Mecca isn’t in the Bible

Mecca to Jerusalem. Is this really Psalm 84?

The Quran states that Muhammad is mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel.  Traditionally Muslims have pulled out passages such as the prophet like Moses in the book of Deuteronomy and the Paraclete of whom Jesus spoke.  I’ve spoken of Islamic history as being a polemic against history.  Deep down Muslim apologists are feeling this so they’ve gone beyond the supposed prophecies of Muhammad and have moved on to other things.  One of them is finding the city of Mecca in the Bible.

How is this city that is as important to the Abrahamic tradition as Jerusalem not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.  The city is actually only named once in the Quran.  It is in Surah 48:24 which reads”

It is He who withheld their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca, after giving you advantage over them. God is Observer of what you do.

What is interesting is that we find a reference to a place named Bekka in Surah 3:96:

The first house established for mankind is the one at Bekka; blessed, and guidance for all people.

I once heard Dan Gibson say that Surah 48 should read Bekka and that the M is actually a scribal error.  However, since no manuscript evidence for this exists, it’s only a theory.  It’s probably the same place since they seem to be the location of the Sacred Mosque or “first house”.

Islamic apologists have claimed that Bekka is the ancient name for Mecca.  Although you could substantiate this from the Quran, it cannot be substantiated through any other historical method.  We don’t have any records of Mecca or Bekka.  We actually have a reference to the valley of Baka in the Bible in Psalm 84 and Muslims are quite eager to bring this up.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
    whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
    they make it a place of springs;
    the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
    till each appears before God in Zion.

A Pilgrimage?  A valley?  Baka or Mecca?  Sounds like the Mecca of Islam, doesn’t it?  Not quite.

The Valley of Baka is a place that is passed through on the way to Zion.  Zion in the context of the Psalms and the OT is the City of David aka Jerusalem.  There are absolutely no records of a pilgrimage through Mecca to Jerusalem.  That’s almost 1,500 km through one of the harshest terrains and climates of the world.  There is also no evidence that this huge pilgrimage was ever done.  If it was just a valley somewhere in Israel, that would make sense.

According to historical standards, Baka and Mecca aren’t the same city.  A good proof of this is Ptolemy’s map of ancient Arabia.  There is no city named Baka.  We actually find a city named Macoraba which may in fact be Mecca.  We can’t say for sure but I think it is.  Whether or not Macoraba is Mecca, it doesn’t matter as there is no Bekka which is supposedly the ancient name.  This lack of evidence has led to people looking into revisionist theories of where Islam originated such as the Petra theory and others.  Bekka is Mecca by Quranic standards but not historical ones.

The city of Jerusalem is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible.  Why don’t we have one mention of Mecca.  The answer is that it wasn’t important to the Biblical writers.  In fact, by the extreme lack of pre-Quranic references, I doubt that it was important to anyone at all.