various idols.
I don't for a minute doubt the Arabs attributed more importance to Mecca than ancient History records, and would strike a balance between A and B.
My argument is that Mecca couldn't have been as important as claimed, and was likely a site of minor significance to a local-ish area similar to numerous other places of local-ish significance. Later it acquired a mythical history that vastly overstated its importance to all Arabs (and monotheists) as part of a supersessionist nature of Islam.
