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Bakkah (Arabic: بكة) is an ancient name for Mecca, the most holy city of Islam.[1] Most people believe they are synonyms, but to Muslim scholars there is a distinction: Bakkah refers to the Kaaba and the sacred site immediately surrounding it, while Mecca is the name of the city in which they are both located.[2]
Bakkah is mentioned in sura 3 (Al-i-Imran), ayah 96 of the Qur'an, where it is said to be the site of the first place of worship.[3][4] Others also identify it with the Biblical "valley of Baca" from Psalms 84 (Hebrew: בך).[5][6]
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Bakkah (also transliterated Baca, Baka, Bakah, Bakka, Becca, Bekka, etc.) is the ancient name for the site of Mecca.[1][3][7][8] An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure.[9] One meaning ascribed to it is "narrow," seen as descriptive of the area in which the valley of the holy places and the city of Mecca are located, pressed in upon as they are by mountains.[3] Widely believed to be a synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the Kaaba.[2][5][10]
The form Bakkah is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24.[9][11] In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the b and m were interchangeable.[11] The Quranic passage using the form Bakkah says: "The first sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah, a blessed place, a guidance for the peoples."[3][4] Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:92, 42:5) call it Umm al-Qura, meaning "mother of all settlements."[11]
In Islamic tradition, Bakkah is where Hagar and Ishmael (Ismā'īl) settled after being taken by Abraham (Ibrāhīm) to the wilderness, a story related in the Bible's Book of Genesis (21:14-21).[7][12] Genesis tells of how after Hagar and Ishmael ran out of water to drink.[7] In Arab tradition, Hagar runs back and forth between two elevated points seven times to search for help before sitting down in despair, at which point the angel speaks as recorded in Genesis 21:17-19:
God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.' Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and let the boy drink.[5]
Here, the tradition holds that a spring gushed forth from the spot where Hagar had laid Ishmael, and this spring came to be known as the Well of Zamzam.[5][7] When Muslims on hajj run between the hills of Safa and Marwah seven times, it is to commemorate Hagar's search for help and the resulting revelation of the well of Zamzam.[5]
Before Muhammad, Arabian jinn-devil worshipers ran back and forth between Al-Safa and Al-Marwah seven times in veneration of the two idols of Asaf and Naelah, the most venerated priest and priestess of the Arabian jinn-devil religion. Ibn Hisham wrote that these statues were worshiped at the well of Zamzam.[13]
It is also believed that Hagar and Ishamel settled in Bakkah, and the Quran relates that Abraham came to Mecca to help his son Ishmael build the Kaaba adjacent to the well of Zamzam.[5][7]
Ibn Ishaq, the 8th century Arab Muslim historian, relates that during the renovation of Kaaba undertaken by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, in 605 CE, the Quraysh found an inscription in one of the corners of the foundation of the building that mentions Bakkah. Composed in Syriac, it was incomprehensible to the Quraysh until a Jew translated it for them as follows: "I am Allah, the Lord of Bakka. I created it on the day I created heaven and earth and formed the sun and the moon, and I surrounded it with seven pious angels. It will stand while its two mountains stand, a blessing to its people with milk and water."[14]
However it is important to note that Ibn Malik (715-801 C.E.), the compiler of a respected Hadith collection, declared Ibn Ishak to be a liar and an imposter who wrote false stories about the prophet Muhammad.[15] Scholars such as al-Nisa'I and Yahya b. Kattan did not view Ibn Ishaq as a reliable or authoritative source of Hadith.[16]
The name Bakkah is woven into the kiswa, the cloth covering the Kaaba that is replaced each year before the Hajj.[17]
The Valley of Baca is mentioned in Psalm 84 of the Bible in the following passage:
Psalms 84:6 [Who] passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. 7 They go from strength to strength, [every one of them] in Zion appeareth before God.[18]
The author of the Old Testament Psalm pinned the destination of the pilgrimage as being "in Zion" which is the name of the easternmost hill in, and synonymous with, Jerusalem - located 1200 kilometers away from Mecca - with Zion being referenced 153 times in the King James version of the Holy Bible.[19] Jerusalem is where YHWH (Yahweh) had his people build his tabernacle, and the temple mount, which still stands today. The above cited Psalms passage refers to Yahweh's people, gathering from around the Holy Land of the prophets and patriarchs, on pilgrimage to Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
“The Valley of Rephaim lay southwest of Jerusalem and formed part of the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Joshua 15:8). It may correspond to the ‘Valley of Baca’ (Psalm 84:6), due to the balsam trees that were there (1 Chronicles 14:14-15). These are named, literally, ‘weepers’ because of their drops of milky sap.” (Payne)
"(Psalm 84:6; R.V., "valley of weeping, " marg., "or balsam trees"), probably a valley in some part of Palestine, or generally some one of the valleys through which pilgrims had to pass on their way to the sanctuary of Jehovah on Zion; or it may be figuratively "a valley of weeping.""[20]
"BACA ba'-ka bakha': In the King James Version in Psalm 84:6, where the Revised Version (British and American) has "the valley of Weeping," with a marginal variant which is best put in the form, "the valley of the balsam-trees." The word is elsewhere used only in the duplicated account of one of David's battles (2 Samuel 5:23, 24 1 Chronicles 14:14, 15). There the translation is "the mulberry trees," with "the balsam-trees" in the margin in the Revised Version (British and American). Conjecturally the word is, by variant spelling, of the stem which denotes weeping; the tree is called "weeper" from some habit of the trickling of its gum or of the moisture on it; the valley of weeping is not a geographical locality, but a picturesque expression for the experiences of those whose strength is in Yahweh, and who through His grace find their sorrows changed into blessings.- Willis J. Beecher"[21]
The original Hebrew language phrase for the Valley of Baca is emeq ha-Baka.[22][23][24] It can also be translated as "Valley of the Balsam Tree" or "Valley of the Weeper".[22][23] This otherwise unidentified valley has been connected to Bakkah by Islamic writers.[5]
The first House (of worship) appointed for men was that at Bakka: Full of blessing and of guidance for all kinds of beings:
In it are Signs Manifest; (for example), the Station of Abraham; whoever enters it attains security; Pilgrimage thereto is a duty men owe to Allah,- those who can afford the journey; but if any deny faith, Allah stands not in need of any of His creatures.—Qur'an, sura 3 (Al-i-Imran), ayat 96-97
How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.