An Arabian Fossil Points to Makkah and Jerusalem

A fossil of a human finger bone found in Saudi Arabia, was recently dated to 88,000 years ago. If confirmed, the finding would be the first and earliest Homo sapiens fossil found on the Arabian Peninsula.

Along with recent finds of a Homo sapiens jawbone in Israel dated to 177,000+ years old, 80,000-year-old human teeth from Asia and 65,000-year-old human relics from Australia, the Arabian finger bone provides further evidence that early modern humans spread out of Africa much earlier and farther than previously thought.

Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist and an author on the paper just published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, said, “This find, together with other finds in the last few years, suggest that modern humans, Homo sapiens, moved moved out of Africa multiple times during many windows of opportunity during the last 120,000 years or so”.

Just last January scientists had announced the discovery of a fossilized human jawbone in a cave in Israel that they said is more than 177,000 years old. Previous discoveries in Israel had convinced some anthropologists that modern humans began leaving Africa between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago. “This would be the earliest modern human anyone has found outside of Africa, ever,” said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Wisconsin.

Arabia was at the heart of that dispersal from Africa into Asia. But then instead of being bone dry, it was a lush grassland of in lakes and rivers. For more than a decade, the team had searched the vast desert for clues and had dug up hundreds of stone tools without finding ancient human fossils.

Then Dr. Iyad Zalmout, an archaeologist with the Saudi Geological Survey and author on the paper, was prospecting in the Nefud Desert in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula spotted something white sticking out from the sediment surface. Dr. Zalmout pulled up a cylindrical bone, barely bigger than an inch, that had a socket at one end and a protrusion at the other and concluded it was most likely the middle finger bone of a Homo sapiens.

Biological anthropologists from the University of Cambridge made a three-dimensional model of the bone, which they used in a statistical analysis to determine its origin. The test compared the bone with more than 200 finger bones belonging to humans, extinct hominins like Neanderthals and the ‘hobbit,’ Homo floresiensis, and nonhuman primates like gorillas and chimpanzees.

“These studies very strongly demonstrated that this finger bone belongs to a member of our species, Homo sapiens,” Dr. Groucutt said. To determine how old the bone was, the team then sent it to a dating specialist at Griffith University in Australia, who previously helped date a 180,000-year-old jawbone from an Israeli cave. The fossil came back as being about 88,000 years old.

This fits in with new evidence from genetic studies that indicates when Makkah and Jerusalem may have first become holy sites for humans. Two geographically plausible routes have been proposed for humans to emerge from Africa and populate Asia and then Europe: the Northern Route, through Egypt, Sinai and Israel, or through Ethiopia, across the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Arabian Peninsula (Southern Route). Dr Luca Pagani, from the University of Cambridge said “It is exciting that, in our genomic era, the DNA of living people allows us to explore and understand events as ancient as 60-80,000 years ago.”

The team produced whole-genome sequences from 225 people from modern Egypt and Ethiopia. The Egyptian samples were more similar to non-African samples and present in higher frequencies outside Africa than the Ethiopian genomic regions, pointing to Egypt as the more heavily used, gateway in the human exodus to the rest of the world.

The Northern Route was taken by the majority of humans during their exodus from Africa. From a religious point of view, the smaller but earlier Exodus from Ethiopia split; with some of them going east along the coast of Arabia, Persia and India, while most of them went north to Jeddah and beyond.

The Qur’an states that Adam fell to earth (Qur’an 2:36). Most Muslim Tafsir reports that Adam fell to India; and Eve fell to Jeddah (Ibn Abbas and Hasan al-Basri). When Adam left India and was reunited with Eve; they established the first holy Hajj site at Makkah.

When the Northern exodus from Egypt occurred 40 years later, the second holy Hajj site was established in Jerusalem. Both of these holy Hajj sites later were destroyed during Noah’s flood; and both were rebuilt and reconsecrated to the one and only God, by Abraham and his son Ishmael; and centuries later by Isaac’s descendant Prophet Solomon.

It might seem strange to many people that an American Rabbi believes that both the Ka’ba in Makkah and the Temple Mount is Jerusalem are holy sites. I have been studying the Qur’an and other Islamic books for over 65 years. I think of myself as a Reform Jewish Rabbi who is also an Islamic Jew.

Actually I am an Islamic Jew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi. As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Abraham the Hebrew (Genesis 14:13) and the first Jew who was an Islamic Hanif (a faithful monotheist), and I submit to the covenant and its commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.

As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Jewish spiritual leaders should modify Jewish tradition as social and historical circumstances change and develop. I also believe we should not make religion difficult for people to practice by adding an increasing number of restrictions to the commandments we received at Mount Sinai.

These are lessons that prophet Muhammad taught 12 centuries before the rise of Reform Judaism in the early 19th century Germany. Although most Jews today are no longer Orthodox, if the Jews of Muhammad’s time, had followed these teachings of prophet Muhammad, Reform Judaism would have started 1,400 years ago.

I believe that Muhammad was a prophet of Reform Judaism to the Orthodox Jews of his day; although he was 1,200 years ahead of his time.

It is good to remember that the Islamic and the Jewish religious communities have ancient and deep connections that should not be disturbed by transitory political conflicts. As the Qur’an also states: “’Believers, be steadfast in the cause of God and bear witness with justice. Do not let your enmity for others turn you away from justice. Deal justly; that is nearer to being God-fearing.” (5:8)

And as the Qur’an states: “Righteous is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but righteous is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, the Prophets; and gives wealth in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [who] establishes prayer and gives Zakah; fulfilling their promise when they promise; and are patient in poverty, hardship and during battle. These are those who have been true, and it is these who are the righteous.” (2:177)

Then all the children of Adam and Abraham will learn to live in Holiness, Peace and Prosperity. And as Prophet Isaiah predicted (19:23-25): “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. On that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”