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Mecca was a Geography and places good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Cleanup : less about the religous beliefs, more about the city functions; the hajj and the diverse population it brings is mentioned in just about every section some way needs to be found to mention it once and not keep harping on
Copyedit : someone likes to stick "also" in every sentence, also quite often, also
Expand : explain importance of city in regards to culture, economy, tourism, etc. Basically, how the city functions. This is an article about a very important city, not what muslims believe.
I think it is worth to mention that German scholars believe that the Holy city mentioned in the Quran was actually Petra and not Mecca. Mecca wasn't even there to begin with. There are no evidence of Mecca existing before the late 7th century. There are no maps, no trade reports, no travel report mentioning Mecca before that time.
The description of the city that we find in the Quran do not match the characteristics of Mecca's landscape. It actually suits Petra. Petra, indeed, was an ancient city, a place of worship, a trade center and there was a river and olive trees were growing on the mountains surrounding it. Nothing like that can be said about Mecca. 37.160.50.78 (talk) 19:37, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who are the German scholars? The “Mecca didn’t exist” theory is dealt with, but the sources are predominantly the hagarists and, in addition to questions about their reliability, it would need to be incorporated in a way to reflect the fact that the theory is by no means the consensus amongst historians. It’s not even total consensus amongst hagarists. Yr Enw (talk) 04:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure which German scholars you're referring to but what I know about this theory is the controversy raised by amateur Canadian archaeologist Dan Gibson which goes along this line that Mecca was actually Petra and based his revisionist theory around it. Which was debunked by historian David A. King. While I don't have much to add on that matter I have the following observations in mind regarding to the points you raised:
1- I'm not sure which descriptions from the Quran regarding Mecca that you referring to? As far as I know, neither the Quran nor the Hadiths (at least in Sunni and Shia traditions that I know of) mention Mecca having a river or olive trees.
2- Quote:"There are no maps, no trade reports, no travel report mentioning Mecca before that time." That's a bold assertion, but I'm not sure how this connects to Mecca's current location. The fact that Mecca might not have been noted as an important city before Islam doesn't really relate to its location as the religion or the religious community (Muslims) ascribe it to. From a broader historical perspective, when Islam began spreading, Arabian tribes expanded quickly across regions previously held by the Eastern Roman and Persian empires. We might or not find mentions of these tribes' main cities in Greek and Roman writings, but it's unclear why this would be a criterion to validate Mecca's existence. The historical documentation —or its absence— doesn't necessarily affect the city's religious and cultural importance as understood today in a post-Islamic context. — ♾️ Contemporary Nomad(💬 Talk)10:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Please note the name already appears in Arabic script above the infobox. Jamedeus (talk) 21:40, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
