The Road to the Holy Land— Qur’an, Rome, and the Struggle for Bakk’a

What if the early Muslim campaigns against Roman strongholds were not scattered raids from Arabia, but stages in a sustained drive toward the Holy Land motivated by God Himself?

The method used throughout is simple: the Qur'an is the controlling witness. Later historical identifications are tested against its language, geography, sequence, and the earlier scriptures that the Qur'an itself affirms as guidance and light. If those witnesses point elsewhere, inherited geography must be re-examined.

The questions we will ask and the conclusions we may reach are not meant to appease, but are designed to find the correct understanding and to have a reading of the Qur’an that aligns with verifiable evidence rather than just submitting to transmissions and reports that may conflict and contradict one another

1. Abraham and Lot: The First Road to the Blessed Land

Before getting into our subject, we start with the journey of Abraham. Abraham leaves his people, Lot believes with him, and the two are carried into a land that God Himself describes as blessed. The geography of the paper begins there: with Abraham and Lot traveling together toward the blessed land, and then occupying different places within the wider landscape. [15]

A. Abraham and Lot journey to the land God blessed

Q 29:26 says, "Lot believed with him and said: "I am emigrating to my Lord. He is the Noble, the Wise."" Q 21:71 then identifies the destination of that movement: "And We saved him and Lot to the land which We had blessed in for the worlds." Read together, the sequence is direct: Lot joins Abraham in the migration, and God brings them into the blessed land. [15]

This matters because the Qur'anic geography begins with a northward Abrahamic migration into a land already carrying divine significance. The later question of Sanctuary and Pilgrimage should therefore be read against that earlier movement rather than assumed to begin in the deserts of Arabia.

B. Lot then resides in another town

The Qur'an next distinguishes Lot's place from Abraham's. Q 21:74 says that God saved Lot "from the town that used to do vile things." Q 29 makes the separation still clearer. The messengers first come to Abraham and announce: "We are to destroy the people of such a town, for its people have been wicked." Abraham replies, "But Lot is in it!" The messengers answer that they know who is there and will save Lot and his family. Only afterward do the messengers come to Lot himself. [15]

The narrative therefore presents two locations. Abraham receives the visitors where he is; the visitors then speak of another town in which Lot is living and proceed to that town. Q 29:35 adds that God "left remains of it as a clear sign for a people who comprehend." The town of Lot is thus not merely remembered as a story: its physical remains form part of the Qur'an's geographical argument. [15]

C. The Qur'anic audience lives among, and repeatedly passes, Lot's landscape

The same destroyed landscape is then placed within the lived world of the Qur'anic audience. Q 25:40 says: "And they had come to the town that was showered with a miserable shower. Did they not see it?" Q 37:137-138, immediately after the account of Lot, tells them: "And you pass by them in the morning; And in the night. Do you not comprehend?" These are statements of repeated physical contact with the remains of Lot's people, not merely distant knowledge of them. [15]

Q 14:45 goes further in its language of habitation: "And you resided in the dwellings of those who had wronged themselves, and it was made clear to you what We did to them; and We had put forth the examples for you." Read together with the explicit Lot passages, this paper takes these verses as evidence that Muhammad's audience lived within the same destroyed-settlement landscape whose ruins they saw and passed repeatedly. The Qur'an therefore situates the messenger and his people in the geography of Lot rather than at Abraham's sanctuary. [15]

D. Abraham's Sanctuary is identified separately at Bakk'a

Only after that distinction is established does the name Bakk'a become decisive. Q 3:96-97 says: "The first Sanctuary established for the people is the one at Bakk'a, blessed, and a guidance for the worlds. In it are clear signs: the station of Abraham. And whoever enters it will have safety. And God is owed from the people to make Pilgrimage to the Sanctuary, whoever can make a way to it." Bakk'a is therefore tied explicitly to Abraham, the first Sanctuary, and Pilgrimage. [12][15]

