Guest
Patricia Crone, in her Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, adds a practical reason that is too often overlooked. “Mecca was a barren place, and barren places do not make natural halts. This is especially true when there are famously green environments close by. Why should caravans have made a steep descent into the barren valley of Mecca when they could have stopped at Ta’if? Mecca may have had a modest well and humble sanctuary, but Ta’if not only had vastly superior ones, they had a ready food supply, too. Furthermore,” Dr. Crone reports, “there was no commodity available in Arabia that could be transported such a distance, through such an inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a peripheral site bereft of natural resources.” As the most credible researcher on the subject, Professor Crone points out, “Some Muslims maintain it was famous for camel herding; yet that’s not possible in a barren environment.” Jay Smith augmented her findings
