Salaam brothers and sisters
I live in London, England.
I have been reading a lot of different translations of the Quran for years, and have in the past couple of years reading a lot of articles and going through websites to find out how/what Allah (glory to Him in the highest) wants mankind to follow. The advice that I took was from the Quran was 'listen to all views and follow the best'. The articles from this site, true Islam, quranicpath, muslimsfor Allah and my percent.co.uk was quite an eye opener and most of them made good sense.
So I believe that if the verses in the Quran are about justice, kindness, consideration, tolerance, balance, patience, basically being just. I think that is what our deen/obligation is in this world. I don't think it is about rites and rituals.
I have been also researching the history of the prophet from Muslim and non Muslim sources and I believe what we know about the history and location of the prophet in the Hadith was made up. Also, in the Hadith the description of Makkah seems quite different to what is is today. Quite shocking revelations actually! I think the Hadith can be used to make an argument against the fact that the prophet was from Makkah!