section_path: History/Early history (up to 6th century CE)
section_name: Early history (up to 6th century CE)
paragraph_text: Early history (up to 6th century CE)
  
  The early history of Mecca is still largely shrouded by a lack of clear sources. The city lies in the hinterland of the middle part of western Arabia of which there are sparse textual or archaeological sources available. This lack of knowledge is in contrast to both the northern and southern areas of western Arabia, specifically the Syro-Palestinian frontier and Yemen, where historians have various sources available such as physical remains of shrines, inscriptions, observations by Greco-Roman authors, and information collected by church historians. The area of Hejaz that surrounds Mecca was characterized by its remote, rocky, and inhospitable nature, supporting only meagre settled populations in scattered oases and occasional stretches of fertile land. The Red Sea coast offered no easily accessible ports and the oasis dwellers and bedouins in the region were illiterate.
  
  While one individual has suggested that Mecca’s population at the time of Muhammad was around 550, research published by Binimad Al-Ateeqi in 2020 shows that the population was closer to 10,000 individuals, a figure extrapolated from data taken from historical records about the Battle of Badr and other military expeditions, emigrants to both Abyssinia and Madinah, and Muhammad’s own household. Al-Ateeqi, a researcher from Kuwait who has written extensively about the early history of Mecca, also makes deductions about the numbers of women, children, servants, and slaves living in Mecca at the time, pointing out that some wealthy individuals, such as Abdullah ibn Jud’an, had as many as 100 slaves.
  
  The first clear reference to Mecca in non-Islamic literature appears in 741 CE, long after the death of Muhammad, in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, though here the author places the region in Mesopotamia rather than the Hejaz.
  
  Possible earlier mentions are not unambiguous. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus writes about Arabia in the 1st century BCE in his work Bibliotheca historica, describing a holy shrine: "And a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians". Claims have been made this could be a reference to the Ka'bah in Mecca. However, the geographic location Diodorus describes is located in northwest Arabia, around the area of Leuke Kome, within the former Nabataean Kingdom and the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.
  
  Ptolemy lists the names of 50 cities in Arabia, one going by the name of Macoraba. There has been speculation since 1646 that this could be a reference to Mecca. Historically, there has been a general consensus in scholarship that Macoraba mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE is indeed Mecca, but more recently, this has been questioned. Bowersock favors the identity of the former, with his theory being that "Macoraba" is the word " Makkah" followed by the aggrandizing Aramaic adjective rabb (great). The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus also enumerated many cities of Western Arabia, most of which can be identified. According to Bowersock, he did mention Mecca as "Geapolis" or "Hierapolis", the latter one meaning "holy city" potentially referring to the sanctuary of the Kaaba. Patricia Crone, from the Revisionist school of Islamic studies on the other hand, writes that "the plain truth is that the name Macoraba has nothing to do with that of Mecca if Ptolemy mentions Mecca at all, he calls it Moka, a town in Arabia Petraea ".
  
  Procopius ' 6th century statement that the Ma'ad tribe possessed the coast of western Arabia between the Ghassanids and the Himyarites of the south supports the Arabic sources tradition that associates Quraysh as a branch of the Ma'add and Muhammad as a direct descendant of Ma'ad ibn Adnan.
  
  Historian Patricia Crone has cast doubt on the claim that Mecca was a major historical trading outpost. However, other scholars such as Glen W. Bowersock disagree and assert that Mecca was a major trading outpost. Crone later on disregarded some of her theories. She argues that Meccan trade relied on skins, hides, manufactured leather goods, clarified butter, Hijazi woollens, and camels. She suggests that most of these goods were destined for the Roman army, which is known to have required colossal quantities of leather and hides for its equipment.
  
  Mecca is mentioned in the following early Quranic manuscripts:
  
  The earliest Muslim inscriptions are from the Mecca- Ta'if area.
  
  Islamic narrative
  
  In the Islamic view, the beginnings of Mecca are attributed to the Biblical figures, Adam, Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael. It was Adam himself who built the first God's house in Mecca according to a heavenly prototype but this building was destroyed in the Noahic Flood. The civilization of Mecca is believed to have started after Ibrāhīm (Abraham) left his son Ismāʿīl (Ishmael) and wife Hājar (Hagar) in the valley at Allah 's command. Some people from the Yemeni tribe of Jurhum settled with them, and Isma'il reportedly married two women, one after divorcing the first, on Ibrahim's advice. At least one man of the Jurhum helped Ismāʿīl and his father to construct or according to Islamic narratives, reconstruct, the Ka'bah ('Cube'), which would have social, religious, political and historical implications for the site and region.
  
  Muslims see the mention of a pilgrimage at the Valley of the Bakha in the Old Testament chapter Psalm 84:3–6 as a reference to Mecca, similar to the Quran at Surah 3:96 In the Sharḥ al-Asāṭīr, a commentary on the Samaritan midrashic chronology of the Patriarchs, of unknown date but probably composed in the 10th century CE, it is claimed that Mecca was built by the sons of Nebaioth, the eldest son of Ismāʿīl or Ishmael.
  
  Thamudic inscriptions
  
  Some Thamudic inscriptions which were discovered in the south Jordan contained names of some individuals such as ʿAbd Mekkat (عَبْد مَكَّة, "Servant of Mecca").
  
  There were also some other inscriptions which contained personal names such as Makki (مَكِّي, "Makkan, of Makkah"), but Jawwad Ali from the University of Baghdad suggested that there's also a probability of a tribe named "Makkah".