Mecca: A Literary History of the Muslim Holy Land. - book reviews

National Review, Dec 19, 1994 by J.B. Kelly

ANOTHER holy land, that of Islam, is the subject of F. E. Peters's Mecca, which relates the history of Mecca, Medina, and the Hijaz from pre-Muhammadan times to the third decade of this century, when the haramain, the holy places, fell under the sway of the Saudis of Najd. There are, as Mr. Peters explains, two major obstacles to writing with relative assurance about Mecca and Medina, especially as they were in ancient times and in the early centuries of the Muslim era. One is that because successive rulers of the Hijaz have forbidden any kind of archaeological excavation in the region, the historian is wholly reliant upon literary sources. So for the pre-Muslim period, the jahiliyah or "time of ignorance," as well as for the medieval period, Mr. Peters has had to confine himself to the works of Muslim (mostly Arab) historians, jurists, and assorted savants.

The second obstacle is that non-Muslims are, and always have been, forbidden entry to the haramain. However, from the sixteenth century onward, beginning in 1503, when a Bolognese, Ludovico di Varthema, slipped into Mecca under an assumed identity, we have had a number of descriptions of the holy city, and even of the inner precinct, from intrepid or foolhardy Europeans who have survived to tell their tales. By quoting lengthy extracts from their writings, and stringing them together with a connecting narrative, Mr. Peters, a professor of Near Eastern languages and history at NYU, has constructed an entertaining and highly informative record of the vicissitudes of Mecca and Medina throughout the ages.

Of the many colorful characters who people the pages of his book, my favorite is a Portuguese, Gregorio da Quadra, who was taken prisoner at Aden in 1513 during the unsuccessful campaign by the great captain Afonso de Albuquerque to turn the Red Sea into a Portuguese lake. Released eventually from captivity, da Quadra made his way northward to Mecca, where he hoped to join the annual pilgrimage caravan from Damascus on its homeward journey. From Damascus he planned to cross the Syrian desert to Basra, and there take a ship for the Portuguese stronghold of Hormuz. He succeeded in his plan, despite an almost inconceivable act of folly at Medina, where the Damascus caravan halted en route from Mecca. Da Quadra joined the pilgrims at the tomb of the Prophet, where, as he later recounted, he was suddenly recalled to his duty as a Christian and gave vent, before all present, to a thunderous imprecation: "Prophet of Satan, if thou art that one whom these dogs adore, manifest to them that I am a Christian, for I hope, by Our Lord's mercy, that I shall yet behold this house of abomination turned into a church for His praise, like Our Lady of the Conception at Lisbon." They don't make Christians like that any more.