robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

(Nor, for that matter, do Muslim historians: There are no surviving Islamic records regarding this trade
earlier than the eighth century.) Crone notes: “The political and ecclesiastical importance of Arabia in the
sixth century was such that considerable attention was paid to Arabian affairs, too; but of Quraysh and
their trading center there is no mention at all, be it in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, or other
literature composed outside Arabia before the conquests. This silence is striking and significant.” 33
Specifically, she says, “Nowhere is it stated that Quraysh, or the ‘Arab kings,’ were the people who used
to supply such-and-such regions with such-and-such goods: it was only Muhammad himself who was
known to have been a trader.” 34 And that is known only from sources written long after his death.
There is more, too. The location of Mecca is wrong if it was to have served as a center for trade. It is
located in western Arabia, such that, in the words of historian Richard Bulliet, “only by the most tortured
map reading can it be described as a natural crossroads between a north-south route and an east-west
one.” 35 Travelers along the route Watt envisions, between Yemen and Syria, might have reason to stop at
Mecca, but his contention that Mecca was central to an “important route by which the West got Indian
luxury goods as well as South Arabian frankincense” is both unsupported by the contemporary evidence
and unlikely geographically.
The same thing goes for the idea of Mecca as a major pilgrimage site in the early seventh century.
Contemporary evidence indicates that pilgrimages were conducted to at least three other sites in Arabia—
Ukaz, Dhu'l-Majaz, and Majanna—but not to Mecca. 36 Crone also notes that Mecca differed from these
other sites in being a populated city, whereas the established places for Arabian pilgrimage were
uninhabited except during the times of the pilgrimage. She adds, “The pilgrimage was a ritual performed
at times and places in which everybody downed arms and nobody was in control: a sanctuary owned by a
specific tribe”—that is, the Quraysh—“does not belong in this complex.” 37
The significance of this is enormous. If Mecca was a center only for local, small-scale trade and
pilgrimage in the early seventh century, then the entire canonical story of the origins of Islam is cast into
doubt. If the Quraysh did not object to Muhammad's message on the grounds that it would harm their trade
and pilgrimage business, on what grounds did they object to it? If Muhammad did not encounter stiff
resistance from the Quraysh during the first twelve years of his prophetic career, as he preached his
message of monotheism to an unreceptive Meccan audience, then what did happen?
Without Mecca as a trading and pilgrimage center, there is no foundation for the accounts of antagonism
between Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca. Nor is there any foundation for accounts of Muhammad's
subsequent migration to Medina and warfare against the Quraysh. Likewise unsupported are stories of
how he defeated the Quraysh, returned to Mecca toward the end of his life, and converted the Ka‘ba into a
Muslim shrine, the centerpiece of what would forever after be a site of Islamic, rather than pagan,
pilgrimage.
Today, Muslim pilgrims flock to Mecca for the hajj, as they have done for many centuries. But the
entire account of the Meccan origins of Islam stands on shaky foundations. Although there is evidence that
a shrine of some kind existed at Mecca, it does not appear to have been a major one. 38 Either Muhammad
or later Muslims transformed the shrine into the center for Islamic pilgrimage that it is today. In doing so,
they elevated Mecca to an importance it did not have, if we scrutinize the record, even at the time
Muhammad is supposed to have lived.