As I mentioned in my last post, Mecca is entirely absent from the Bible and it really bothers Muslim apologists. There is not a single reference to it or Medina(Yathrib). As I mentioned in my previous post, Adnan Rashid recently had a debate with Samuel Green about Muhammad in the Bible. I pointed out in that post how Sela couldn’t be Medina. I will now show why Paran can’t be Mecca as Rashid claims.
At the 45 minute mark of the debate(link provided in the previous article), Rashid mentions that there is a debate whether Paran is Mecca or in the Sinai peninsula. The Sinai is a far better candidate for Paran than Mecca. Besides, if it was Mecca, why not say Mecca, Becca, or Macoraba. These are the only possible names for Mecca. The first two come from the Quran and the last one is a potential reference to Mecca in Ptolemy’s map of Arabia.
Let’s look at a passage in 1 Kings.
The the Lord raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite, from the roayl line of Edmon. Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab the commander of the army, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom. Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom. But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father. They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking people from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food.
– 1 Kings 11: 14-18
So, Hadad was an Edomite boy who flees to Egypt. He starts from Midian, goes to Paran, then Egypt. I made a map using Google maps and pointed out Edom, Midian, and the two potential locations of Paran – the Sinai and Mecca.
Click to enlarge the map. Now, if he’s fleeing from Midian to Egypt, where is it more probable that he went through? Does he go through the Sinai which is on way? Or, does he take a thousand kilometer detour in the opposite direction, then reverse course and go another thousand kilometers back to Egypt? Remember, Hadad fled to Egypt, meaning he didn’t have a lot of time. Did he have time to go through two thousand kilometers of Arabian desert? Obviously not. Paran is somewhere in the Sinai region.
Not only is Mecca not in the Bible. It’s almost completely if not completely absent from secular history prior to the 7th or even 8th century. That’s the reason why many people are coming up with theories that Islam started in Northern Arabia, Petra, or other regions north of the Hijaz.
I have one more Biblical passage for Adnan Rashid and it involves Ishmael and the covenant.
Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will sure bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”
– Genesis 17: 19-21
The covenant is with Isaac. Ishmael is blessed, will be made fruitful and will increase in numbers. No covenant.
﷽
Hi Allan,
Regarding the 2 titles you mentioned earlier (Paran & Sela), I have seen the evidence you provide. Maybe what you said was right. With my little knowledge, I may be able to agree with the views and evidence you provide. This is because I read it a lot even from non-Muslim. All the evidence presented is almost identical. This means, perhaps, that it is solid evidence from non-Muslims.
Allan,
As I said before, your blog is very knowledgeable, and I’m really excited to read it even though it’s done in my spare time.
But sir, I see the fear in your heart. I do not know why but it seems that there is some confusion in your faith. For that reason, you seem to be looking for the misdeeds of the Muslims.
As a Muslim I strongly believe in my faith, even though you are looking for 1001 facts of Muslim wrongdoing or our evidence is wrong, but I am convinced that the beliefs of Muslims are very strong and accurate.
I’m sorry, but if I have enough knowledge on the subject you raised, I will answer.
May God always always bless us
Sincerely,
Insan
Hello Insan,
Thanks for your comment as always. One question though. You said:
“For that reason, you seem to be looking for the misdeeds of the Muslims.”
Could you define “misdeeds”?
God bless,
Allan
﷽
Hi Allan,
what i mean is “fault”…
Allan,
Can you tell me the Christian teaching about ‘shame’ …
I think Islam and Christianity have conflicting opinions about ‘shame’ … Can you?
Sincerely,
Insan
–and the last one is a potential reference to Mecca in Ptolemy’s map of Arabia.–
As you probably know I doubt the viability of Macoraba being a reference to Mecca.
As can be seen in my back-to-back / side-by-side comparison of four maps, Mecca (by a mountain ridge) simply does not correspond to the positioning of Macoraba (further northeast and in the middle of a plain).
https://twitter.com/scottthong/status/1024511766435266560
That Medina (Yathrib) meanwhile DOES correspond on the maps is even more dirt on Mecca grave!