E. Bakk'a, Baca, and the pilgrimage to Zion

As part of the Torah that God affirms, Psalm 84 supplies the earlier scriptural geography. It describes pilgrims passing through the Valley of Baca on their journey toward Zion, the courts of the Lord, and the House of God. The correspondence with Q 3:96-97 is therefore more than a similarity of names: Baca/Bakk'a appears in both texts within a pilgrimage geography centered on God's House. On the reading advanced here, Bakk'a belongs to the Zion/Jerusalem sacred landscape - the Holy Land into which Abraham had already been brought. [12]

That earlier scripture is admissible evidence within the Qur'an's own framework. Q 5:44 calls the Torah "a guidance and a light"; Q 5:46 says the same of the Gospel; Q 5:47 tells the people of the Gospel to judge by what God sent down in it; Q 5:48 says the Qur'an affirms the Book before it; and Q 5:68 tells the People of the Book to uphold the Torah and Gospel. The Baca/Zion evidence therefore cannot simply be excluded while accepting the Qur'an's own testimony concerning earlier revelation. [13]

F. Mecca is recovered - but the Qur'an points beyond it

The Qur'an names Mecca separately and links Muhammad and his community directly to the Restricted Temple. Q 48:24 places the confrontation "in the interior of Mecca," and Q 48:25 says that the rejecters had barred the believers from the Restricted Temple and prevented their offerings from reaching their destination. The relationship is therefore not abstract: Mecca and the Restricted Temple belong to the immediate struggle of the messenger and those with him. [16]

The same sura also points to a military struggle beyond the immediate dispute over access to the Restricted Temple. Q 48:16 tells the messenger to say to those who lagged behind: “You will be called on to fight a people who are very powerful in warfare, unless they surrender.” The Arabic expression ulī baʾsin shadīd (أُولِي بَأْسٍ شَدِيدٍ) describes an opponent of severe fighting strength - a formidable military power, not merely another local adversary. [16]

That description matters for the sequence developed here. Sura 48 does not narrow its horizon to the recovery of Mecca: it anticipates confrontation with a powerful fighting people, then speaks of the confrontation in Mecca and the believers being barred from the Restricted Temple, and finally promises secure entry into that Temple together with a further conquest “after this.” The chapter therefore leaves the believers facing a larger military horizon beyond the local sanctuary struggle. [16]

Q 48:27 then promises: "God has affirmed His messenger's vision shall come true: 'You will enter the Restricted Temple, God willing, secure, with your heads shaven and shortened, having no fear.' Thus, He knew what you did not know. And He has ordained, after this, a conquest close at hand." [16]

The verse is important because it separates two achievements in the same breath. Entry into the Restricted Temple is promised and secured, but it is not presented as the end of the campaign: after that entry, God has ordained another conquest "close at hand." Within the reconstruction proposed here, this is exactly what the geography requires. Mecca belongs to the Lot-associated settlement landscape tied directly to Muhammad and his people; Bakk'a belongs to the Abrahamic pilgrimage landscape of the blessed land. Recovering access to the Restricted Temple therefore does not exhaust the movement. The Qur'an itself leaves another conquest immediately ahead, providing a textual bridge from the recovery of Mecca toward the continuing road to the Holy Land.

2. Qurʾan 30: Does the Common Reading Fit the Passage?

The believers’ rejoicing is the first textual problem

Q 30:4–5 وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ ۝ بِنَصْرِ اللَّهِ

“And on that day the believers will rejoice. With the victory of God.” — Q 30:4–5, The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation [10]

Under the familiar Ḥafṣ reading, the Romans are first defeated and then, within a few years, they prevail. Yet Q 30:4–5 immediately says that “on that day” the believers rejoice in naṣr Allāh — the victory/help of God. The passage itself does not name Persia, identify Rome’s opponent, or explain why a Roman imperial victory should constitute God’s victory for the believers. The conventional explanation supplies Persia from outside the wording of Q 30:2–5: Persia defeats Rome, Rome later defeats Persia, and the believers rejoice in Rome’s recovery. Al-Ṭabarī explicitly brings Persia into his explanation of the dominant reading. Methodologically, Persia is commentary on the passage, not an actor named in it. [1][10]

