Since Babylon the Great is going to be “drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” and Saudi Arabia is a wealthy exporter of Islamic terrorism, many people think the principal city of Islam, Mecca, will be Babylon the Great (Revelation 17:6). While Mecca is certainly a trendy pick, this position has several problems. First off, Mecca doesn’t have a Jewish population at all. In addition, Mecca isn’t the world’s financial superpower and it’s difficult to see how it ever could be. It’s also not a port city. To be fair, nearby Jeddah is a port city and Jeddah is in the Province of Mecca. Still, Mecca itself isn’t a port city. It’s in a desert valley.
Curiously, some individuals have argued that Mecca being in a desert makes it a candidate for Babylon the Great. After all, the Spirit took John to a wilderness to see the woman, Babylon the Great (Revelation 17:3-5). Of course, the wilderness is only the place where John was taken in the Spirit to see, in a visionary way, the woman riding the beast. That doesn’t mean the city will actually be in the wilderness. It’s kind of like how John was later taken in the Spirit to a mountain to see the New Jerusalem come out of Heaven (Revelation 21:10). In the wilderness, he literally saw a woman riding a beast, otherwise the angel wouldn’t have had to explain that the woman represented a city (Revelation 17:6-7, 18).
Regardless, the idea that Mecca is Babylon the Great is based on the faulty assumption that Islam will be the religious system of the end times. Obviously, the Antichrist will claim to be God, and no consistent Muslim would ever do that (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). That’s blasphemy in Islamic circles, and in some Muslim-majority countries, blaspheming Allah means the death penalty. Also, the world is going to worship the image of the Antichrist, but no Muslim would ever worship an image (Revelation 13:10-17). I mean, you can’t even draw a picture of Muhammad without being violently threatened by a Muslim. Why would they worship the image of someone claiming to be God? On top of that, after the sixth trumpet judgment kills one-third of sinful humanity, the world will “not cease to worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which cannot see nor hear nor walk” (Revelation 9:20). Frankly, idol worship isn’t consistent with Islam at all.
Let’s be real. If the Antichrist was Islamic and Babylon the Great was Mecca, why would the Antichrist destroy Mecca? Muslims pray toward Mecca every day, and it’s considered the main holy city in Islam. Honestly, attacking Mecca would only make sense if the Antichrist wasn’t Islamic. On a side note, Muslims aren’t particularly more principled than any other group of sinful human beings. Muslims, like much of the world, will worship the Antichrist and Satan. John saw how the world “worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast” and how “they worshipped the beast” too (Revelation 13:4). The religious system of the end times isn’t going to be Islam. It’s much simpler than that: it’s going to be Satan worship.