HIST 134PROFESSOR- PATRICK MCDONALD

In early 600s, a new religious and political force arose out of the deserts of Arabia Islam,
spearheaded by Prophet Muhammad and became quickly the way of life for the entire Arabian
Peninsula within a few years of the first revelations. By the end of the reigns of the first four
caliphs, the Islamic realm extended from Libya in the west to Persia in the east. And just in one
hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, Muslims had expanded the empire into
Spain and India. Maxime Rodinson said in article Hazrati Muhammad (holy Muhammad)
Throughout world history, no other movement has grown as fast as Islam in its first one
hundred years.
Arabia has been inhabited by innumerable tribal units, forever splitting or confederating;
its history is a kaleidoscope of shifting allegiances, although certain broad patterns may be
distinguished. A native system has evolved of moving from tribal anarchy to centralized
government and relapsing again into anarchy. The tribes have dominated the peninsula, even in
intermittent periods when the personal prestige of a leader has led briefly to some measure of
tribal cohesion.
Fayda Mustafa stated a quote in essay in bedevi from Quran, And I have not created
man and Jinn for any other purpose but to worship me.
Arabian culture is a branch of Semitic civilization; because of this and because of the
influences of sister Semitic cultures to which it has been subjected at certain epochs, it is
sometimes difficult to determine what is specifically Arabian. Because a great trade route passed
along its flanks, Arabia had contact along its borders with Egyptian, Greco-Roman, and IndoPersian civilizations. The Turkish overlords of the Arabic-speaking countries affected Arabia
relatively little, however, and the dominant culture of western Europe arrived late in the colonial
era.

Arabia was the cradle of Islam, and through this faith it influenced every Muslim people.
Islam, essentially Arabian in nature, whatever superficial external influences may have affected
it, is Arabias outstanding contribution to world civilization.
Arabian religion, beliefs of Arabia comprising the polytheistic beliefs and practices that
existed before the rise of Islm in the 7th century ad. Arabia is here understood in the broad
sense of the term to include the confines of the Syrian desert. The religion of Palmyra, which
belongs to the Aramaic sphere, is excluded from this account. The monotheistic religions that
had already spread in Arabia before the arrival of Islm are also mentioned briefly.
In the polytheistic religions of Arabia most of the gods were originally associated with
heavenly bodies, to which were ascribed powers of fecundity, protection, or revenge against
enemies. Aside from a few deities common to various populations, the pantheons show a marked
local particularism. But many religious practices were in general use. The study of these
practices is instructive in view of their similarities with those of the biblical world and also with
those of the world of Islm, for, while firmly repudiating the idolatry of the pre-Islmic period,
which it calls the Age of Ignorance , Islm has nevertheless taken over, in a refined form, some
of its practices.
Nebi Bozkurt sentenced in his article Medine ve Mekke said, We were a people of
Jahiliyyah, worshipping idols, eating the flesh of dead animals, committing abominations,
neglecting our relatives, doing evil to our neighbours and the strong among us would oppress
the weak. Before the rise of Islam, most Bedouin tribes practiced polytheism, most often in the
form of animism. The nomadic tribes of pre Islamic Arabia primary practiced polytheism, and
some tribes converted to Judaism and Christianity. Animist believe that non-human entities such
as animals, plants, and inanimate objects or phenomena, possess a spiritual essence. Totemism

and idolatry, or worship if the totems or idols representing natural phenomena, was also a
common religious practice in the pre Islamic world. The idols were housed in the Kaaba, an
ancient sanctuary in the city of Mecca. The housed about 360 idols and attracted worshippers
from all over Arabia.
Mecca is a city located in Saudi Arabia today and is the one of the holiest city of Islam.
Its a birth place of the prophet Muhammad, and only Muslims are allowed in the city. The most
sacred place in Islam is the Kaaba in Mecca. The Kaaba is a mosque constructed around black
stone. The Kaaba is believed to be the first place at which heavenly bliss and power touches the
earth directly. Each year, thousands of Muslims from around the world join in a pilgrimage to
Mecca, in fulfillment of one of the five pillars of Islam. That is why, all Muslims, wherever they
are on the earth, pray five times a day in the direction of Kaaba in Mecca.
The main god in the Arabian was Hubal, the Syrian god of the moon, who is regarded as
the most notable and chief of the gods. The three daughters of Hubal were the chief goddesses of
Meccan Arabian mythology. One of them was Al Lat, known as the mightiest one or the strong
one, she was an Arabian fertility goddess. She was called upon for protection and victory before
war. And Manat was the goddess of fate.
The most well-known monotheists were the Hebrews, although the Persians and the
Medes had also developed monotheism. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions.
Early non-arbs Semic people originated from the ancient near east, including Arameans,
Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonian, Israelites and Canaanites. Judaism grew in power in PreIslamic Arabia, and three of the ruling tribes of the city of Yahirab known as Median Were
Jewish.