If the vocalization creates a problem, examine the written text

The issue does not require changing the consonantal wording of the verse. Early Qurʾanic manuscripts did not yet employ the complete system of vowel and consonantal marks familiar from later copies. First/seventh-century Ḥijāzī manuscripts can contain consonantal diacritics, but only sporadically and not sufficiently to make every reading unambiguous; short-vowel signs were largely absent from the earliest Arabic orthography. The written rasm could therefore be compatible with more than one vocalization. [20]

That matters directly in Q 30:2. The consonantal skeleton غلبت الروم can be vocalized ghulibat al-Rūm — “the Romans were defeated” — or ghalabat al-Rūm — “the Romans prevailed.” The difference is in the vocalization, not in adding, removing, or rearranging the underlying consonants. The same issue applies to the active/passive direction of the corresponding future verb. The textual question is therefore not whether a different verse should be invented, but which transmitted vocalization best fits the surrounding logic.

An alternative reading is preserved in the early tradition

Al-Ṭabarī records that the reciters differed over Q 30:2. While he ultimately prefers the dominant passive reading, he preserves a report that Ibn ʿUmar read the verse ghalabat al-Rūm — “the Romans prevailed.” When Ibn ʿUmar was asked what they had prevailed over, the report answers: “the fertile land of al-Shām.” Al-Ṭabarī also transmits the alternative in connection with Abū Saʿīd. The active reading is therefore not a modern correction invented for this paper; it is a documented early recitation preserved within the exegetical record itself. [1]

Q 30:2–4, Ibn ʿUmar reading غَلَبَتِ الرُّومُ … وَهُم مِّن بَعْدِ غَلَبِهِمْ سَيُغْلَبُونَ فِي بِضْعِ سِنِينَ

“The Romans have won. At the lowest part on the earth. But after their victory, they will be defeated. In a few more years.” — Q 30:2–4, The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation [10]

Read this way, the sequence is internally direct: Rome first prevails, then after its victory Rome is defeated within a few years, and “on that day” the believers rejoice with the victory of God. No unnamed Persian actor is required to connect the second military event to the believers’ rejoicing.

The Qurʾan’s criticism of imperial Christian doctrine adds contextual tension

Elsewhere the Qurʾan sharply rejects doctrines associated with mainstream imperial Christianity: Q 4:171 tells the People of the Book not to say “Three” and rejects divine sonship; Q 5:72–73 condemns the claims that God is the Messiah and that God is “the third of three”; and Q 9:30 criticizes the statement that “the Messiah is the son of God.” [11]

That does not by itself settle the recitation. But it increases the interpretive burden of explaining why the believers’ divinely framed rejoicing in Q 30:4–5 would center on a military victory by the Christian Roman Empire. Under the Ibn ʿUmar reading, that tension disappears if the second event is instead Rome’s defeat by the believers.

Historical fit proposed here: Muʾtah → Yarmūk

The geography of Muʾtah may also illuminate Q 30:3. In the Ibn ʿUmar reading used here, the chosen translation says that Rome prevailed “At the lowest part on the earth” - fī adnā al-arḍ. Muʾtah itself is on the Karak plateau rather than at the bottom of the Dead Sea basin, but it lies in west-central Transjordan immediately east of the Dead Sea/Jordan Rift system. Cambridge describes this region as beginning on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea and extending eastward across the Karak plateau. The U.S. Geological Survey describes the Dead Sea surface as the lowest natural land or water surface on Earth, more than 400 metres below sea level. [19]

If adnā al-arḍ carries a literal low/lowest geographical sense here, rather than only the conventional sense of “nearest land,” the wording gives the Muʾtah setting a striking fit: Rome’s first victory in the proposed sequence occurs in the theater adjoining the deepest exposed depression on earth. This does not require claiming that the battlefield itself was below sea level; the point is that Muʾtah belongs to the Dead Sea-Karak military landscape named by the verse’s geographical description. [19]

3. Qurʾan 33: The Confederates at Medina — or a Roman campaign in the Levant?

The usual identification of Q 33:9–27 with the Battle of the Confederates at Medina is a later historical identification. If the passage is read first on its own terms, it describes Confederates, attacking soldiers, a decisive wind and invisible soldiers, People of the Book supporting the enemy from secure positions, and the transfer of lands, homes, money, and territory the believers had never stepped on. The question is whether that cluster fits the Levantine Roman campaign.

