Islam

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Islam

• Origins

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Origins overview

• Pre-Islamic Arabia as the cultural and historical
  context for the development of Islam
• The Prophet Muhammad
• The development of Islam under the leadership of
  the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs

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Pre-Islamic Arabia
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The harsh climate

• of the Arabian peninsula,
• combined with a desert and mountain terrain,
• limited agriculture and rendered the interior
  regions difficult to access.

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Arabian society and religion

• Refected the tribal realities of the Peninsula.
• Bedouin tribes travelled from one area to another
  in search of water and pasture for their flocks
  of sheep and camels

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Bedouin

• Is the term for the nomadic Arabs of the desert
• Principal sources of livelihood were herding,
  trade and raiding

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Intertribal warfare

• Was a long established activity
• However it was governed by clear guidelines and
  rules
• For example raiding was illegal during the four
  sacred months of pilgrimage

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The population subsisted

• on a combination of oasis gardening and herding,
  with some portion of the population being nomadic
  or seminomadic.

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Social organisation

• and identity for peoples of Arabia were based on
  membership in an extended family.

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Social organisation

• A tribe, consisting of a cluster of several clans
  (groupings of several related families)
• was led by a shaykh (chief) who was selected by
  consensus of heads of leading clans or families

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Social organisation

• These elders formed an advisory council,
• within which the shaykh exercised his leadership
  and authority as the first among equals.

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Arabia - location
Asia to the north-east
Europe to the north-west
Africa to the west
Indian sub-continent to the East
Crossroads of the known world
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Location of Arabia
Arabian Peninsula
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Desert
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Since they lived in

• such a harsh environment
• the people of Arabia needed to trade with their
  wealth neighbours

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Neighbouring regions of Arabia
Tigris River
Mediterranean Sea
Euphrates River
Dead Sea
Nile River
Arabian Peninsula
Red Sea
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And the fertile crescent linked Arabia with the
rest of the world
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The people of Arabia

• were well-positioned to profit from trade with
  the surrounding regions
• the exports of frankincense and myrrh brought
  wealth to the area

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The camel was the only animal

• that could cross large tracts of barren land with
  any reliability.
• The increased trans-Arabian trade led to the rise
  of cities that could service the trains of camels
  moving across the desert.

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The most prosperous cities

• were relatively close to markets in the
  Mediterranean region,
• but small caravan cities developed within the
  Arabian Peninsula as well.

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The most important city within the peninsula

• was Makkah (Mecca), which also owed its
  prosperity to certain shrines in the area visited
  by Arabs from all over the peninsula.

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In the long term

• it was the ideas and people that travelled with
  the camel caravans that were the most important
  aspect of trade with the rest of the world.

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Arabia pre-Islamic trade routes
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Present day Arabia
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Pre-Islamic Arabia
In the sixth century AD, north of the Arabian
Peninsula two great powers were locked in a
seesaw power struggle.
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The Christian Byzantine kingdom

• successors of the Roman Empire was to the
  Northwest and controlled the Mediterranean Sea,
  North Africa and the lands of Palestine.

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In the northeast

• lay the Zoroastrian Persian kingdom.
• Both the Byzantine and Persian kingdoms had
  client Arab tribes allied to their cause of trade
  and conquest.

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The Arabian Peninsula

• became a land of refuge for those seeking escape
  from both of these empires.
• Heretic Christian sects like the
  Nestorians, and Jewish tribes
  escaping the oppressive
  Byzantines found refuge in the protective deserts
  and cities of the Peninsula.

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The religion of Arabia

• Reflected its tribal
  nature and social
  structures.
• Each city had gods and goddess.

• Some Arabs held religious beliefs that
  recognized a number of gods as well as a number
  of rituals for worshiping them.

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Gods and goddesses

• Served as protectors of individual tribes,
• And their spirits were associated with sacred
  objects
• Trees, stones, springs and wells.

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The most important beliefs

• involved the sense that certain places and times
  of year were sacred and must be respected.
• At those times and in those places, warfare, in
  particular, was forbidden, and various rituals
  were required.
• Foremost of these was the pilgrimage, and the
  best known pilgrimage site was Makkah.

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Once a year

• the tribes and cities of Arabia would meet in the
  city of Mecca during an event known as the Hajj.
• In Mecca, the Kaba (Cube), a large cube shaped
  building housed 360 idols from all the tribes of
  Arabia.
• The Kaba was the
  centre of Arabian religious
  life.

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Here all the warring tribes

• would put aside their differences as they circled
  the Kaba.
• From the Kaba they would proceed to the other
  shrines outside of Mecca during this five day
  religious event.

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The Hajj

• was a tradition that Arabs of the peninsula
  remembered going back hundreds of years.

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While these deities

• were primary objects of worship,
• beyond this tribal polytheism was a shared belief
  in Allah.
• Allah, the supreme high god
• Was the creator and sustainer of life,
• But remote from everyday concerns and so was not
  the object of cult or ritual

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The value system

• Or ethical code of Arabia was based firmly in the
  tribal experience.
• The preservation of tribal and family order was
  most important.
• With this came fatalism that saw no meaning
  beyond this life.

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Justice was guaranteed

• and administered by the threat of group
  vengeance.
• Arabian religion had little sense of a universal
  moral purpose or an individual or communal
  responsibility.