The Origin of Jedda and Teh Problem of Al Shuayba

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The Origin of Jedda and the Problem of al-Shuʿayba

Author(s): G. R. HawtingReviewed work(s):Source: Arabica, T. 31, Fasc. 3 (Nov., 1984), pp. 318-326Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4056204 .

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THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA

AND THE PROBLEM OF AL-SHU'AYBA

BY

G. R. HAWTING

THE aim of this note is to draw attentionto two relatedquestions:

whatarethe originsof thepresentcity of Jedda, heportof Meccaon the Red Sea, and where was al-Shueayba,which is sometimes

mentionedby Muslim raditionas the port of MeccabeforeJeddatook

over that role1? An answer o the latterquestionhas beenproposedby

the Saudi scholar,Hamadal-Jasir2,but the questionof the originof

Jeddahas not beenexamined ritically. n particularhere s a problem

about whethert existedbeforeIslamor is to be seen as a creationof the

Islamicperiod.

Thereare a numberof reports n Muslim raditionwhich,referringo

the Jahiliyyaand the early Islamicperiod,mention al-Shu'aybaand

sometimesexplain that it was the port of Mecca. Perhapsthe most

common reference to al-Shueaybaoccurs in the reports about the

rebuilding f the Kaebaby Qurayshwhen the Prophetwas still a youth.

At that time,we aretold, a ship was wreckedat al-Shueayba, hichwas

thentheportof Mecca wa-hiya awma'idhindhil3 MakkaqabluJudda),

and Qurayshused wood obtainedfrom the ship in theirbuilding4.Insome versions the ship is said to have come fromAbyssinia , and in

1 I leave aside here the problem of <correct>>ocalisation, and use the common English

Jedda and, in Arabic, the possibly hyper-correctJudda. For a useful summary of opinions

about the vocalisation and meaningof the name see A. Pesce, Jiddah,Portraitof an Arabian

city, London 1974, p. ix.

2 See below, p. 322.

On the use of sahil in the sense of (<port>>r ?coastal entrepot for inland commerce>>

see the discussion by J. Wansbrough, ?Africa and the Arab geographers>>,n Language

and history in Africa, ed. D. Dalby, London 1970, 92, with further references.4 Al-Azraqi, K. AkhbdrMakka, apud F. Wiistenfeld, Die Chronikender Stadt Mekka,

4 vols., Leipzig 1857-61, i, 107;'Abd al-Razzaq, Al-Musannaf, Beirut 1970f., v, no. 9103;

Yaqiut,Mu'jam al-bulddn,Leipzig 1866-73, iii, 301.

s e.g., H. Zotenberg (tr.), Chronique de ... Tabari traduite sur la version persane

d'Abou-Ali-Mo'hammed-Bel'ami,Paris 1867-74, ii, 388-9. Most frequently the ship isdescribed as rim7 (see previous note for references), as is the carpenter or captain of the

ship whose help Quraysh enlisted for their rebuilding. Tab./Bel'aml, loc. cit., has one

Arabica, Tome xxxi, Fascicule 3



[2] THE ORIGIN OF JEDDA 319

various other referencesal-Shueaybas sometimesassociated n some

way with Abyssinia:the first muhafiruineparted rom al-Shueaybao

Abyssinia,

an expeditionwas led by'Alqamab. Mujazziz o drive off300Habashawhose shipsthe peopleof al-Shu'aybaexplainedas sihil

bi-ndhiyaMakka)had seen7.

Othertraditionsassumethe existenceof Jeddain the Jahiliyya,even

that it wastheportof Mecca.Alexanderhe GreatdepartedromJedda

for the bilddal-maghrib ftercomingto Meccato accomplish he hajj8.In one of the versionsof the story which explainshow the original

monotheismof theMeccansanctuary ameto becorruptedt is saidthat

certain dolswerewashedup at Jeddaafter heDeluge and laterbroughtto Meccawherethey wereset up aroundthe Kaeba9.Al-Ya'qibi lists

Jeddaas the last of the makhalTfr kuwarof the Yemenin the pre-

Islamicperiod O.Jedda is, of course, closely associated with Eve in

Muslim tradition,probablyon account of the similaritybetweenits

name and the Arabic word for grandmother(jadda)' , and it is

frequentlynamed as the place where Eve was set on earth after the

expulsion romParadise2. At the time of Babel, it is reported,Amrb.

