Please read LR, 376-384.
Pre-Islamic Arabia – One million square miles, unfriendly terrain; Hijaz is the “cradle of Islam”. Arabs are called the Semites, and Arabic language belongs to the language family called Semitic Languages along with Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, and Assyrian languages. This whole thing has reference to the story of Noah and the flood and Genesis 9 (of the Hebrew Bible). Semitic people are to be the descendents of Shem! Population here is very sparse. According to traditions this whole place was very fertile and supported a large population. Islam held Northerners and Southerners in Arabian Peninsula together!
Story of Abraham and the son Ishmael are important for Islam! Ishmael belongs to the Northerners who were primarily a pastoral-nomad!
Jāhiliyyah – (the state of) ignorance (prior to the revelation of the Qur’an) – is used to describe the pre-Islamic Arabia. Jāhiliyyah has several meanings:
a. Jāhiliyyah is a kind of “Wildness” – a kind of absence of spirituality and religion! Over against Islam establishes “a godliness”! In sura 33:33 you read: “And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Apostle.”
Pre-Islamic Arabia – One million square miles, unfriendly terrain; Hijaz is the “cradle of Islam”. Arabs are called the Semites, and Arabic language belongs to the language family called Semitic Languages along with Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, and Assyrian languages. This whole thing has reference to the story of Noah and the flood and Genesis 9 (of the Hebrew Bible). Semitic people are to be the descendents of Shem! Population here is very sparse. According to traditions this whole place was very fertile and supported a large population. Islam held Northerners and Southerners in Arabian Peninsula together!
Story of Abraham and the son Ishmael are important for Islam! Ishmael belongs to the Northerners who were primarily a pastoral-nomad!
Jāhiliyyah – (the state of) ignorance (prior to the revelation of the Qur’an) – is used to describe the pre-Islamic Arabia. Jāhiliyyah has several meanings:
a. Jāhiliyyah is a kind of “Wildness” – a kind of absence of spirituality and religion! Over against Islam establishes “a godliness”! In sura 33:33 you read: “And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Apostle.”
b. It refers to a kind of “Licentiousness and Idolatrous way of life”.
c. Today it also refers to “Unworthy or nominal Islam practiced by Muslims!
d. In some cases, particularly those influenced by Seyyid Qutub of Egypt and Mawlana Mawdudi of Pakistan, permissiveness and much of the very liberal life style of the West is also described as jāhiliyyah!
The word is found in the Qur’an, for example 3:154, 33:33, 48:26, etc. This word, like jihad, need to be explored very carefully!
Social Structure and Economy: Pastoral people divided into more or less independent tribes. Alliances were made! Genealogy, tribal purity, and family honour – these were very important for the Arabs! There was an aim in their wandering and they had the water holes to be guarded! Camels and sheep were produced. Hunting was done. They also served as bodyguards for travelling caravans. They also occasionally raided other communities! Raiding was not simply adding goods but also a “sport”! Cf. Qur’an 100:1-5 preserves the spirit of ghazwa (raid).
With “raiding” comes two important concerns –
e. Skills for making and handling weapons, and
The word is found in the Qur’an, for example 3:154, 33:33, 48:26, etc. This word, like jihad, need to be explored very carefully!
Social Structure and Economy: Pastoral people divided into more or less independent tribes. Alliances were made! Genealogy, tribal purity, and family honour – these were very important for the Arabs! There was an aim in their wandering and they had the water holes to be guarded! Camels and sheep were produced. Hunting was done. They also served as bodyguards for travelling caravans. They also occasionally raided other communities! Raiding was not simply adding goods but also a “sport”! Cf. Qur’an 100:1-5 preserves the spirit of ghazwa (raid).
With “raiding” comes two important concerns –
e. Skills for making and handling weapons, and
f. Clan loyalty. Asabiya is a “powerful group feeling! A tent, a family. Number of tents pitched together, makes up a qaum, clan! Several clans make a tribe.
Retaliation was a fair game in pre-Islamic Arabia! A feud between to clans or two tribes can go for years and they make up their “literary subject”! To treat an outsider or an enemy the way one wanted was a “personal honour”, ‘ird. Personal honour was a male concern and women were considered “weak and apt to yield to temptations”. Man had and should have manliness – “muruuwa”. This included courage, loyalty, and generosity! All these qualities and sung in the pre-Islamic poetry!
You may want to read more about “Honour Killing”, cultural fallout, which is found in certain communities, such as the Indian and Pakistani communities even now! Cf. http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html
Importance of camel! Camel increased freedom in the desert!
Poetry – a form called qasiida, or ode, was very important. It was the main form of artistic expression the ancient Arabs had. Poet from a kahin and was related to religion, trance, and ecstasy. A poet was called a shaa’ir, one who has an esoteric knowledge that he received from shaytān or from a jinnī.
Pre-Islamic religion perhaps was
You may want to read more about “Honour Killing”, cultural fallout, which is found in certain communities, such as the Indian and Pakistani communities even now! Cf. http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html
Importance of camel! Camel increased freedom in the desert!
Poetry – a form called qasiida, or ode, was very important. It was the main form of artistic expression the ancient Arabs had. Poet from a kahin and was related to religion, trance, and ecstasy. A poet was called a shaa’ir, one who has an esoteric knowledge that he received from shaytān or from a jinnī.
Pre-Islamic religion perhaps was
a. A form of “animism” that included the veneration of stones, wells, trees, and sacred precincts connected with tribe’s origin.
b. Polytheistic. Kaba had representation of 360 deities. Divinities were both male and female. The Qur’an mentions three female deities disapprovingly! The daughters of Allah – al ‘Uzza, Venus the morning star; al-Lat; and al-Manat. See Qur’an 53:19f. “Have ye seen Lat and 'Uzza, and another, the third (goddess), Manat?” Also mentioned in the Qur’an 71:23 other “divinities” people worshipped in Arabia during the pre-advent Arabia: Wadd, Suwa, Yaguth, Ya’uq, and Nasr. "And they have said (to each other), 'Abandon not your gods: Abandon neither Wadd nor Suwa', neither Yaguth nor Ya'uq, nor Nasr'; …”
c. Allah was known but only as a high god!
d. Watt introduces another aspect of the pre-Islamic religion. The Tribal Humanism: “… the constellation of basic attitudes and activities connected with the social group – honour, manliness, hospitality, the equitable distribution of goods, the shaykh as first among the equals, raiding as a display of courage, the vendetta, and devotion to one’s genealogy – together comprised the real religion of the majority”. (Frederick M. Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 2006, p. 38f)
There were also the other religious communities in Arabia prior to the advent of Islam.
a. Jews were numerous in Southern Arabia as well as in Yathrib, Medina.
b. There were Christians too, particularly in Najran in South Arabia.
c. Zoroastrians were also there.
d. There was a native Arabian monotheistic group called Hanifs. Perhaps Abraham was a Hanif.
Question to Explore:
Describe the pre-Islamic Arabia identifying particularly the religions that existed there prior to the advent of Islam.
Question to Explore:
Describe the pre-Islamic Arabia identifying particularly the religions that existed there prior to the advent of Islam.
