Petra: The Cause of the Error in Place and Time in Religious History
The researcher in religious history faces a real problem: the place and time described in religious texts do not always correspond to the geographical and historical reality commonly accepted today. This problem has remained unresolved because its real cause has not been viewed as the result of two major historical confusions that became intertwined and eventually changed the entire map of religious history.
In this reading, the cause is generally not deliberate distortion, nor a conspiracy planned by anyone. Rather, it is the result of two major historical events that together produced two overlapping confusions. The first event was the disappearance of Petra from collective memory because of what happened after the Crusades and the interruption of the road leading to it. The second event was the forgetting that Alexander the Great was Solomon, followed by the transfer of the description of paganism to Alexander, and from him to the later image of Solomon and the Greeks. From these two events arose the confusion of place and the confusion of time.
First, the question arises: Who is Solomon? In this reading, Alexander the Great is Solomon. When the description of Solomon in religious texts is compared with what historians report about Alexander in general history, essential points of intersection appear. Solomon is described as the ruler of a vast kingdom, the builder of a great temple, and a figure associated with immense construction. Alexander, likewise, ruled a kingdom extending from Greece to Egypt and India, led many peoples, and built great cities and centers across the known world.
Petra represents the material evidence that brings the two figures together. It is a city carved into rock, monumental in construction, combining Greek and Eastern styles, and presenting an architectural model that cannot easily be separated from the Hellenistic world and the religious memory that preceded it. From this perspective, Petra is not merely an archaeological city, but a key to understanding the relationship between the religious Solomon and the historical Alexander.
The problem began when Petra disappeared from collective memory and the connection between Alexander and Solomon was forgotten. Later historians then looked at Alexander as a Greek king who offered sacrifices in Greek temples, and so he was described as pagan. Since Alexander, in this reading, is Solomon, this description was transferred to the same figure, and then to the Greeks in general. Here began the first confusion: a major religious figure was reinterpreted through a later description of the Greeks, after the original connection between them and the Children of Israel had been lost.
Yet in this conception, the Greeks were not pagans in the later sense in which they were portrayed. Rather, they carried remnants of ancient commandments and religious memory that, over time, were transformed into mythological symbols. Their gods were not necessarily pagan deities in their original meaning; they may have been symbols of earlier religious and civilizational functions. As the Nine Muses show, Calliope is not a pagan goddess, but a symbol of law and Nomos; Urania is not a goddess of the sky, but a symbol of astronomical observation and the calculation of time; and the rest of the Muses represent practical aspects of Moses’ commandments for building civilization.
Then comes the second confusion: Where is the sacred place? In this reading, Petra is the true sacred place. It was not merely a city, but the sacred center known to religions and traditions under different names: Bayt al-Maqdis, the Temple of Solomon, al-Masjid al-Aqsa, the City of Aelia, and the original Jerusalem. Despite the difference in names, the essence remains one: a sacred center carved in rock, located on the borders of the Arab and Hijazi sphere, and connected with the pilgrimage route and ancient religious memory.
Petra’s geographical location helps explain this confusion. Al-Masʿudi, the Arab historian, stated that Bayt al-Maqdis lies on the borders of the lands of the Hijaz, and that the distance between it and the Arab Jerusalem is seven stages of travel, or approximately seven days. In this reading, this description does not refer to the Arab Jerusalem known today, but to another location closer to the borders of the Hijaz, which makes Petra a strong candidate for understanding the original meaning of Bayt al-Maqdis.
From here, the Isra and Miʿraj must be reconsidered. The al-Masjid al-Aqsa to which the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was taken by night can be understood as Petra, because “al-Aqsa” indicates the farther place geographically from Mecca, and because Petra lies in an elevated mountainous region carved into the rock. Its location on the borders of the Hijaz agrees with what appears in al-Masʿudi’s description. Thus, al-Masjid al-Aqsa would not be merely a later building, but an older sacred site connected to a known desert route that was later forgotten.