A. “The Confederates” (al-Aḥzāb) as a coalition army

Q 33:20–22 الْأَحْزَابُ

Al-Aḥzāb is the plural of ḥizb — a party, faction, or group — and naturally describes confederated or coalition forces. This is notable at Yarmūk because the Byzantine army was a composite host: imperial Roman troops alongside Armenian, Syrian/Mesopotamian, and Christian Arab contingents, including Ghassanids. Al-Balādhurī describes Heraclius assembling forces from these regions, with Jabala al-Ghassānī and Christian Arab contingents in the vanguard. [9]

B. The wind against the hostile forces

Q 33:9 فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِيحًا وَجُنُودًا لَّمْ تَرَوْهَا

“O you who believe, remember the grace of God upon you when soldiers attacked you and We sent upon them a wind and invisible soldiers.” — Q 33:9 [10]

Theophanes’ account of Yarmūk independently preserves a weather motif: a south wind blew toward the Romans, carrying dust so that they could not properly face the enemy; the Roman army was then defeated and driven toward the ravines of the Yarmūk. [4]

C. People of the Book brought down from strongholds

Q 33:26 وَأَنزَلَ الَّذِينَ ظَاهَرُوهُم مِّنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ مِن صَيَاصِيهِمْ

“And He also brought down those who helped support them from among the people of the Book from their secure positions, and He threw terror into their hearts.” — Q 33:26 [10]

The Byzantine Levant was a fortified military landscape. Kaegi describes the recurring Byzantine practice of relying on town walls and strongholds. In the conquest tradition for Maʾāb, Roman forces come out to fight, are routed back into the town, and are besieged there; Kaegi notes correspondences with Sebeos and with traditions in al-Ṭabarī and al-Balādhurī. [5][6] This supplies a concrete campaign setting matching the Qurʾanic picture of scriptural communities allied to the opposing power and associated with fortified positions.

D. Land, dwellings, wealth — and territory never previously entered

Q 33:27 وَأَوْرَثَكُمْ أَرْضَهُمْ وَدِيَارَهُمْ وَأَمْوَالَهُمْ وَأَرْضًا لَّمْ تَطَئُوهَا

“And He made you inherit their lands, and their homes, and their money, and lands you had never stepped on.” — Q 33:27 [10]

This language fits a conquest sequence rather than merely the defense of familiar home territory. Following the defeat of the Byzantine field army, previously Byzantine territory in Syria-Palestine fell, surrendered, or came under occupation. Theophanes’ narrative continues from the Roman defeat to the loss of Damascus and Phoenician territory. [4]

E. Geography and archaeology reinforce the Levantine setting

Archaeology confirms a long-lived Roman/Byzantine fortified frontier east of the Dead Sea. The Limes Arabicus Project excavated the legionary fortress at el-Lejjūn and smaller forts and surveyed hundreds of sites across central Jordan. This does not prove that every old Roman fort remained fully garrisoned in the 630s, but it establishes that strongholds were a real feature of the Transjordan military landscape. [7]

F. Chronological implication

The near-contemporary Doctrina Jacobi, conventionally placed around 634, reports that “a prophet appeared, coming with the Saracens” in the context of fighting in Palestine. It does not name Muhammad in that sentence and cannot by itself prove that Muhammad was alive at Yarmūk. However, if Yarmūk is placed in 634–635, the report is chronologically compatible with a prophet still active during the Levantine campaign. [8]

Cumulative proposal. Qurʾan 30 is read as Rome prevailing at Muʾtah and then being defeated at Yarmūk within a few years; Q 33 is read as describing the same broader Levantine conflict: a coalition (al-Aḥzāb), a wind against the enemy, People of the Book in strongholds, and the subsequent acquisition of new territory. No single correspondence proves the reconstruction; its strength is the cumulative fit of text, geography, chronology, and external historical evidence.

