For these series of videos which follow the debate between King and
Gibson, most of what we (Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith) introduce are taken
from Gibson’s own video responses to King, with our own added
commentaries and discussions.

You will notice the differences in tone between the two protagonists.
While King used vitriol, denouncing and ridiculing Gibson unnecessarily,
Gibson was always polite and humble, and never scorned King. That in and
of itself is telling.

Ironically, the work Gibson does is commonly called ‘peer review’, where
one scholar assesses the work of another, finds errors, and then
provides a better solution. Every scholar must be peer reviewed; yet,
King’s response to Gibson is not only shocking, it’s embarrassing.
Instead of replying to the ideas Dan forwards, he just attacks his
character and credentials.

Maybe it's because he was soon to retire, with everything he had written
and taught confronted by this ‘upstart’, Gibson, a man with no degrees,
little notoriety, and unknown to everyone; yet, able to disprove
everything he had written and had taught for years. One can understand
his frustration.

His introduction in his riposte of Dan highlights his anger, calling him
“a Canadian amateur…who contradicts everything we know about early
Islam…[and] in fact he [Gibson] just doesn’t get it…appears to be
singularly ill-informed…clueless…and just doesn’t know”. Yet, Gibson has
over 10,000 books on the subject, all of which he has read.

The conflict between the two begins with their starting presuppositions
regarding how Islam began, which informs us concerning why they came to
such different conclusions.

Dr King believes that in order to understand Early Islam (i.e. from 550
AD – 799 AD), you must employ the scholars closest to those events, the
later Medieval Muslim scholars (i.e. 800 AD – 1300 AD). Because they are
closer they should know what happened in the preceding centuries, better
than we do today. This is a decent presupposition to begin with; namely,
always refer to the time period closest to that which you are studying.

According to the Qur’an (Surah 2:149-150) the Qibla was redirected to
the ‘Masjid al Haram’ (notice it doesn’t say Mecca) when the Jews in
Medina rejected Muhammad, so around 624 AD, if the Islamic Traditions
are correct. Thus, every mosque built after 624 AD must face the ‘Masjid
al Haram’, which Muslims believe is Mecca.

King agrees that this has to be Mecca as well, suggesting that he hasn’t
read Patricia Crone’s research proving that Mecca wasn’t even known
until 741 AD.

Yet, according to the Qur’an and the later traditions, Mecca is where
Adam and Eve were sent down to when thrown out of the Garden of Eden
(see Surah 7:24), and where Abraham destroyed the idols in the Ka’aba
(see Surah 21:51-71), and where all trade went through,
north-south-east-and west.

Crone, however, proves that there is no reference to this city until the
mid-8th century (over 100 years after Muhammad’s death), nor was it on
any maps until around 900 AD. Either King wasn’t aware of this new
research, or he purposely chose to disregard it.

With no references to Mecca, could this be the reason these early 7th
century Qiblas were facing Petra and not Mecca?

Dr King thinks not, as he would rather trust the later 9th – 14th
century scholars, especially the 12th century Al Bazdawi, on whom he
studied and did his paper.

He preferred to trust these later Muslim scholars, rather than an
amateur Canadian archaeologist with no degree, especially one who hadn't
studied under him, and that was his undoing.

Yet, when you read these later Muslim scholars, they likewise didn’t
understand why the earlier Qiblas are misdirected, believing that they
were facing tens of different directions, and for a multitude of
reasons. This was because there was nothing for these later scholars to
refer to, since nothing was written by the earlier mosque builders
concerning why they directed their Qiblas anywhere, but Mecca.

It was Gibson who finally solved the problem of the misdirected Qiblas.
Rather than trusting the confused 9th to 14th century scholars, he
decided to physically go to the mosques themselves (over 100) and
decipher where their Qiblas were facing. He quickly noticed that they
were not facing in tens of different directions, but rather in 4
directions. What’s more, he found out why they were facing these 4
directions, by noting what was happening at these place and at that
time…politically.

Depending on where you begin your research, by either trusting in later
scholars who admit themselves that they were confused (King’s approach),
or by going physically to the earliest mosques themselves, and then
assessing what they tell us, both architecturally and historically
(Gibson’s approach), your conclusions will differ, as we shall soon see.