Before Islam most of the inhabitants of Arabia belonged to the nomadic tribes. They had no
permanent home and they moved about constantly in search of food and pasture for their herd. The Arabs inhabited a large area of the Middle East comprising the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension in the Syrian Desert. The area was marginal (limited) because of its aridity (lacking enough water for things to grow) so they had to continue to move around.
Their life consisted of pasturing camels and other animals and finding food but it was according
to the geographical conditions. They had to move around to where vegetation and food and water were. Their life style was not complex in a social or political sense because they were very simple people and because of this their way of life slowly disappeared and fell under the rule of foreigners and Muhammad was one of them in the near future.
“The Muslims believe that Muhammad came from the lineage of Ishmael. According to the
historians, the roots of the native Arabs can be traced back to the Tribe of Joktan, who lived in
the southern part of Arabia (Genesis 10:26-29). One of Abraham’s wives, Keturah, was from
(another tribe in) the central part of the Arabian peninsula, north of Al-Hejaz; her sons are listed
in (Genesis 25:1-6).
The scattered Ishmaelites (a tribe) from Havilah to Shur intermarried with the first two tribes over the years and eventually the descendents of the three tribes dominated other tribes in all of the Middle East. This is how the Arab race came into existence.” [Mirage-The Love Language of
Islam! By: David Ibrahim]
You had Arabs that settled and you had the nomadic Arabs that didn’t settle but all were organized in tribes (units) which consisted of descent groups of people. They got their security from these tribes (units) not from a state. A man’s life was protected by his kinsmen. He was to protect him when he was in trouble and needed help. And if someone killed him he would be avenged and the kinsmen had to seek compensation for that man or his family if he was killed. It made others think twice. A woman’s life was protected by her kinsmen too but she had no reciprocal obligation so she was considered a dependant. These tribes also had slaves, freedmen, craftsmen, and itinerant (traveling) traders who depended on them because they were non-Arabs and they needed their protection.
Each tribesman had great pride in their ability to defend themselves and their dependants. They boasted through their poetry warning potential predators of their strength. At some point to show their strength they would take the camels, abduct the women, kill the men, slit the noses of the defenseless slaves of other tribes, enemy tribes. This was highly prized among their own tribes when they did that. But to be dominate over and bring the worst evil upon a people was for their necks to be bent. If you have people who obeyed instead of standing up for themselves they were dismissed as “’slaves’. It does not matter if there were unfree persons, weak members of a tribal society or civilian subjects of states. You have to be strong and defend yourself.
“During the time in pre Islamic Arabia, gods or goddesses were viewed as protectors of individual tribes, their spirits being associated with sacred trees, stones, springs and wells. Aside from these gods, the Arabs shared a common belief in a supreme deity called Allah (literally “the god”), who was remote from their everyday concerns and thus not the object of cult or ritual. Three goddesses were associated with Allah as his daughters: Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza. Monotheistic communities existed in Arabia, including Christians and Jews. Hanif’s-native pre-Islamic Arab monotheists-are also sometimes listed alongside Jews and Christians in pre-Islamic Arabs. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a hanif and one of the descendents of Ishmael, son of Abraham.” [Mirage – The Love Language of Islam!, By: David Abrahim]
The nomadic Arabs had many gods they worshipped but they really had no effect on them. It was just something they did. They did believe that the most important thing that happened in a person’s life was the result of an impersonal force called Time or Fate. This is what the nomads believed in that can be found in the Qur’an, ‘They say, there is nought but this present life; we die and we live, and only Time destroy us’ (45.24).
The most important belief they had was tribal humanism (humanity is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct), which was fostered (to help to grow; stimulate) by the strong tradition of poetry. To them the poets celebrated the profits of individual heroes. You could see this in the high qualities present in the tribal stock rather than to their person needs. To the Arabs this is what made life meaningful to them, having a large herd.
You also had this code of ethics that went along with the tribal system. Each tribe was responsible for the minor offense or breaking of the law of its members. They believed in the principle ‘a life for a life.’ This of cause presented long-lasting blood feuds and when Muhammad came on the scene this was one of the problems he had to deal with.
You see the Arabian camel-rearers first in the Bible c. 1,000B.C. They are considered Arabs in
Assyrian records from the eighth century B.C. onwards. “They came with their cattle and their
tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without numbers.” This is a summary of the Saudi Arabs before Islam.
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