4. Conclusion: The Road Does Not End at Mecca

The reconstruction developed here begins with geography. Abraham and Lot are brought into the land God blessed, but the Qur'an then distinguishes their locations: Lot resides in another town, while Abraham is associated with the first Sanctuary at Bakk'a and the Pilgrimage. The Qur'anic audience, meanwhile, is repeatedly placed among the remains and dwellings of Lot's people. This allows Mecca and Bakk'a to be read as distinct sacred geographies rather than automatically collapsed into one place. [12][15][16]

The conquest after the Restricted Temple

Sura 48 itself prepares the reader for a campaign larger than the recovery of the Restricted Temple. Q 48:16 says that the believers will be called to fight “a people who are very powerful in warfare” (ulī baʾsin shadīd), while Q 48:27 promises secure entry into the Restricted Temple and then immediately adds: “And He has ordained, after this, a conquest close at hand.” The sequence therefore places a formidable military opponent and a further conquest within the same horizon as the recovery of the Restricted Temple. Within this reconstruction, the road continues beyond Mecca. [16]

Sura 17 and the Temple of the Holy Land

Sura 17 supplies a striking geographical counterpart. It opens with movement from the Restricted Temple to the Farthest Temple, "which We had blessed around." It then turns to the Children of Israel and describes two periods of corruption and power. At the second promise, their enemies are said to "enter the Temple as they had during the first time." Near the end of the same sura, Q 17:104 says that when the time of the second promise comes, God will bring the Children of Israel together "as a mixed crowd." [17]

The Temple in Q 17:7 was also understood in major classical commentary as Bayt al-Maqdis, Jerusalem. Al-Tabari explains the verse as the enemy entering the mosque of Bayt al-Maqdis, and Ibn Kathir likewise identifies the masjid as Bayt al-Maqdis. The Jerusalem identification is therefore not dependent on this paper's reconstruction; it is preserved within the exegetical tradition itself. [18]

Read beside Q 48:27, this creates a possible sequence that deserves to be taken seriously: the believers regain secure access to the Restricted Temple, but another conquest remains immediately ahead; Sura 17 points from the Restricted Temple toward the blessed Farthest Temple and describes a second entry into the Jerusalem Temple. On the reading proposed here, that makes Jerusalem a plausible destination of the conquest promised after Mecca and places the struggle for the Holy Land within the Qur'anic horizon itself, rather than requiring it to be placed automatically after the period of revelation. [16][17][18]

Rome as the power standing on the road

That conclusion brings the military passages into the same frame. Q 30 can be read as Rome first prevailing and then being defeated within a few years, with the believers rejoicing in God's victory. Q 33 describes Confederates, a divinely sent wind, People of the Book supporting the enemy from secure positions, and the inheritance of lands the believers had not previously entered. Theophanes' account of Yarmuk preserves the same wind motif in the decisive Roman defeat, followed by the loss of Byzantine territory in Syria-Palestine. [1][3][4][9][10]

The result is one continuous proposed narrative: Abraham's road leads into the blessed land; Bakk'a is located within that Abrahamic pilgrimage geography; Muhammad and his people are associated with the Lot landscape and the Restricted Temple; the Restricted Temple is recovered but another conquest is promised; Rome stands across the route into the Levant; the Roman coalition is broken; and the road terminates in the sacred landscape of the Farthest Temple. If this sequence is correct, then the conventional chronology that places Muhammad's death before the decisive Levantine conquests must itself be re-examined rather than used as the premise by which the Qur'anic evidence is interpreted. [8][16][17]

The central question of this paper is therefore not whether later historians preserved a coherent narrative. It is whether that narrative best fits the Qur'an. When the Qur'an is allowed to control the geography and sequence, the conflict with Rome can be read not as a peripheral series of raids, but as the final military stage of a much older road: the road of Abraham, the road to Bakk'a, and the road to the Holy Land.