–Remember, Joab fled to Egypt, meaning he didn’t have a lot of time.–
Typo I think, Allan. It should be Hadad?
–Did he have time to go through two thousand kilometers of Arabian desert? Obviously not. Paran is somewhere in the Sinai region.–
Paran could also viably include any place that falls within the wider Arabian area – including the extreme northeast portion bordering Canaan. This would be workable for Hadad (and also David who hid in Paran just before meeting Abigail), and still exclude Mecca and Medina much further south.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the correction on Hadad.
Regarding Macoraba, I don’t think we could exclude it completely or affirm it completely. I would say its about a 50/50 chance. You’d probably put it at 90/10 I’m assuming. Either way, if Mecca is Macoraba it has trouble for Islam because in Muslim lore there is no record of it being called Macoraba.
“Paran could also viably include any place that falls within the wider Arabian area – including the extreme northeast portion bordering Canaan.”
Where exactly? Close to Midian. I’m a bit confused by this.
God bless,
Allan
Dear Mr Ruhl
While I do commend Mr Rashid for his undoubted charisma, I found his speeches to be somewhat uninspiring. They were the arguments of the late Ahmed Deedat simply repeated with a degree of panache.
God and Our Lady St Mary be with you
He kept going off topic as well and even admitting that it wasn’t part of the debate.
Tobias, can you post the link to Deedat’s discussion of specifically on Deuteronomy? I want to post on this later today maybe.
P.S
Regarding the apparently friendly and loving feelings held by Mr Rashid to people of the Christian faith, I believe that these quotes from the Ethiopian Synaxarion may well prove interesting reading.
Month of Hedar. And on this day also Saint Thomas, Bishop of the city of Damascus, became a martyr by the hand of an Arab king who was a Muslim. When the Muslims were reigning in the country of Syria and in the country of Egypt, this holy man held a debate with one of their learned men, and he vanquished him, and forced him and compelled him [to admit] that our Lord Christ was God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and of all that therein is. The Muslim having been worsted in argument went to the governor, his fellow-countryman, and made an accusation to him against Thomas, saying, “This Christian hath cursed our religion.” And the governor had this holy man brought, and he asked him, saying, “Is it true that thou hast cursed our religion even as this man says of thee?” And the holy man said unto him, “No curse hath ever gone forth from my mouth, but I have forced him [to admit] that Christ is God in truth, and that after the Law of Christ there cometh no other Law.” And the governor was wroth with him, and he commanded the soldiers to cut off the head of the holy man with the sword; and they cut off his holy head, and he received the crown of martyrdom in the kingdom of the heavens. Salutation to Thomas, the companion of Zachariah the teacher, Bishop of Damascus.
God and Our Lady St Mary be with you
Mr. Rashid thinks that our Torah has been distorted by the Jews and Christians,
so before using it as a proof of Muhammad’s legitimacy he should explain how he differentiates between authentic and spurious passages. How does he know that the word “Paran” is not inserted in the text by some “eavle” scribes?
Hi Orangehunter,
That’s the thing, isn’t it. When I talk to Muslims I say that when we defend Jesus in the OT to a Jew, we can’t chuck anything we don’t like. A Jew can point to any verse in the OT in an attempt to disqualify Jesus. If we point to any verse in the OT or NT to a Muslim, it’s been mysteriously tampered with. Rashid essentially did that. He said that Ishmael was definitely part of the covenant even though it says clearly that he’s not. Ishmael is not part of the covenant as I clearly pointed out from Genesis.
Isaiah 42 seems to be the new number 1 “prophecy”. Mohammed Hijab even said that once. He said that it’s more clear than Deuteronomy 18.
I’m glad that Song of Solomon was not brought up.
God bless,
Allan
Hi Allan
Thank you for pointing it out. I quite agree with you that Adnan made many horrible statements. By this I mean statements revealing that he has no prerequisites for dealing with the biblical texts and the secondary literature. For someone who loves the biblical texts such mischaracterizations are hurtful.
