Because of its popularity, Jack Hibbs from CCCH asked him to return last month to unpack it in a 4-hour session to around 1,000 people. This is Part 1 of that talk, which covers the Sources and Mecca. Here, then are his conclusions:

• The Sources for Islam’s history are written down 200 – 300 years too late, and from hundreds of miles too far north.

• Mecca is foundational for both Muhammad and the Qur’an; so, without it, they both fall.

• Mecca is important for Muslims because they believe that it is the earliest and most important city in the history of Mankind; yet references to Mecca in the Qur’an/Traditions don’t hold up historically (i.e. that it’s near Sodom and Gomorrah, or that Abraham, Ishmael and Hagar lived there).

• What’s more, other references suggest that Mecca is filled with lush fruit trees, grass, grains and streams, which make no sense as Mecca has always been in a desert with bad and depleted desert soil.

• Ironically, though it’s supposedly such a great city, the Qur’an itself only refers to it once (Surah 48:24), signifying that the authors either didn’t consider it important, or it only came into existence later on.

• Geographically speaking, the Qur’an places almost all of its sixty-five referenced areas 600 – 1,000 miles further north than Mecca suggesting the authors of the Qur’an came from there.

• Even the Arabic word endings used in the Qur’an do not come from Mecca, but from Nabataean Aramaic, which is again situated 600 miles further north.

• Muslims believe that between 70 – 300 prophets are buried there; yet, with all the buildings being constructed there, requiring deep foundations, they have yet to dig up even one.

• It seems the Saudi Arabians, because of Mecca’s lack of history, are cementing up all the evidence, suggesting even they are either skeptical of its history or they don’t want the rest of the world to find out.

• When we ask the surrounding civilizations if they have heard of the city of Mecca, not one knows of its existence, including those empires which are situated immediately close by.

• Yet, other much less significant towns close to Mecca (i.e. Ma’rib, Sana’a, Najran, Taif, Yathrib, Khaybar, Petra and Mamre) are all well-known and well documented, but not Mecca.

• When noting the trade route through these towns, we find that they are all located on the Western Plateau, while Mecca is over 3,000 feet down below it, proving it was not on any trade route.

• When Ptolemy in the 2nd c. wrote his book on ‘Arabian Geography’, he never listed Mecca, so that none of the earliest 15th-16th c. European maps of Arabia have Mecca listed on them either.

• Neither the Land trade route (along the Arabian Western plateau), nor the Red Sea trade routes (along the East African coast) supports an early Mecca, proving none of the trade went via Mecca at all, confronting the notion that it was the center of trade.

• The reason? Trade needs people, and people need water, food and towns, all of which never existed in Mecca until the mid-8th century, over 100 years after Islam was supposedly created.

• Despite Muslim’s claims for the ZamZam well (that Allah provides its “inexhaustible water” for over 1 billion believers), it gets all its water from desalinization plants built in the USA and Europe.

• Muslims have no idea why all of the earliest Qiblas were facing Petra (or Jerusalem) up to 706 AD, nor why none are facing Mecca until 715 AD. This suggests Mecca was chosen in the 8th c. as their final sanctuary.

• The antecedents for the Meccan pilgrimage makes more sense with Jerusalem than they do with Petra, as they are not only earlier, but they use many of the same functions.

In Conclusion: As the most important city in history, certainly, someone, somewhere, at some time should have known about this city; yet no-one, anywhere, nor at any time has, proving that it never existed at the time of Muhammad, nor during early Islam…so, if Mecca didn’t exist, then where did both Muhammad and the Qur’an come from? That’s next, so stay tuned…