Whilst this is an ingenious attempt at harmonising various conflicting historical traditions, this is not exactly a fool-proof way to disproof the 'revisionist' version of early Islamic history. Abraha certainly attempted to dominate all of Arabia, but his attack on Mecca is not reflected in the epigraphical record. His attack was on central Arabia into the territory of the Ma‘add tribal confederacy and was perhaps an attempt to defeat the Lakhmid Arabs, who were allies of the Persian Empire (since the Romans had tried to get Abraha to join in their war-effort against Persia). Abraha may well have struck at Mecca as well, since another attack was recorded along the western coast of Arabia and it is possible that the Persians had some interest in the western Hijaz, but this cannot be directly linked to the Mecca of the seventh century. Whilst I'm not convinced that the 'real' Mecca was placed in northern Arabia or in Palestine, Abraha's attempt to achieve hegemony over Arabia did not exclude the possibility that Muhammad began his career elsewhere from the Mecca we all know about, since we have no direct evidence that Abraha actually invaded Mecca, nor for the fact that Muhammad was definitively from Mecca.