Ma'addwas dwellingat JeddaI3I

Occasionally,differentversions of the same reporthave Jedda and

al-Shu'ayba s variantreadings.For example, omeversionsof the story

reference to the carpenter as a Copt. The name of the captain/carpenter,when it is supplied,

is always Baqiim, and, in spite of attempts to derive this from the Coptic form of

Pachomius (e.g., Th. N6ldeke, article <Arabs (Ancient)>> n Hasting's Enc. of Rel. and

Ethics), E. Littman's suggestion that it should be derived from Ethiopic Enbaqom(Habakkuk) seems more acceptable (see K. A. C. Cresswell, Early Muslim Architecture,

2Oxford 1969, i, 5, citing letters from Littman).

6 Tabarl, Ta'rlkh, Leiden 1879-91, i, 1181-2; Wdqidi, Maghdzi, Oxford 1966, 744.7 Wdqidi, 983.

8 Dinawari, K. al-Akhbaral-tiwdl, Cairo 1960, 34.

9 Ibn al-Kalbi, K. al-Asnam, Paris 1969, 48f; J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischenHeiden-

tums, 'Berlin 1927, 15.

0 Ya'qiibli, Ta'rfkh, Beirut 1970, i, 201.

" Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat bildd al-Yaman, Leiden 1951, 1954, i, 52: innamdsummiyat

Judda ... illa annaha dufinabihd ummU I-bashTr'Hawwd ... fa-hiya jaddatUamT' 'l-'alam.Until 1926, when it was destroyed by the Wahhabis, there existed a sanctuary at Jedda

which, according to Muslim and western sources, was revered as the tomb of Eve

(C. A. Nallino, Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti, Rome 1939-48, i, 155). References to this

sanctuary in Muslim sources are rathersparse and it does not seem possible to say when it

originated-our earliest references are al-Idrisliand Ibn al-Jubayr,both in the 12thcentury.

One may surmisethat the tomb is older than that, although, of course, the association with

Eve may be secondary. On this tomb, see now A. Pesce, Jiddah, 126-30.12 Tabari, Ta'rfkh, i, 120-1.

13 Yaqt, Bulddn,i, 41.



320 G. R. HAWTING [3]

of the rebuildingof the Kaebaby Qurayshhave the ship wreckedat

Jedda instead of the, in this instance,better attestedal-Shu'ayba14.

Describing he flightof Safwanb. Umayyafrom Mecca at the time of

its conquestby the Prophet,a traditiongiven by Ibn Ishiiqsays thathe

fled towardsJedda,while in the version given by al-Wdqidihe fled to

al-Shueayba 5.

What these reportsseemto show is that al-Shu'aybas namedwith

relative nfrequency, hatit occursonly in a limitedgroupof traditions,

andthat there was a tendency o supplant t withthe name of Jedda.It

seems clear that, where both Jedda and al-Shu'aybaare named in

different versions of the same report, al-Shueaybarepresentsthe?original>>eadingand Jedda a lateremendationsince, in the Islamic

period,al-Shueaybaad no importance ndtherewould be no reason o

substitute t for Jedda. On the other hand, the fact that the name of

al-Shueaybas often followedbyanexplanatory lossseems o pointto a

lack of familiaritywith it in the Islamicperiod,and the substitutionof

Jedda for al-Shu'aybamay sometimesbe an involuntary eadingback

into the Jahiliyya of the conditions of the Islamic period. Those

traditionsassociatingJeddawith Eve could be relatively ate attempts

to provideit with a religioussignificanceof the sort analysedby von

u16runebaum

However,the basicquestionsstill remainunanswered.WasJedda n

fact in existencein the pre-Islamicperiod? If so, did it then exist

alongsideal-Shu'aybaand what was its raisond'etre?Whendid Jedda

takeover theroleof theportof Mecca,and whatbecameof al-Shu'ayba

in the Islamic period?Anotherpossibility s that we should think intermsof a continuityof sitebut a changeof names.

