Pre-Islamic Arabia is also known as the Arabian Peninsula before the emergence of Islam in 610 CE. The communities that settled during this period later become distinctively civilized. The information on these communities is inadequate. The reason being information has been collected from archaeological evidence, the Arab oral traditions recorded by Islamic scholars later on and from the accounts that were written outside of Arabia. Some of the most protuberant civilizations include the Thamud civilization whose existence can be traced from 3000BCE and lasted up to 300CE as well as the Dilmun civilization that started at the close of the fourth epoch and continued up to 600CE. At the commencement of the 1st epoch BCE, Southern Arabia records to be home to several realms, including the Sabaeans, and the Semitic speakers occupied the Eastern Arabia individuals who came from the southwest. An example was the Samad population (Tibbetts, 1956). Some of the factors that affected the region before the Pre-Islamic Arabia become a monolithic society include the social factors, religion, and economic factors.
Religion in the Pre-Islamic Arabia
The Pre-Islamic conviction in Arabia was comprised of the original polytheistic beliefs, Zoroastrianism, Ancient Arabian Christianity, Judaism as well as the Nestorian Christianity. During the Pre-Islamic Arabia, Christianity existed and was first established by the initial Arab traders. They had perceived about the gospel from the apostle Peter in Jerusalem, and this is indicated in the bible at Acts 2:11. It is also heard of the gospel from the evangelism of Paul during his ministry in Arabia, and this can be seen in Galatians 1:17. In Eastern Arabia, Nestorian Christianity was the leading religion. At the same time, the ancient Arabian Christianity dominated and stood firm among Southern Arabia, specifically with Najran being a significant center of Christianity before the advent of Islam.
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The leading form of conviction within the pre-Islamic Arabia was the Arabian polytheism which was grounded on the adoration of spirits and divinities. Different gods and goddesses received worship from the Arabian inhabitants, and they included the god Hubal as well as the goddesses Manat, Al-Lat as well as Al-Uzza, who were adored at local temples and shrines such as Mecca and Kaaba (Mumayiz, 2010). Deities were worshipped and appealed through several rituals such as sacrifice, pilgrimages as well as divination. Most of the corporeal descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are linked to idols, specifically those near the Kaaba, which contains up to 360 figurines.
Social Factors
During the pre-Islamic Arabian era, society was dominated by males while women did not have a position of any kind despite being sex objects. Women had no fixed number of men that they could marry since when a father died, the son had the power to inherit all the wives who belonged to his father apart from his biological mother. The Arabs had a savage custom that allowed them to bury their female infants when they were alive. The reason this was a savage is that even if an Arab never wished to bury their daughters alive, they had to uphold the traditions of their forefathers hence forcing them not to resist the social pressures. Among the Arabs, drunkenness was a common vice, which also led to their gambling, thus making them compulsive gamblers and drinkers.
There was an extremely loose relation between the sexes, and most women then sold sex so that they could manage a living since there was only a little left for them to do. These women played the role of flying flags on their houses, and hence they were referred to as ladies of the flags (Saleh, 1972). Among the primary cultures that dominated the pre-Islamic Arabia were the nomadic Bedouin people who had clans that heavily emphasized the kin-related groups, and every clan was grouped under tribes. The immediate family members shared a tent and could be referred to as a clan. Most of the tents, together with their family relationships, were comprised of a tribe, and even though groups consist of family members, tribes could take in a non-related member and assign them familial status.
The society during this period was patriarchal, where the male lines were the main inheritors. The tribes had the role of protecting all the members since the death of a single member of a clan meant cruel reprisal. Those individuals who did not belong to the tribe were considered enemies or outsiders. All the tribes gave every individual identity and shared common ethical understandings. During this period, warfare was given a high honor, with the war between tribes being divided among the Bedouin. The living conditions among the pre-Islamic Arabians became much difficult hence creating heavy emphasis on the cooperation among families, therefore, strengthening the clan system.
The Bedouin tribes were nomadic pastoralists who depended on their small herds of horses, goats, camels, sheep, or other animals for fur/wool, meat, cheese, milk, blood as well as other sustenance (Bamyeh, 2006). The Bedouin nomadic tribes raised camels, sheep, and goats generally due to the seasonal migrations to obtain resources as well as the harsh climatic conditions. Every member of the family was assigned a particular role in taking care of animals, from guarding the animals to the making of cheese from milk. The Bedouin also hunted, worked as mercenaries, served as bodyguards as well as escorted caravans. Some of the tribes made a trade with towns to gain goods while others raided other tribes to earn fabric, animals, gold, women as well as other luxury items.
Economic Factors
The Jews were economically the ones who lead Arabia since they owned the best arable lands within Hijaz and were considered the best farmers within the Arab country. The Jews were the leading businesspersons of those industries and businesses that existed during those days in Arabia. They also enjoyed being the dominants of the armaments industry. The Arabs treated bondage as an economic organization whereby both the male slaves as well as the female slaves were bought and sold like animals hence forming the most miserable class of the entire Arabian society. Among the Arabs, the most potent class comprised of money-lenders as well as the capitalists who charged exorbitant rates of interest on loans and were specifically designed to make them more productive every day while the borrowers were made more miserable each day.
Yathrib and Makkah were both the most significant urban centers that were located in Hijaz. Makkah's citizens were mostly money-lenders, merchants, as well as traders and their caravans, traveled to Yemen in winter and to Syria in summer. The most traveled to Iraq in the northeast and to Bahrain in the east. The economy of Makkah mainly depended on the caravan trade, and its organization called for substantial ability, expertise, and experience (Ibrahim, 1982). All these factors are related to each other in such a way that it is a religion that plays a significant role in shaping the norms, values, and morals of individuals in society. This belief among the Arabs shaped different forms of behaviors and instilled specific values and standards for these individuals.
The religious elements shaped the social factors in a way that the Arabs lived the way that they did before the introduction of Islam because their morals, customs, and cultures were based on those morals instilled in the individuals through religion. It was a religion that enabled the individuals to come together and form clans and tribes by which they lived and accustomed themselves to. When people live together, they need to eat and ensure that they have preserved food for future use. In our case, as the Arabs came together to find solutions and food for their clans and tribes, there comes in the economic factors, which are as a result of the trade between the different tribes and groups among the Arabs who lived in the pre-Islamic Arabia.
References
Bamyeh, M. A. (2006). The Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia. In Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 31-48). Brill.
Ibrahim, M. (1982). Social and Economic Conditions In Per-Islamic Mecca. International Journal of Middle East Studies , 14 (3), 343-358.
Mumayiz, I. (2010). Society, religion, and poetry in pre-islamic Arabia (Vol. 1). Garant Uitgevers-Arabic Translators International (= ATI); Antwerpen.
Saleh, S. (1972). Women in Islam: Their status in religious and traditional culture. International Journal of Sociology of the Family , 35-42.
Tibbetts, G. R. (1956). Pre-Islamic Arabia and South-East Asia. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society , 29 (3 (175), 182-208.
