ancient history * semitic languages

The Ancient Name of Makkah was never Mecca: it might have been Macoraba

Why Macoraba was the Greek name for Makkah and what it means

Moden Ka’ba at Makkah Image: Pixabay

Greek geographer Ptolemy mapped Macoraba at a location very close to modern Makkah, and it is generally thought to be the same place when compared to Ptolemy’s accuracy with other known locations, such as Yathrib (modern Madinah).

But how did the Greeks translate Makkah into Macoraba? Beyond Mac… the two names are very different.

Or are they?

What about Macor… and Makkah?

Then we just need to explain why Macoraba has “aba” on the end.

In Classical Arabic, “aba” can refer to a father or a type of garment, but when combined to make a new word, “aba” is usually found at the beginning.

Aba is unlikely to have been added by the Greeks, it doesn’t relate to a common ending of words in their language, but let’s just mention that there is a mythological Thracian naiad nymph or monster called Aba.

Map of Arabia based on Ptolemy’s Geography

How Makkah became Macoraba

There are a few things to consider straight away.

Most importantly, it was transmitted to Ptolemy by sound rather than through writing. It is unlikely that the name was written down by local Arabs.

Ptolemy didn’t go to Macoraba, he heard about it from travellers who themselves might not have been fluent in local languages. So “Macoraba” may have been an approximation of the name as it was passed on from local people to travellers to Ptolemy.

Accents may have played a part in this transformation of the name. After all, in the West we call it Mecca, which is quite different from the Arabic Makkah.

Is it possible that the local name changed over time? Macoraba comes from 2000 years ago. We know that many place names change over time. Shortened to Macor or Maco, i.e. Makkah might have been a natural evolution.

Did Macoraba become Makkah?

Let’s assume that the longer name becomes the shorter name over time. The “aba” or the “raba” was dropped.

Perhaps examining the meanings of similar-sounding words might shed some light on this subject.

Macoraba Meaning

Macoraba is believed to derive from an Ancient South Arabian root (M-K-R-B) meaning “temple,” “sanctuary,” or “altar,” which references pre-Islamic worship.

Some scholars suggest Makkah may be linked to the South Arabian word “mkr” or the Ge’ez “məkʷrab”, both meaning “sanctuary” or “temple”.

The Ge’ez word certainly makes my eyebrows rise, being from a very ancient Semitic language that is strikingly similar to Macoraba.

Ge’ez is an Ethiopian Semitic language, but there was extensive trade and contact between ancient Ethiopia and Arabia, so a link between the languages isn’t so surprising.

Meaning of Rab

Let’s look at rab as a Semitic ending.

In Arabic رب (rabb) means lord or master, often appearing in religious contexts, like “Rabb” for God in Islam.

Note the word Mihrab a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of the Kaaba in Makkah. Mihrab means a special room in a house; it may have South Arabian Sabaic origins from the root word “ḥrb” that was related to religious ritual and an overnight retreat.

Rabah in Hebrew means great or many. The Hebrew word “rabbi” (רַבִּי) originates from the root rav (רַב), meaning “great” or “master,” with the suffix “-i” meaning “my,” so it literally translates to “my master” or “my teacher”.

Coincidentally when we think of the cubic Kabba, the concept of “four” (Arba/Raba) appears in Hebrew cosmology (four winds, four corners) but I doubt this was a factor in the name Macoraba. At that time the “Kabba” would have been a low, oblong structure without a roof.

Image: Pixabay

Meaning of M-K or Makkah

The name’s roots may predate Arabic, tracing back to older Semitic origins.

Common theories associate M’K with the verb makka (to suck or extract), suggesting it refers to the scarcity of water, requiring people to “extract” water with difficulty from wells.

Guess what, maqām (مقام) is a shrine or sanctuary.

The Ka’ba is al-Bayt al-Ḥarām, the house of the sanctuary.

I’m not a linguist or Arabic speaker, so I am probably far off the mark when I say that to my ears I think there is a similarity with Maqama rabbika” (مقام ربك), which translates as standing before your Lord.

Or, maqāma rab translated to the standing (before) his Lord or the position of his Lord.

Maqām can refer to a physical location, a place, and it seems to me that the House of God at Makkah would have been Maqama rab.

Maqāma is more used in relation to assemblies or sessions, implying a meeting rather than one person in a place. Therefore, assemblies at the ancient sanctuary, the Masjid al-Haram may have been called Maqāma or Maqama rabbika. Perhaps these were misheard and morphed into Macoraba.

The Earliest References to Makkah

Wikipedia has some early references to Makkah that predate Islam: Thamudic inscriptions in southern Jordan contained names of some individuals such as ʿAbd Mekkat (عَبْد مَكَّة‎, “Servant of Mecca”) Makki (مَكِّي, “Makkan, of Makkah”), and the possibility of a tribe named Makkah.

Ancient Bakkah

To add to the confusion, in the Quran, Makkah is also referred to as Bakkah.

Apparently, the verb bakka (to crowd or throng) reflects the large number of people gathered in the area for worship, describing people gathering tightly for pilgrimage around the Kaaba.

Some scholars suggest Makkah refers to the city itself, while Bakkah is more ancient and refers specifically to the area immediately surrounding the Kaaba.

I have also heard about ‘b’ (ب) and ‘m’ (م) sounds sometimes used interchangeably, allowing for similar words like lāzim (necessary) and lāzib (necessary) to exist, making Bakkah and Makkah potentially related in origin.

However, Bakkah has no relationship to the Greek name of Macoraba.

Any Other Information on Macoraba?

Mostly has been assumed that Macoraba = Makkah.

Ian D. Morris of the University of Amsterdam is the main academic to question that assumption in his 2018 paper *Mecca and Macoraba*. He concludes that there is no satisfactory explanation for the difference between the names Mecca and Macoraba.

I have hopefully indicated in this article how and why I think the name might have changed.

Another relevant factor (and far more convincing) is Ptolemy’s coordinates in his Geography put them in almost the same place.

It is on the correct latitude but set too far inland to the west, which is a problem common for most of the places named by Ptolemy.

You can see clearly in the mapping study published in 2020 by Corey Abshire, Dmitri Gusev, Sergey Stafeyev, and Mengjie Wang, *Enhanced Mathematical Method for Visualizing Ptolemy’s Arabia*, which identifies, compares, and plots Ptolemy’s 300 Arabian locations.

My Personal Conclusion — for what it’s worth (which is £0)

Macoraba, being M-K-R-B meaning temple and sanctuary, seems a reasonable explanation to me. I can imagine a place having a different name but being referred to as M-K-R-B if this was one of the main things it was known for in that area.

I think it does refer to the place in modern-day Makkah, due to the mapping work that has pinpointed many places in Arabia and shown that many were fairly near to Makkah.

It was never the ideal location for a settlement; it wouldn’t have had a massive population, but I think it served as a stopping point along a well-trodden ancient route.

I suspect the sanctuary would have been a point on the journey between the coastal towns and the rich mountain farmlands. Noted for its well, it was also between streams and had nearby caves where people may have sheltered.

How did it ever come to be called Makkah? I’d love to hear Arabic speakers opinion on my theory that it might have been casually referred to as Maqama rab, and that eventually just got shortened to Makkah. Or that is was called M-K-R-B, and eventually got shortened to M a-K a.

My interest is in ancient history.