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Sources

[1] al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr on Q 30:2: records the dominant passive reading and reports the active reading ghalabat al-Rūm from Ibn ʿUmar (and in the same discussion Abū Saʿīd); Ibn ʿUmar is reported as locating the Roman victory in the fertile land of al-Shām. Al-Ṭabarī ultimately prefers the dominant passive reading and supplies Persia as Rome’s opponent.

[2] Cambridge, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: Muʾtah (629); standard Yarmūk date (636).

[3] J. B. Bury, “The Chronology of Theophanes 607–775”: Theophanes’ Yarmūk notice falls around 634–635 in his scheme.

[4] Theophanes, Chronographia: south wind and dust against the Romans at Yarmūk; Roman defeat followed by territorial losses.

[5] Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, ch. 3: Byzantine reliance on fortified towns and strongholds.

[6] Kaegi, ch. 4: at Maʾāb Roman forces retreat into the town and are besieged; parallels noted in Sebeos, al-Ṭabarī and al-Balādhurī.

[7] S. Thomas Parker et al., Limes Arabicus Project: excavated forts and hundreds of surveyed sites east of the Dead Sea.

[8] Doctrina Jacobi, c. 634: report of “a prophet … coming with the Saracens.”

[9] Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-Buldān; see also “Defining ‘Romans’ in the Late Antique Near East”: Yarmūk army included Roman, Armenian, Syrian/Mesopotamian and Christian Arab contingents.

[10] The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation: Q 30:2-5; Q 33:9, 20-22, 26-27. This translation is used as the controlling English rendering of Qur'anic passages in this paper.

[11] Qurʾan 4:171; 5:72–73; 9:30: rejection of divine sonship, “Three,” and identifying God with the Messiah.

[12] Psalm 84: the Valley of Baca on the pilgrimage journey toward Zion, the courts and House of God; Qur'an 3:96-97: the first Sanctuary at Bakk'a, the station of Abraham, and Pilgrimage.

[13] The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation, Q 5:44, 5:46-48, 5:68: Torah and Gospel as guidance/light; the Qur'an affirming the Book before it; communities told to judge by and uphold prior revelation.

[14] Later Islamic tradition identifies Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis) as the first focal point of prayer before the change described in Q 2:142-150.

[15] The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation, Q 2:125; 3:96-97; 11:69-77; 14:45; 21:71-74; 22:26-29; 25:40; 29:26, 29:31-35; 37:133-138: Abraham and Lot's migration to the blessed land, their distinct locations, Abrahamic sanctuary/pilgrimage, and the Lot-associated settlement landscape.

[16] The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation, Q 48:16, 48:24-25, 48:27; Q 5:97: the call to fight a people “very powerful in warfare,” Mecca and the Restricted Temple, the believers being barred from it, the promised secure entry into it, and the further conquest ordained immediately afterward.

[17] The Qur'an - A Monotheist Translation, Q 17:1, 17:4-8, 17:104: movement from the Restricted Temple to the Farthest Temple blessed around; the second promise and entry into the Temple; and the Children of Israel being brought together as a mixed crowd.

[18] Al-Tabari, Tafsir on Q 17:7; Ibn Kathir, Tafsir on Q 17:7: both identify the masjid/Temple in the verse with Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem).

[19] U.S. Geological Survey, Dead Sea / Jordan Rift geography: the Dead Sea surface is the lowest natural land or water surface on Earth, more than 400 m below sea level; Cambridge, Against Moab, on west-central Jordan/Karak plateau beginning on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea and extending eastward.

[20] Adam C. Bursi, “Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century,” Journal of the International Qurʾanic Studies Association 3 (2018/2019), 111–157: early Ḥijāzī Qurʾan manuscripts use consonantal diacritics only sporadically and remain insufficiently marked to eliminate all ambiguity; short-vowel signs are largely absent from the earliest Arabic orthography.