There is no evidence that Mecca existed, nor Muhammad, although the latter is debated. The Birmingham codices have been judged to have been written before the time of Muhammad, which is likely as the two segments carry a story normally associated with Egyptian religion.
My take is that, in parts, it is a book of conquest.
There is no clear evidence of Christ. Certainly not one hair of evidence for Moses. For me, the real story of the development of monotheistic is far more interesting as it concerns the development of human thought.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/spread-of-islam/a/the-rise-of-islamic-empires-and-states
- Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries.
- Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time.
- (Citation from the source).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100:_A_Ranking_of_the_Most_Influential_Persons_in_History
Personally, I have no doubt that Muhammad existed.
North Arabia is the reasonable location.
Judaism and Oriental Christianity were surely great cultural contact points.
I worked a lot on the hypotheses of Abraham Geiger:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Judaism_and_Islam%2C_a_prize_essay_-_Geiger_-_1898.pdf
from the perspective of the science of Judaism (Extended by a scientific approach to Islam).
Stephen, my article on the invasion of egypt shows no evidence of islam but simply an invading army. This event is .notable for hadifs but all were written much later.
Fatema,
There is no archaeological evidence for Mecca and the area it is supposed to be located in could not have supported many lives. No one mentions Mecca nor were there trade routes at this period close to the site as claimed in the biographies. Most of the information you have and believe in is found in the biographies not in the Qur'an. The Qur'an is impassioned declarations not geography or history and much in the Qur'an can be found elsewhere. It is not original.
This paper The oasis of al-Kharj through time: first results of archaeological fieldwork in the province of Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
📷
Yamandu Hilbert
concerns archaeological efforts near Riyadh and the earliest and only evidence for Islam comes from the 8th century, 2 centuries after Muhammad supposedly preached.
Fatema, simply because a so called holy book makes a claim does not mean it is true. These books come from people not gods or god and the Qur'an has much in it that is local. God, God help us, does not, even if it is unlikely he, she, it exists or existed write books, especially not best sellers.
There is no evidence for Moses. Absolutely none, after a century at least for looking. This is simply fiction written in order to deal with the conquest of Israel by Assyrians and the crushing of Judea, leaving a tiny rump and the near obliteration of its population.
There are similarities between the style of Origen and other Christian writers of the period and the Qur'an, but i need to go into this more thoroughly, although I've written several papers on this already.
https://www.israelandyou.com/mecca-2/
Was Mecca ever on any Trade Route?
20th century Muslims scholars and Western Orientalists had a problem explaining how Mecca got its wealth, since it is in such an arid place, and far from anywhere important. How could such a backward city become important and then be the basis for the subsequent Islamic Empires of the Umayyads and the Abbasids?
(Citation from the source).
—-—
Stanley Wilkin Fatema Miah
As I stated earlier, my scientific research interest is the content of a religious belief system (oral, written, legal). However, politics and religion, in terms of evolutionary patterns, are always being shadowed by business and economic conditions (and vice versa).
________
https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6575/#:~:text=Description&text=North%2Dwestern%20Arabia%20lies%20between,southern%20Syria%20and%20western%20Iraq.
The Ancient Walled Oases of Northern Arabia
https://mile.org/about/explore-saudi-arabia/significance-of-madinah.html
Why Madinah?
https://www.socionauki.ru/authors/raja_muhammad_ikram_azam/
Worked with Prof. Kami for about 30 years on Islam and Future, until his death.
https://pakobserver.net/remembering-dr-raja-ikram-azam/
Stephen, you've brought in Patricia Crone's point about the region's aridity and elsewhere I have pointed out its sanctuary status would have involved gatherings and trade. Sanctuaries were an important part of Arab culture. None of this is sufficient to sustain conquest and few people have taken up the task of explaining its funding.
But, let's look at the Christian angles here.
The story, and if there was no Mecca then the stories of Muhammad's early ministry are fiction, of Muhammad's peacefulness as he preaches, his accentuation of forgiveness, seem to come from the Christian descriptions of Jesus' ministry. Of course these stories are in the biographies under the Persians and are at least 2 centuries later. A point, everything or nearly everything comes from the Persians. Many Christian sects developed on the borders of present day Iraq, then ruled by Iran (Persia), from inside and of course Mani emerged from there.
But......
The story of the crossing over to Egypt by Muhammad's persecuted followers resembles strongly persecution of Christians and were spread within stories of the persecution of saints. A familiar Christian myth.
In my work I detail the importance of crossing water was in the Jesus myths, before he assumed his ministry, as well as baptism. But of course it is embedded in the Egyptian/Moses myth where it came from originally. The process therefore imitates these myths. Persecution/exile/return and triumph.
Some writers hold that the Muslims were the original capitalist and they did organise trade more effectively. But the conquests brought wealth, and that is clear in the biographies where Muhammad is shown gathering wealth for the conquest. Of course this does not have to be true but it is likely much of this occurred under the Abbasids.
The idea of an Islamic conquest developed a little later, initially Arabs and discontented tribes of populations pushing back against fading empires of Rome and Iranians.
I need to add that the crossing of water meant a new life. This fits in with baptism through water, the individual becomes a new person. So in the story, for that is all it probably was and is, the idea and nature of Muslims emerges from Egypt as Moses did.
Early Islamic literature contains echoes of Jesus and Christianity while at the same time that of violent old testament prophets, who tended to be politically inclined in a period of existentialist threats from external conquerors like the Assyrians who politically destroyed Israel. These prophets were concerned with the survival of Jerusalem, and that alone. But in Islam Muhammad examples Jesus in the early part of the biographies but given the lack if evidence for Mecca's early existence this is unlikely.
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