Hi John and Doves,
Mystery Babylon can only be Mecca, the Great idolatrous City.
Mystery Babylon, aka ‘the harlot’ the ‘mother of harlots’ and the ‘great city’ is first mentioned in Revelation 14:8: where we are told Babylon has fallen; but in a review of her composition, nature, practices and destruction, recorded in chapters 16:19‒21; 17:1‒19:3, she is shown to be the ‘personification’ of an idolatrous religious entity that has persecuted God’s people, by cohabiting with all seven of the beast’s political power bases, during the whole Biblical age. Thus, she has sat on, and ruled over all seven heads/mountains/kingdoms, by integrating herself into their secular governments, while she has moved on with each successive conquering kingdom, to establish herself in the next great pagan city.
Subsequent to her ‘role’ as the great harlot and the mother of harlots; (viz., as the origin and nexus of spiritual idolatry that opposes God in defiance of His commandments), Great Babylon is seen to be sitting on the beast in the wilderness in the latter days, where she enjoys an apparently symbiotic and harmonious relationship with the beast (the earthly agent of Satan who is the nemesis of God). Notably, the beast is now complete with all seven head/kingdoms and ten ‘crowned’ horns/Islamic nations that only came into existence after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in WWI and its lands were divided up in the 20th Century. In the wilderness, the woman (who thinks she is a Queen) and the beast whose base is a throne given to it by the celestial dragon, cosily embrace together the twin-pillars of a ‘theocracy’ (i.e., divine authority over secular government), which practices idolatry by worshipping a foreign God called Allah.
Furthermore, their wilderness location is within distant sight of the (Middle-eastern) kings and mariners whose merchandising takes place in a busy sea-faring port (? in the Red Sea, called Jeddah Islamic Port), where they stand far off when they see the smoke of her burning as the great city is consumed by fire and destroyed by 10 rebellious ‘kings.’ (Cf. Rev. 18:8, 9, 14, 17; 17:12, 16). These details, plus her clothing being of purple and scarlet, which reeks of royalty and false religion, together with her golden cup full of abominations/idolatry, corruption and wealth, all help to identify her as a classy whore; while a combination of these two colours makes a notable shade of ‘ruby red,’ i.e., the colour of the blood shed by the saints and martyrs of Jesus on which she has made herself drunk, which she is responsible for, in co-ordination with the beast’s continuous warfare against God’s saints during the prolonged ‘tribulation’ of the whole Biblical age. (Rev. 13:7; 18:24; 19:1‒3) [1]
Moreover, Mystery Babylon indulges herself in the trappings of wealth, greed and lasciviousness brought to her from the kings of the earth, by the sea-going ships and merchants in exchange for what she offers, described as the filthiness or ‘wine’ of her ‘fornication’ (which is mentioned three times in Rev. 17:2‒4). Meanwhile as the Queen of idolatry with many suitors, she rules over many waters (Rev. 17:1) i.e., peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues (Rev. 17:15), even as we are told... the woman is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth. (Rev. 17:18)
Nearly every ‘mention’ of Mystery Babylon in the Book of Revelation, via her location, her practices and relationships, can be traced back to the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah with reference to an idolatrous entity called ‘Daughter of Babylon’ who dwells amongst the rocks and mountains, who will be turned into a burnt ‘mountain’ when she is pulled down from the heights: cf. Isaiah 13 and 14; Jeremiah 50 and 51. It should be noted that the original Babylon in Chaldea was neither burnt nor was it completely destroyed; only its people were translocated before the city was abandoned, and it eventually fell into ruins during the Seleucid era. It seems therefore, that the judgments decreed for ancient Babylon in Chaldea, will ― in the end time ― be visited on the daughter of Babylon, called Mystery Babylon, who has operated for centuries as a peripatetic harlot woman, who finally settles in the wilderness, with her latest suitor, the Islamic Beast on its throne H.Q. in Mecca.
Accordingly, the description provided in the scriptures relating to Mystery Babylon, can only refer to an ancient idolatrous entity that has engaged in theocratic relationships, co-ruling with the seven empires of old since her debut at the Tower of Babel after the deluge.
[1] Theocracies are rare now-a-days, the few being Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Mauritania, Yemen and Vatican City. Therefore, because the great city called Mystery Babylon is described as sitting on seven mountains in the wilderness, near a sea-faring port where she provides important commerce (oil) in exchange for the luxuries she indulges in, she has been identified as the great city of Mecca, hidden in the Sirat Range of mountains, located in the Hejaz Province of Saudi Arabia, in the end time vision presented in Revelation 17.