3 replies to this topic

[abdelouahed]

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

يسعدني أن أبدأ موضوعا جديدا وهو في غاية الأهمية إذ أبحث فيه عن الجذور التاريخية لمكة المكرمة والبداية بكتاب الجغرافيا لبطليموس

I am glad to start a new topic very interest; i search in it the historical roots of Mecca , starting by "Geography" book of Ptolemy - about 85 AC 165 AC-.
The image below illustrates the page 137; places and towns of Felix Arabia; i have put three places in a red rectangle:

Zabram region longitude 69° 20' latitude 20°
Centos village longitude 69° 20' latitude 21° 30'
Thebe town longitude 69° 40' latitude 21°

So there was three places in the region of mecca one village and one town and Zabram region



In his fifth book of geography -page 129- he gave the coordinates of Petra longitude 66° 45', latitude 30° 20' N
The longitude difference between Petra and Centos village is 2° 35'

In our days longitude of Petra is 35° 26' E, if we add the 2° 35' difference we get 38° 01'
And the result: we are near to Mecca coordinates in our days which are:
Longitude: 39° 49' East
Latitude: 21° 25' north

An error in latitude of 5 minutes of arc is tolerable in that age.
An error of 1° 38' ( one degree 38 minutes of arc) in longitude also is very tolerable comparing to Ptolemy's error in defining the length of mediterranean sea which was 20 degrees of arc - His result was 62° and our days result is 42°-

I ask if Mecca was known as Centos village, if so that is a proof of the existence of the Holy city of islam in the second century and before that age.

[abdelouahed]

A second source of Ptolemy's book appears in this link:

http://www.helmink.c... Arabia 05.html

The book is printed in 1561 AD, the coordinates of cities are mentioned by hours and minutes, that means the longest half day in summer solstice for the first values, and the difference between the longest day in summer solstice and the equinox ( equal to 12 hours for all the world ) for the second values.

I've put in red rectangular the city : ARABIA MERCATO that means in Italian " ARAB MARKET ".



Longest half day = 06 hours 40 minutes.

For the astronomers and mathematicians.

Maths calculations: 1°= 4 minutes ( time)

06H 40M = 100°

We apply the half day formula :

cos(h) = - tang( fi )* tang ( delta)

Where :
fi: latitude of the town.
delta: solstice sun declination ( in ptolemy's age it was = 23.583333°).
h: half day ( in degree)
We extract from the formula : fi = 21.61°

fi = 21° 36'

If we consider the error in calculations in that age this is very close to the latitude of mecca ( 21° 25').

The error comes from: The exact value of half day is: 99.859°.

Dan gibson's question:" Another problem is the location of Aqaba. I spend all of chapter 23 presenting arguments that Aqaba in southern Jordan is the real Aqaba of Islamic history, and was a major market. (Sīrat Rasūl Allāh, page 198-199) as described in Al Ṭabarī (Volume 6, 1218, page 130-136). The Aqaba near Mecca is a small wadi with no one living close to it, and with no road through it to any place. It is only three miles from the Ka'ba, so how could it be a major market so close to Mecca? I beleive that after the stone was moved to Mecca people began to rename places after the original ones near Petra".

And this is the answer for Dan gibson's question about the existance of Alaqaba market near mecca which was mentioned in Yaqut Al hamawy's book.

[abdelouahed]

The third proof is:

Comparison between Ptolemy's map and google earth:

The distance between the coast and mecca on the same latitude is 38 minute of arc, as it appear in the following image:



We see from the 1561 map copy that the distance value between centos village ( arab market - intersection of red lines - )and the coast ( intersection of blue and red lines ) is 30 minute of arc and it's very close to our day's results.

Look at the following image

.

[Dan Gibson]

I have been working on a reply to you post, but have not had enough time to work very quickly. I am attaching a pdf article that addresses my opinions of Ptolemy's maps. I will also post the PDF article in the download section, and it will also be available at academia.edu (http://independent.a....edu/DanGibson1)

Attached Files

•  Journal2013.pdf   4.83MB   962 downloads