For instance, Adnan says Deut. 33:2 is a prophecy when it is clearly talking of the past. He claims that it is talking about persons (Moses, Jesus, Muhammad) when the text is talking about God. He says Seir (=Edom) refers to Jesus, when there is nothing in the Bible connecting Jesus to Seir. In fact, king Herod, not exactly a friend of Jesus, came from Seir, being an Edomite (=Idumean).
He claims that scholars say Paran is in Arabia, near Mecca. Scholars do not know the exact location, but it is taken to be either in the Sinai peninsula or in Edom (present day Israel/Palestine/Jordan) which can be said to be Arabia Petrea, but that is nowhere near Mecca. He claims that the text says he came with a fiery law. This translation is based on Jewish midrashic understanding, construing the philology in a, shall we say, a highly improbable way. The text here is difficult and it is not possible to determine the meaning of “fiery law” with any degree of certitude. The translation of ten thousands of holy ones is also quite uncertain. I understand scholars have to provide a translation, but Adnan appears not to understand the complex and difficult nature of the verse, choosing to build conjecture upon conjecture on his already incorrect understanding of the verse as a prophecy and as referring to prophets and not God, though this is what the text explicitly says.
He also claims that Habakkuk 3:3 mentions Paran and Sela, and that the latter is a mountain near Mecca. Selah, in Habakkuk 3:3 is a particle often employed in poetry which meaning is uncertain. Sela, is a different word, meaning “rock” (same as in Arabic) as well as the capital of Edom. The two words are spelled differently even though they can sound similar, when the final guttural ayin of “rock” is not pronounced fully. So one cannot transfer the “meaning” of one to the other, as Adnan does. Even if today there is a place near Mekka called “Sela’” or rock. Even a “lay” source as Wikipaedia states that Sela, as in Habakkuk 3:3 “should not be confused with the Hebrew word sela` (Hebrew: סֶלַע) which means “rock” “. Unfortunately, one could go on and on. The sad truth, however, is that Adnan Rashid is not well equipped to deal with the text.
When Samuel in his mild manner pointed out Adnan’s many mischaracterizations, for example of Genesis 21:14, he simply countered by pointing out a difficulty he saw in Gen. 22 instead. When Samuel showed he took Deut. 18:18 out of context, he could only give a different example simply showing he could make his reading work only by ignoring the context.
I would compassionately request Adnan Rashid to educate himself in the biblical texts so that he may argue from a position of knowledge. Showing disrespect for history, biblical scholarship and ignoring relevant biblical texts is not only unprofessional but may be perceived as hurtful and certainly not a compassionate reading by those who love scholarship and biblical texts.
Hi Sid,
Thanks for your input. You write:
“I would compassionately request Adnan Rashid to educate himself in the biblical texts so that he may argue from a position of knowledge. Showing disrespect for history, biblical scholarship and ignoring relevant biblical texts is not only unprofessional but may be perceived as hurtful and certainly not a compassionate reading by those who love scholarship and biblical texts.”
It really bothers Rashid and others that the Bible doesn’t conform to Islam. Therefore they have to torture the text to make it what they want. He has his conclusion before he starts and if something is in the way, just say its corrupted.
I know its sad but that’s the way he is.
God bless,
Allan
Hi Allan,
I do not now Adnan Rashid or much about him, so I can’t really comment on that side of things. I was just saddened by the injustice I felt he was committing by misrepresenting the text in such a gross manner.
But now that you mention corruption, got me thinking of an ironic twist to the tale. The word in the Hebrew original, rendered as “fiery law” is “ehsdat” following Jewish tradition. In the Midrashic interpretation it is made up of the word “esh” (fire) and “dat” (law). The latter, however, is a Persian loanword that came into Hebrew around the 5th century b.c.e. and is, accordingly, attested only in later texts of the Hebrew Bible, such as Esther. Following this translation is thus evidence of a post-mosaic interpolation. So tongue-in-cheek we might say that Adnan Rashid is unwittingly basing his evidence for Muhammad on a post-mosaic corruption/interpolation in the text.
It simply shows that he is not knowledgeable of the issues and does not posses the required skills to adequately handle the evidence.
See, but if it’s a corruption that helps Islam, it’s a valid corruption in the eyes of Rashid and other Muslim apologists.