Скачать или смотреть Oops, my bad, we had the wrong Maps for Mecca!

In previous episodes on Mecca, I have introduced a number of very early maps of Arabia which I thought were from the 2nd century AD, and pointed out that they didn't include the city of Mecca on any of them.

I said that these maps came from Ptolemy in the 2nd century, and were his maps...but I was wrong. Ptolemy never drew any maps of Arabia.

All he did was write a book on the geography of what he knew of Arabia during his time. But he never went there physically, nor did he draw any maps looking down on to the land mass which is Arabia. All he did was write about the places others had described to him.

The maps I was given which I had been told were purportedly from Ptolemy himself, were not from him nor from his time at all, but were actually drawn many centuries later, by Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries, trying to draw on what they thought Ptolemy was saying in his books on the geography of Arabia.

The earliest was created by Lienhart Holle, in 1482, followed by another map drawn by Laurent Fries in 1541 AD, then another created by Sebastian Munster, in 1571 AD.

All three of their maps placed many towns and villages throughout Arabia, including the central deserted areas of Arabia where no villages or towns have ever existed, because they are a barren wasteland.

So, similar to Ptolemy, the later European map-makers were also not aware of where exactly all of the places Ptolemy listed should be located.

Nonetheless, what is important is that none of them had Mecca listed on them at all, even though they were created in the 15th and 16th centuries, when Mecca was well known, and was listed on many maps from that time.

Whether they were trying to be consistent with Ptolemy's instructions or not, we don't know. What is important, however, is that this is substantial proof that neither Ptolemy, nor any of his contemporaries had heard of a city called Mecca anywhere in the land of Arabia.

That is significant, as it confronts directly the Standard Islamic Narrative which claims that Mecca has existed in Arabia since the time of Adam and Eve, and was an important trading town for centuries before Muhammad was supposedly born there and lived there until he was 52 years old.

Yet, another hole in the Narrative.

© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2022
(62,130) Music: "Justice and Fame" by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io