1 ETS 2021 Daniel Janosik djanosik@gmail.com Website: http://danieljanosik.com/conference/ If Mecca Did Not Exist in the Time of Muhammad, then Who Was Muhammad and Where Did He Live? Introduction Muslims claim that Muhammad was born in Mecca and the earliest parts of the Qur’an were revealed to him there. Indeed, without Mecca the whole story of Muhammad would have to be re-evaluated and the very foundations of Islam would have to be questioned. However, recent archaeological and historical research calls into question whether Mecca even existed in the traditional time of Muhammad (570-632 AD). There are no archaeological artifacts from Mecca until the 8 th century AD, the first direct mention of Mecca in external literature occurs in 741 AD, and the first time Mecca is listed on a map of the Middle East was 900 AD. Indeed, if Mecca did not exist in the early 7 th century, then who was Muhammad and from where did he come? This paper will consider the Muslim evidence for the existence of Mecca in light of the research of a number of recent scholars who have suggested that Mecca was probably neither a center of trade nor a religious center or pilgrimage site in the 7 th century. One issue for consideration is that the geographical descriptions of the city of the prophet in the Qur’an do not match up with the barren landscape of Mecca. Furthermore, the qiblas, or the direction of prayer in the mosques, did not point to Mecca until 727 AD. The evidence also may indicate that Muhammad probably did not have anything to do with Mecca, especially since it may not have even existed at that time. Finally, a mounting body of evidence suggests that the Nabataean