Presumablyon the basis of traditions ike those referred o above,

modem works generallyaccept that Jedda existed in the pre-Islamic

period, although saying little or nothing about its pre-Islamiccon-

dition-whether, for instance,we shouldenvisagemerelya scatterof

dwellings,a villageor somethingbigger"7.Muslimtraditionsaboutthe

14 Tabari, Ta'rTkh,, 1135;'Abd al-Razzaq, Musannaf, v, no. 9106.15 Ibn Hisham, Sfra, 2Cairo 1955, 417 (= Tabari, Ta'rTkh,, 1644-5); Waqidi, Maghdzi,

853.16 G. E. von Grunebaum, ?The sacred character of Islamic cities>>, n Melanges Taha

Husain, Cairo 1962, 25-37. Possession of the tomb of Eve puts Jedda in the first two of thethree categories of sanctity which von Grunebaum suggested may be applied to variousIslamic cities.

17 Encyclopaediaof Islam2, article <<Djuddao>;bd al-Quddiis al-Ansari, <<Juddaabra'l-ta'rnkh>>,n al-Manhal, 1381, p. 595; Hamad al-Jasir, H shamdl gharb al-Jaz7ra, Riyad




origins of Jeddaare scarceand problematic. bn al-Mujawir d. 1291)

has two reportswhichcould be takento refer o its origins.One of them

describes eddaas a construction bind')of one of theSasanids,althoughthe name of its founder s corrupt n the text and does not allow the date

to be suggestedwith muchcertainty:hereportmay envisageJeddaas a

constructionof the Sasanidsbefore Islam,or it couldbe that the name

of its builder s meant as that of a grandsonof Yazdagird II, the last

Sasanid ruler of Persia, which would of course mean that Jedda was

built in the early Islamicperiod18. The otherreportof Ibn al-Mujawir

says that the family of Salman al-Farisi settledin Jedda (sakanuiha).

Theyhad heard hat he had accepted slam,so they came,accepted slamat the hands of the Prophet,and settledin Jedda becausethey were

merchants9. Thewaythesetwo storiesarepresentedby Ibnal-Mujawir

seems to show that he regarded hem as alternativeversions of the

foundationof Jedda. What they have in common, of course, is the

connexionbetweenJeddaand Persians,and I am inclinedto see both

reportsas reflexions f the fact that in the late 4th/lOthcenturyJeddadid

receivean influx of, and was developedby, merchants rom Persia.Thisfollowedthedeclineof Sirafon the Gulf and is reportedn detailby Ibn

al-Mujawir , and the Persian connexion is also alluded to by some

geographers f the 4th/lOthcentury21.The suggestion hat Jedda was

foundedbyPersiansdoes not occur n our earliest ources,butis made, n

a generalway, by the 14thcentury raveller bn Battuita22.

The most frequent account of the circumstances n which Jedda

became the port of Mecca associates it with the caliph 'Uthman.

According o the most detailedversionof this account, nthe year26/647'UthmanofficiallymadeJedda the port of Meccaat the requestof the

1970, 174; E. F. Gautier, Mwurs et coutumes des musulmans,Paris 1931, 68; A. Pesce,

Jiddah, 61 (on p. 3 he suggests that it was no more than a fishermen'shamlet in antiquity).

Note, however, that A. Sprenger, Die alte GeographieArabiens,Berne 1875, 39, says that

its existence before Islam is ?questionable?).

18 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42. The editor, 0. Lofgren, has suggested that the name

could be read as Khusraw b. Fayriuzb. Yazdagird b. Shahriyarb. Bahram. Yazdagird IIIhad a son called Fayruiz (see Mas'iidi, Muruj, Paris 1861-77, ii, 241) and was himself the

son of Shahriyar. But Mas'iidi, also mentions a Fayruiz b. Yazdagird b. Bahram in the

time of Mazdak (ii, 195).19 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42.20 ibid., i, 45. For the 10th century ruin of Siraf, see G. Le Strange, Eastern caliphate,

258-9.

21 Ibn Hawqal, K. Surat al-ard,Paris 1964, i, 31; al-Maqdisi, Ahsdn al-taqdsfm, 2Leiden

1906, 79.22 H. A. R. Gibb (tr.), The travels of Ibn Battuta, Cambridge 1958f., i, 360-1.




Meccans.They has asked him to change (yuhawwilu)he sdhil from

al-Shu'aybiyya sic in the text), which was the sahil of Mecca in the

Jahiliyya, o Jedda,which ?is its sdhil today>>. he reason why theywantedthe changewas the greaterproximityof Jeddato Mecca. In

response o theirrequest, Uthman,who was in Mecca for the perfor-

manceof an 'umra,went out to Jedda,saw its position,and ordered he

changingof the sahilto it. He went into the sea, madeghuslin it, and

said that it was mubdrak.He then ordered hosewho were withhimto

do the same,andeveryonewho did so wore a mi'zar. Uthman hen left

Jeddafor Medina,and at that time the peopleabandoned he sdhilof

al-Shu'aybiyya.This detailedtraditionappears,so far as I know, only in a compa-

ratively ate source,the I'lamof al-Nahrawili,who diedin 990/158223.