After Constantine conquered Byzantium in 324 CE, Christianity spread to Arabia. The
principal tribes that embraced Christianity were Himyar, Ghassan, Rabis and the Arabs of Hira
Both Judaism and the Christianity believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for Jews the
god of the Tanakh for Christians the god of the old testament, the creator of universe The rise of
Christianity was halted in 622 by the rise of Islam, although the Mecca city provided a central
location for an intermingling of the two cultures. In addition to the animistic idols, the preIslamic Kaaba hosed statues of Jesus and his holy mother, Mary.
The sanctuaries, sometimes carved in the rock on high places, consisted of a haram, a
sacred open-air enclosure, accessible only to unarmed and ritually clean people in ritual clothes.
Zeydan Corci explained in article the history of Islamic Civilization said, There the baetyl, a
raised stone, or a statue of the god, was worshiped. The Nabataeans originally represented
their gods as baetyls on a podium, but later they gave them a human appearance.
Of the Nabataean high places that are carved from the rock, the best-known overlooks the
site of Petra. On a summit measuring roughly 215 by 65 feet are carved a large triclinium for
ritual meals, a podium with baetyls, a sacrificial altar, and a basin. The stone-built temples of the
Nabataeans and South Arabians were more elaborate structures, consisting of a rectangular
walled enclosure, near one end of which was a stone canopy or a closed cella or both, which
contained the altar for sacrifices or the idol of the god. Other rooms and a cistern might be added.
The Kabah in Mecca, which became the sacred shrine of the Muslims, has a similar structure: it
is a closed cella (which was full of idols in pre-Islmic times) in a walled enclosure, with a well.
A baetyl, the Black Stone, is inserted in the wall of the Kabah; it is veiled by a cloth cover
reminiscent of the leather cover of the Ark of the Covenant. Numerous South Arabian temples
have been surveyed. The temple of Almaqah in Mrib had an unusual shape, that of an ellipse

with a major axis about 345 feet long, with a strong wall about 28 feet high, built of fine
limestone ashlars. A small temple, in front of which were eight standing pillars, comprises a
gallery supported by pillars around a rectangular court; it served as a peristyle to the main
temple, in the wall of which it was inserted.
The priests interpreted the oracles, which, throughout Arabia, were mostly obtained by
cleromancy: the answer (positive, negative, expectative, and so on) to a question asked of the
god was obtained by drawing lots from a batch of marked arrows or sticks. Many Sabaean texts
mention the oracles, but only one inscription mentions arrows in connection with them. A bunch
of sticks possibly used for that purpose was found in 1987 in a Sabaean temple. Among the many
other forms of divination known from pre-Islamic Arabia, only oneiromancy, or divination by
means of dreams (possibly after incubation in the temple), is well attested in Sabaean texts.
Throughout pre-Islamic Arabia, truces of God allowed people to attend in security the
yearly pilgrimages to important shrines. The rites included purification and the wearing of ritual
clothing, sexual abstinence, abstention from shedding blood, and circuits performed around the
sacred object; they were concluded by the slaughter of animals, which were eaten in collective
feasts. Today such practices still form the core of the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.

Bibliography
BOZKURT, Nebi - BUYUKASCI, Mustafa Sabri, "Medine (Medina)" ve "Mekke
(Mecca)", DIA, XXVIII, Ankara 2003.
FAYDA, Mustafa, Bedevi (Bedeuin), DIA, V, Istanbul 1992.
RODINSON, Maxime, Hazreti Muhammed (Holy Muhammad), (trans. Attila Tokatli), Istanbul,
Gocebe.
ZEYDAN, Corci, Islam Uygarliklari Tarihi (The History of Islamic Civilizations) (trans. Nejdet
Gok), I, Istanbul 2004, Iletisim.