I suggested that this was part of a larger question, such as whether the Koran even emanated from Mecca, let alone came from a Mohammed as described in Islamic tradition.
My concerns sprang from recent readings on or linked from the site of inarah.net of or about work by a variety of authors including Christoph Luxenberg and Ibn Waraq and claims that the material in the Koran was derived from a pre-Muslim Christian lectionary. You can see where I’m coming from!
Having thought about it, I think it would be best to stick to the Meccan-Medinan question so here goes.
I’ve always thought it odd that the Koran chapters were assembled in order of length, which immediately makes you think they might not be closely related. That they were said to be gathered from fragments written on various materials and assembled in that way suggests that those assembling them had no idea how they were related either and certainly were not aware of any chronology by which they could be arranged.
That aside, when I heard that there were said to be Mecca and Medinan chapters I took on the impression that a chronology could be divined from such as the points in Mohammed’s life – e.g. fancying a new wife - at which it suited him to have a particular revelation. I further assumed that from this that, not only could they be ranked by date but that, surely, many of these events could be identified to within a year or two. Yet I could never find a listing of these likely dates.
However, much has been made of how the Meccan verses (oh, did I mention that someone claimed that even verses within a chapter could have quite different dates?) were peaceful while Mohammed was on sufferance in Mecca but turned nasty once he became a Medinan warlord.
Which was where things were before I found inarah.net and read an article that implied that the verses were in fact classified by whether they were peaceful or warlike and ascribed to Mecca or Medina on that basis, not by some derived chronology. Detection of violent phrases in “Meccan” verses, claimed the author, invalidated the whole concept. Which seemed relevant to the discussion between sum and Skynightblaze about Mohammed’s threatening slaughter.
Anyway, I thought the matter might have been done to death already on the forum but all I can find is a post by a rather confused me from a year ago. http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=16597&p=219951&hilit=meccan#p219951 which gives only a link, not details. So here goes Skynightblaze. Anyone want to join in?
Firstly, I must admit that I can’t find the claim that started me off, but I’ll continue to look for it. Meanwhile, a bit of food for thought: something that cynics might think detracts rather from the classification: the classification of chapters is printed with them in most copies of the Koran!
Most copies of the Qur'an have an entry at the beginning of each sura stating the name of the sura, whether it is Meccan or Medinan, and how many verses it contains. These superscriptions are not considered to be part of the revealed text, but they are fairly uniform in copies of the Qur'an.
Just one example (below): the last word on the left in the gilded panel is "makkiyya," indicating a Meccan sura.
First four verses of sura al-Alaq, with gilded superscription
There is also a whole branch of Islamic learning called asbābu t-tanzīl (أسباب التنزيل) which is concerned with determining the circumstances in which any given sura was revealed to the Prophet. Of course, there is a lot of disagreement about the details. So the answer to your question is: no, there is no universal agreement.

So Muslims believe it but disagree about it. Is it worth going on?