He cites as his sourcethe Ta'r-khof al-HIIfizNajm al-Din 'Umar b.

Fahd, whose literaryactivitywas in the second half of the 9th/15th

century,andwho was a pupilof al-Fsli, the authorof the Shifa24. In

the Shifd',however, Uthman'sactionis mentionedonlybriefly,not in

the detail which al-Nahrawaliprovides5,

and there has to be somedoubt, therefore,about the source and antiquity of al-Nahrawali's

details. F. Wiistenfeld,L. Caetani and Hamad al-Jasir who all cite

the tradition,are all dependanton al-Nahrawalil26. l-Fdsi's briefer

reference o the substitutionby 'Uthmancomes presumablyrom the

3rd/9thcentury al-FHkihi.AlthoughI have been unable to locate the

tradition n the Leiden ms. of al-Fdkihli'swork, al-Fsli's chapterFadl

Juddais largely a citation of al-Fdkihli's hapterDhikr Judda wa'l-

tahaffuzbihd27,and Ibn al-Mujawir,oo, cites al-Fdkihias the sourcefor the statement,?the first who took Jedda as a sdhil was 'Uthmanb.

'Afflan ndbefore that it was at a placecalled al-Shu'ayba?8*

It seems, then, that we can trace back to the 3rd/9thcentury the

tradition hatit was thecaliph Uthmanwho institutedJeddaas the port

of Mecca andcancelled he previousrole of al-Shu'ayba.Thetradition

23

Qutb al-Din al-Nahrawali, K. al-I'lam bi-a'lim bayt Alldh al-haram, apud F.Wiistenfeld, Chron. Mekka, iii, 79.

24 C. Brockelmann, GAL, ii, 175, Sii, 225; F. Rosenthal, A history of Muslim

historiography, Leiden 1952, index.25 Al-Fdsl, Shifd' al-gharam bi-akhbdral-balad al-hardm, Cairo 1956, 87.26 F. Wustenfeld, Geschichte der Stadt Mekka, apud his Chron. Mekka, iv, 122;

L. Caetani, Annalidell'Islam,26 A.H., ?51; Hamad al-Jasir, Fi shamdl gharbal-Jazfra, 175.27 Al-Fdkihli, Ta'rikh Makka, ms. Leiden Or. 463, 413b-414a. I am grateful to the

Library of Leiden University for supplying me with a copy of this ms.28 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, i, 42.




does not appearto be widelyknown:al-Fakihli ppears o be the solesource,and al-Azraql, he slightlyearlierhistorianof Meccawho is the

sourceof muchof al-FRkihi'smaterial,does not have t29. Thereportofal-Fakihi eavesus in doubt about whetherJeddaalreadyexisted as a

settlementof some sort when 'Uthmansubstituted t for al-Shu'ayba,

and so too does themoredetailedaccountof al-Nahrawali, lthough he

latter gives a general mpression hat the site was unoccupied.Againstthat we have to set the two inconclusive eportsof Ibn al-Mujawir nd

also, forwhatit is worth,a reference y Ibnal-Jubayrd. after1217) oone, or possiblytwo, mosques n Jeddafoundedby thecaliph 'Umar30.

Ibn al-Jubayr's eportassumes,of course, that Jeddaexisted, and waseven the centreof a sizeablepopulation,before the time of 'Uthman.

None of this seemssufficientas evidence or the origins of Jedda orwhethert existedbeforeIslam.Ongroundof commonsense t isdifficultto seewhy theMeccans houldhaveusedal-Shu'ayba s a portif a moreconvenientsite was at hand and also why they would need to get thecaliph'sagreement o use Jeddainsteadof al-Shueayba. n generalthe

traditionof 'Uthman's nstitutionof Jeddaas theportof Mecca, as wellas beingpoorlyattested,does riotsoundconvincing. tspoint may be tostress hesanctityof Jeddaand its associationwith theharamof Mecca.Jeddais not now regardedas part of the harambut in the past thereseems to have been reluctanceto allow non-Muslims to disembarkthere31 Al-Nahrawaligivesthe reportabout'Uthman'smeasureas an

appendage o his accountof the samecaliph'srenewalof the ansdbal-haram understoodas boundary tonesmarking heedgeof theharam),

and it seemspossible that the traditionassociating Uthmanwith theinstitutingof Jeddaas the port of Mecca may have developedas an

elaborationof thatof 'Uthman'srenewalof the ansdbal-haram, s partof a seriesdesigned o illustrate hefa4d'il Judda32.

