What was the Arabian peninsula like before Islam? Islam transformed the social, political and religious culture of Arabia after the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (570-632) exploded onto the scene. Prior to Islam, Arabia had a tribal structure and most Arabs believed in many different local deities. Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to this tribal culture in the centuries leading up to Prophet Muhammad's first revelation in 610 C.E.
Map of Pre-Islamic Arabia
Let's start getting our bearings by taking a look at the Arabian Peninsula in more detail. The Arabian Peninsula is located in the Near East. It is separated from north Africa by the Red Sea.
Map of the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding empires, c.600 AD. Getoryk, Wikimedia Commons.
As you can see from the map, the Arabian Peninsula was run by various tribes who controlled different regions. However, some territories in the Arabian Peninsula were under the influence of the Persian Empire. These vassal states are highlighted in orange on the map.
Vassal state
A state that is subordinate to a dominant state or empire, but which has some degree of independence.
The two dominant powers in the Near East before Islam arrived on the scene were the Persian and Byzantine Empires. The Persian Empire (shown here in yellow) was also known as the Sassanian Empire because it was run by the Sassanid dynasty. The Byzantine Empire (shown here in purple) was constantly at war with the Sassanian Empire throughout the period leading up to the rise of Islam.
Pre-Islamic Arabia Timeline
This short timeline gives an overview of some of the key moments in Arabia leading up to the foundation of the religion of Islam.
| Year | Event |
| 332 B.C.E. | Alexander the Great conquered the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. |
| 64 B.C.E. | Pompey conquered Syria, which became part of the Roman Empire. |
| 190-275 C.E. | The Abyssinians settled in Yemen. |
| 200C.E. | First evidence of Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula. |
| 230-240 C.E. | Two large Church Councils were summoned and held in the Arabian Peninsula. |
| 253-260 C.E. | The Sassanian dynasty invaded Syria and some of the Arabian Peninsula. They killed Roman Emperor Valerian I. |
| 262 C.E. | The Sassanians were expelled from Syria. |
| 476 C.E. | The Western Roman Empire definitively came to an end. The Eastern Roman Empire continued in the form of the Byzantine Empire, run from Constantinople. |
| 500 C.E. | Persecution of the Jews in Arabia began under Abyssinian forces. |
| 527 C.E. | Beginning of the Byzantine "Golden Age" under Justin I. |
| 570 C.E. | Muhammad was born in Mecca. |
| 580 C.E. | The Byzantines launched a failed attempt to capture the Sassanian capital. |
| 602-628 C.E. | The Byzantine-Sassanian War. |
| 610 C.E. | Muhammad had his first revelation of Islam from the angel Gabriel. |
| 613 C.E. | Muhammad began preaching his revelations in Mecca. |
What is the difference between AD and C.E.?
Through most of Western history, time was split into two eras - Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini 'Year of our Lord' (AD). This divided the calendar into the periods before Jesus was born (BC) and after he was born (AD).
Current scholarly conventions prefer to use terms that are neutral on religion. The modern standards used are Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE). These neutral terms are particularly important when studying Islam
History of Pre-Islamic Arabia
Pre-Islamic Arabia was not a single state governed by a single government or empire. Instead, the socio-political structure of pre-Islamic Arabia was made up of many different tribes who were constantly at war with one another.
This map shows some of the names and locations of the dominant tribes in Arabia c.600 C.E. One key tribe to look out for here is the Quraysh tribe located in Mecca (here spelled the Arabic way, Makkah).
Map Showing Names and Locations of the Major Tribes in Pre-Islamic Arabia c.600 C.E. Wikimedia Commons.
There were two main types of tribe in pre-Islamic Arabia. Let's take a look at each of these in turn.
Bedouin Tribes
Bedouin tribes were nomadic tribes, meaning that they were constantly on the move to find new places to graze their livestock. The English word 'Bedouin' means 'desert dweller', to highlight the fact that these nomadic tribes moved through the desert regions of Arabia.
Bedouin tribes mainly herded camels and goats. They also earned money by taxing trade caravans and transporting trade across the deserts.
Did you know? When the Prophet Muhammad was born, his mother sent him to a Bedouin woman to look after him for the for the first two years of his life. It was common practice for Hadari tribes to send their infants out to Bedouin tribes during their early years because it was assumed that the desert life was healthier for young children.
Hadari Tribes
Hadari tribes were sedentary tribes, meaning that they settled in towns or cities rather than moving about the region. They tended to be farmers or merchants. One of the key tribes in the early history of Islam was the Quraysh tribe. The Quraysh were fierce opponents of Muhammad.
Clans
Although any individual's identity was defined first and foremost by their tribe, every tribe was split into various clans. These clans tended to be extended families that represented powerful factions within a tribe. Clans often clashed with one another as they attempted to gain the most power within a tribe.
Did you know? Most clan names started with the term Banu, meaning 'descendents of'. This highlighted the close kinship connections between individuals within a clan.
What is the period of pre-Islamic Arabia called?
The period before the advent of Islam in Arabia became known in early Islamic tradition as Jahilyyah, which means 'chaos'. Although early Islamic scholars used this term to refer to the spiritual chaos before the Prophet Muhammad was sent by God, it is hard to escape the conclusion that pre-Islamic Arabian politics are well summed up by the word chaos! Constant tribal warfare, quickly changing alliances, epidemics and internal disputes between the clans within different tribes made for a rather messy political situation...
