Thread by @Safaitic

Hikma History asks whether there is historical evidence for #Mecca in the 6th CE or earlier. A fantastic question. Outside historical sources don't seem to mention the town. @iandavidmorris examines this material masterfully in this blog: iandavidmorris.com/mecca-before-i…

https://twitter.com/HikmaHistory/status/1045442145342115841

But what about pre-Islamic Arabian sources? Do they give evidence for Mecca as a pilgrimage center? Most pre-Islamic texts from central Arabia are short, undated inscriptions containing personal names and enigmatic phrases. No toponyms are attested in these and therefore,..

They are not very useful for answering our question. The long and detailed texts from Ancient Yemen, however, do not mention any place called Mecca. Although numerous pilgrimage sites are attested, they all seem to be located in South Arabia.

Dadān in the northern Ḥigāz is the closest ancient site with inscriptions to Mecca. It was a center for pilgrimage in late 1st mil. BCE. The faithful seem to have come from many places to dedicate portions of their wealth to the god Ḏū-Ġēbat in a ceremony called Ẓll.

As such, the corpus gives us a few Arabian toponyms unknown from other sources. For example, U79 states that its author made a dedication for the sake of his palms (nḫl-h) and seasonal crop (dṯʾ-h) which were located at a place called ḏʿmn.

Ryckmanns 3.30 makes an offering for the sake of his ml 'property' at a place called Tqmm, while U71 makes an offering ʿly 'on account of' ml-h 'his property' at a place called Bdr.

There are several more toponyms mentioned, such as Ṯʿʿl and Khl, but nothing resembling Mecca. It is unclear how far away these places were from Dadān (modern Al-ʿUlā) or to exactly which century these inscriptions date.

The #Safaitic inscriptions also mention pilgrimages, but they are admittedly quite far from Mecca and so it is unsurprising that the toponym is not attested in that corpus. The town of Seʿīʿ in S. Syria housed the temple of Baʿal-Samīn and the nomads made pilgrimages there.

So while pilgrimages are mentioned in pre-Islamic N. Ḥigāzī and N. Arabian texts, so far there are no pre-Islamic references to Mecca. But there are large gaps in the epigraphic record, and so it is possible that new texts will be discovered mentioning the site.

I have tweeted about pre-Islamic pilgrimages here:

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1031511403390291969

A specifically about pilgrimages at Dadān here:

https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1033019056847298563