Muslim sources, then, are of doubtful value when it comes to

answeringhevariousquestionsabouttheoriginsof Jedda.Non-Muslim

29 Cf. Hamadal-Jasir,FTshamdl gharb al-Jaz7ra, 175,who says that al-ShaykhArIal-Sinjari ites the reportabout'Uthman's ubstitutionromal-Azraql.Hamadal-Jasirnotesthat it is not in the publishedext of al-Azraqi.

30 IbnJubayr,Rihla, Leiden1852, 76 (citedby Fdlsi,Shifd', 88).31 See the citationsfrom Lodovicode Varthemaand AndreaCorsaliin A. Pesce,

Jiddah,

29-30.32 IntheShifa', al-Fdsigivesthetraditions boutJeddaunder heheadingDhikrshay'

minfadl Juddasdhil Makka.




sourcescertainlyprovideno grounds or thinking hat it existedbefore

Islam, in spite of the generalassumptionn modem works that it did.

Jeddadoes not appear o be mentionedn any pre-Islamic ource,either

south Arabianor classical. This argument rom silence is not in itself

positiveevidence,but it is striking that, in contrast to Jedda, we do

have pre-Islamicattestation of Yanbui' Jambia), he port of Medina

(Yathrib)3.

Turningnow to al-Shu'ayba, he difficulty s to find any traceof it

outsidethe rathersparse nformationgivenby Muslimtradition.As we

have seen, that informationconsistsmainly of the occurrenceof the

name al-Shu'ayban connexionwith particularncidentssaid to havetakenplace n pre-Islamic ndearlyIslamic imes,notably herebuilding

of the Kaebaby Quraysh,and theexplanatory losswhich s sometimes

given that it was theportof MeccabeforeJedda.Apartfromthat,only

Ibn al-Mujawiradds anything original,referring o it as a greatbay

(khawr 'azTm)and situatingit ?opposite Wadi 'I-Muhram>>4, but he

givesno sourceand, apart romthevaguegeographical eference,venif

weaccept hefactualbasisof thestatement,t does not much ncreasehe

information o be gleaned rom othersources.It is true that Hamadal-

Jasirhas claimed hat al-Idrisi eferredo al-Shu'ayba ndgavedetailsof

its distance rom Jedda and Mecca as well as certainotherinformation

which indicated that it survived as a port into the Islamicperiod.

According to Hamad al-Jasir, al-Idrislidescribedal-Shu'aybaas a

populated ettlementqarya 'amira) andreferredo its role asa (former?)

port of Mecca35. Accordingto the critical Italian edition of al-Idrisi,

however, hepassage n questiondoes not mentional-Shu'ayba, namewhich, indeed, seems not to occur anywhere n al-Idrisil'swork. The

first part of the passage which, according o Hamad al-Jasir,refersto

al-Shu'ayba,n fact relates o a placewhich is given variantlyas al-sqyt

oral-sfyh Jaubert's rench ranslationhadit asSaqin).This is al-Idrisl's

qarya ira. The following part of Hamad al-Jasir's citation clearly

relates o Jedda,which is the next placedealt with by al-Idrsi, so that,

evenif one is preparedo readsqyt/sfyhas Shu'ayba, t is not this place

33 A. Sprenger, Die alte GeographieArabiens, 26, no. 24 (lambia); A. F. von Pauly &

G. Wissowa, Realenzyclopddieder classischenAltertumswissenschaft,Stuttgart 1893f., s.v.lambia. Sprenger'ssuggestion, p. 39, no. 39, that the Jadda of Stephanus Byzantinus may

be a reference to Jedda does not seem supportable-see Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyclopddie,s.v. Gadda.

34 Ibn al-Mujawir, Sifat, 42-3.

3 Hamad al-Jasir, FT hamdl gharb al-Jazira, 174.




butJeddawhich s theportof Mecca. Desireto <discover>>l-Shu'ayba

seemsto have led to misinterpretationf the text36.

