[Arrecteve]

Asalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh


Dear brothers, I was recently talking to a historian who filled me with all sorts of worrying thoughts about the origins of Islam. I don't want to bring all of the points up... but one thing he said which has troubled me is that in the Qur'an, the Meccan pagans are described as agriculturalists in many places, and that this cannot be true because of the climate of Mecca. Particularly having cattle and the references to fruits and olives as in the verses in Surat al-An'am v.136-145. He said that the pagans cannot have been Meccans and that Mecca only became important many years after the Prophet's (saws) death. Please can somebody give me an answer?

wa salam