Mecca in Pre-Islamic Arabia
The city of Mecca was based in the region of the Hejaz, located in modern day southwest Saudi Arabia. In the century leading up to Muhammad's birth, the city became a thriving financial centre because it was based at an intersection of different trade routes across Arabia.
At the time of Muhammad, Mecca was the dominant mercantile and cultic centre of western Arabia, if not of the entire Arabian peninsula."1
- Historian Fred Donner
However, the significance of Mecca stretched far beyond its financial prosperity. For many centuries, Mecca had been a site of religious pilgrimage, drawing tribes from all over Arabia to worship various deities at the Kaaba.
The Kaaba in pre-Islamic Arabia
The Kaaba was a holy site for the Bedouin tribes in pre-Islamic Arabia. It comprised of a black cube-shaped building, inside of which were many sculptures and paintings of the various gods that the Bedouins worshipped. Once a year, the different tribes agreed to stop fighting and perform the annual pilgrimage to the Kaaba to worship and trade with one another.
Muslims worshipping at the Kaaba in Mecca. Aiman Titi, Wikimedia Commons.
When Muhammad conquered Mecca in 630, he destroyed all the sculptures of different local deities in the Kaaba and made it a site dedicated to the worship of Allah instead. Therefore, the Kaaba continued its religious significance, but now in the character of Islam rather than paganism.
Paganism
A religion which believes in many different local deities that are not worshipped by any of the major world religions. Pagan deities are often related to nature or agriculture.
Why did the once pagan Kaaba become an important site to the Islamic tradition?
There are many answers to this question, but one of the important things to note is that Muslims believed the Kaaba to have been built by the founder of monotheistic faith - Abraham (known as Ibrahim in Islam).
Muslims believe that Ibrahim and his son Ishmael built the Kaaba together as a place of worship to Allah. Therefore, by changing the function of the Kaaba from a pagan worship centre to an Islamic worship centre, Muslims believe that Muhammad was simply restoring the Kaaba to its original purpose as a site dedicated to Allah.
Pre-Islamic Arabia Religion
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia can be split into two categories.
Arabic religion. This which was the religious practice observed by the Bedouin and Hadari tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia.
Monotheistic religion: Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
Arabic Religion
Religious culture among the Arab tribes was mainly polytheistic and pagan. Let's take a closer look at some of the pagan deities worshipped in Arabia during this time.
| Deity | Key Facts |
| Hubal | Worshipped by the Quraysh tribe. A god of rain and war.Also a god of divination - worshippers would throw arrows at the feet of his statue and the direction in which the arrows fell determined what Hubal wanted the worshipper to do. |
| Al-Lat | One of the three main goddesses pre-Islam.A daughter of the creator, Allah.Worshipped mainly in northern Arabia and Yemen. Goddess of good weather and protection. |
| Al-Uzzah | Another of the three main goddesses pre-Islam. Worshipped by the Quraysh tribe. Goddess of war and healing. |
| Manat | The last of the three main goddesses pre-Islam. Goddess of fate and destinies. Thought to watch over graves. |
Monotheistic Religions
Prior to the rise of Islam in Arabia, there were three major monotheistic religions in the area. These were Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
Judaism
There was a long history of Judaism in Arabia - it was in this region that Semitic culture and religion was first born. After the Romans' destruction of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem in 70 C.E, many Jews migrated to the Arabian Peninsula and settled there.2
Scholar Josef Horowitz argues that in some areas, Jews mingled with the polytheistic Arabs so frequently that the two groups had much more in common that you might think.
The Jews of the Hijaz, although distinguished from the Arabs through their religion...had become arabicised to such an extent that their poetry shows hardly anything that could be characterised as specifically Jewish." 3
- Josef Horowitz.
Christianity
The religion of Christianity was born after the death and alleged resurrection of a prophet named Jesus in Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman Empire. It was originally a Jewish sect, but quickly became distinct from its Jewish roots.
Resurrection
The Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead.
Early Christianity was formed in the Arabian region - one of the first Christian missionaries, St Paul, was converted in the Syrian city of Damascus. Two of the first Church Councils, where the different leaders of the early Church came together, were held in the Arabian Peninsula.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism was a monotheistic religion which arose in the Iranian region of the Near East. This religion was founded on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster, who believed that the universe was divided into good and evil forces. The Sassanid dynasty promoted the Zoroastrian religion in their territories.
Pre-Islamic Arabia - Key takeaways
- Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabian peninsula in the centuries leading up to the Prophet Muhammad's first revelation in 610 C.E.
- The socio-political structure of pre-Islamic Arabia was made up of different tribes who were constantly at war.
- The two main types of tribes in pre-Islamic Arabia were Bedouin (nomadic) tribes and Hadari (settled) tribes.
- Mecca was the financial and cultural centre of western Arabia, and possibly of the whole Arabian peninsula at the time of Muhammad's birth.
- Most Arab tribes had a polytheistic, pagan religious culture. However, monotheism did exist in pre-Islamic Arabia, primarily through Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian communities.
References
- Fred McGraw Donner, 'Mecca's food supplies and Muhammad's boycott', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, (1977), p.249.
- Josef Horowitz, 'Judaeo-Arabic Relations in Pre-Islamic Times', Islamic Studies 52, (2013), pp.357-379.
- Josef Horowitz, 'Judaeo-Arabic Relations in Pre-Islamic Times', Islamic Studies 52, (2013), p.382.
Explanations 
Exams 
Magazine 