As for the Arab Jerusalem known to people today, in this reading it is a later Roman city that became a gathering point for pilgrims, not the original sacred place. It was built within the sphere that later became an alternative center of memory, especially after Petra disappeared from public consciousness. Thus, the Arab Jerusalem was not the original Bayt al-Maqdis, but a place that replaced it in religious memory after the road to Petra was cut off and its true location was forgotten.
The Crusades then appear as the major turning point. When the Crusaders came, the conflict was not, in its essence, over the Arab Jerusalem alone. In this reading, both sides understood, to varying degrees, that there was a deeper sacred center beyond the desert road: Petra. This is why the wars lasted for such a long time: the true place was not merely a visible city, but a location connected with roads, pilgrimage, tribes, guides, and desert memory.
The Arabs were central to this conflict because they knew the road to Petra, had transported pilgrims to it for centuries, and distinguished between the Arab Jerusalem and Petra. But the continuation of war made the road itself dangerous, and knowledge of the road became a factor of conflict and exhaustion. From here comes the role of Saladin in this reading. He understood that the continuation of pilgrimage to Petra kept the conflict open, and that the road to the sacred place was what continued to give the war its cause.
Therefore, the decisive decision was to stop pilgrimage to Petra in order to end a war that had exhausted the nation for a long time. Without pilgrims, the road would no longer remain alive. Without the road, the practical importance of the place would no longer remain visible. Without visible importance, the war would gradually fade. But the unintended result was disastrous for historical memory. Stopping the pilgrimage led to the Arabs ceasing to transport pilgrims; then the desert road began to be forgotten, the guides who knew it died, and a new generation arose that no longer knew the place. Petra then disappeared from maps and memory for many centuries, until Burckhardt opened its gate to the world again in 1812.
Thus occurred the triple forgetting. The Greeks forgot their first religious identity, and no longer knew that their symbols and myths carried remnants of ancient commandments. The Crusaders searched in the wrong place and assumed that the Arab Jerusalem was the true Bayt al-Maqdis. The Arabs, who had once known the desert road to Petra, also forgot this road and gradually came to believe that the Arab Jerusalem was the original Bayt al-Maqdis. When these three sides forgot the truth at the same time, the error in religious and historical consciousness was completed.
After Petra disappeared, the sacred map began to be redrawn on the basis of the Arab Jerusalem. Petra, which in this reading represents Bayt al-Maqdis, the Temple of Solomon, and al-Masjid al-Aqsa, was relocated in later consciousness to the Arab Jerusalem. Delphi, as the original Jerusalem within the Greek sphere, was also absorbed into the new map. Mount Athos, as Zion, was symbolically transferred to a mountain in Palestine. The Temple of Solomon, which is connected with Petra, came to be sought in the Arab Jerusalem. Thus, an entire map was built upon an alternative location, and this map then became the reference point for later generations.
From here, questioning the map came to be seen as though it were questioning religion itself, even though the problem is not in the religious texts, but in the determination of place and time after memory was lost. The texts described places and events, but later interpreters and historians projected them onto a later map, after the original sacred center had disappeared from public consciousness. Thus, the geographical error became the origin of a chronological error, and the chronological error became the origin of an entire religious interpretation built upon a place that was not the original place.
In the end, the two confusions became complete. The first confusion concerns the figure: Alexander, who in this reading is Solomon, was described as pagan because he was Greek. This description then passed to Solomon, and then to all the Greeks, causing the connection between the Children of Israel and the Greeks to disappear. The second confusion concerns the place: Petra disappeared because of the Crusades and the interruption of the road that followed, so the Arab Jerusalem filled the empty space in people’s consciousness. Greeks, Arabs, and Crusaders all forgot that the true place lay beyond the desert.
The sentence that summarizes the entire article is this:
When Alexander/Solomon built Petra, then was described as pagan, and the Greeks forgot that they were the Children of Israel, and the Arabs forgot that Petra was Bayt al-Maqdis, and everyone drew their sacred map on the basis of the Arab Jerusalem, the two confusions of place and time were completed, and over the centuries they became established history.
Then Burckhardt came in 1812 and opened the gate of Petra again. But the world did not yet realize that he had not merely opened the gate of an archaeological city; he had opened the gate of a historical truth capable of rereading place and time in all of religious history.