Neitherdoes Hamadal-Jasir's laimto have foundthepresentdaysiteof al-Shu'ayba,and even to have visited it, sound convincing.His

descriptionof the taxi ride to the place, with the drivergettinglost,

finallyreachinga bayon the coast,announcing?there s al-Shueayban

front of you>>, utrefusing o lingerbecausehehas no papers or thecar,

makes a livelyinterluden the book but hardly qualifiesas a scientific

expedition. n fact the identification f al-Shu'ayba eemsto be entirely

conjectural37.

Among western scholars only A. Sprenger seems to have beenconcerned to identify al-Shueayba,but his identification s equally

unsatisfactory.He suggestsan identificationwitha placecalledKentos

which s mentionedby Ptolemy,andSprenger houghtthatthismightbe

a freetranslationof the Arabical-Shu'ayban the senseof ?the space

between hetwo horns of an animal>>. e also referredo a place called

Shayba standingat latitude 20042'north on the AdmiraltyMap, and

put this forward as a possibilityfor the site of al-Shu'ayba. In theAdmiraltyPilot of 1955,however, here s no mentionof thisplace: the

only similar name seemsto be that of the reef called Shi'b Shu'ayba

whichis situatedto the north of Yanbiu'39

It seems, therefore, hat there is no informationabout al-Shu'ayba

apartfrom themeagredetails n Muslimtradition,and there s a strongimpression hat the Muslimscholars hemselveshad no realknowledge

about it. As we haveseen,there s a tendency o replacet withthe name

of Jedda,or else the need s feltto glossal-Shu'aybawiththe informationthat it was the port of MeccabeforeJedda.It seems that the Muslim

scholarswerefacedwith a fewreports n whichthe name of al-Shu'ayba

occurred,notablythe reportof the shipwreckinkedwith the rebuildingof the sanctuary,and they explainedit as the port of Mecca in the

Jahiliyyabut could not say more.

Both the circumstancesn which Jeddadeveloped nto a majorport

andthe significance f the placecalledal-Shu'ayba eem,then,obscure.

36 Al-Idrsli, Opus Geographicum ive Liberad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare

studeant,edd. A. Bombaci, U. Rizzitano, R. Rubinacci, L. Veccia Vaglieri, et al., Naples-

Rome 1970, fasc. ii, p. 13816f.3 Hamad al-Jasir, i shamdl gharb al-JazTra,173-4.

38 A. Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, p. 39, no. 40.

39 Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot, Admiralty Hydrographic Department, London,

1955, 290.




I would suggest that both are to be associatedwith the emergenceof

Meccaasthe site of the Muslimsanctuary.Although, n thelaterMiddle

Ages,Jeddacameto acquirea roleas an entrepot n the tradebetweenthe Mediterranean nd the Far East, and thus came to have some

importance n its own right40,generally t has been importantonly as

the portof Mecca.Onewouldexpect,therefore,hat its fortuneswould

be closelyconnectedwith those of Mecca.As has beennoted, there s no

reliable ndication hat Jeddahad any importancebefore Islam, and it

maybe thatits originsareto be put in theearlyIslamicperiod.It seems

natural o associate t with thegrowing mportance f Meccaat thesame

time. As for al-Shutayba,f it was indeed the port of Mecca in theJahiliyya, hen its disappearancewithout trace seemsto indicate hat it

musthavebeen smallandunimportant, ndthistoo couldthrow ighton

the statusof Meccabefore Islam. It is true, though,thatthe commonly

acceptedview of Meccaas a majorcommercial entre n the Jahiliyya

stresses he importanceof land routesand so theremay have been no

need for a major sea port. Alternatively,the explanation that al-

Shu'aybawas the port of Meccamay be withoutany historicalbasis,an attemptto explain somethingwhich was no longerunderstood.It

couldbe that materialreferringo al-Shueayba, ut having no original

connexionwithMecca,has beenadaptedby Muslim raditionand made

to relateto the Meccansanctuary. n thatcaseal-Shueaybawouldbe aremnantof an early stage of Muslim tradition which has not been

assimilated.

40 Encyclopaedia of Islam2, article<<Djudda>>;. Heyd, Histoire du commerce duLevant, Leipzig 1885, i, 36.

The Origin of Jedda and Teh Problem of Al Shuayba

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