The pre Islamic world
Before the rise
of Islam life was undergoing deteriorated and fallen state that overcame the
entire human world. Corruption dominated the political, economic, social and
religious life. The world went deep in darkness when arrogant ignorance ruled
the world to drown the world in rough sea of superstitions and delusions that
were only led by desires and avarice. People thus deified stones, sun, moon,
fire and even animals. They also became divided; masters and slaves, and
consumed the property of orphans, severed ties of kinship, built their life on
murder, plunder, and pillage. They boasted of committing vicious crimes, as
there was no law to rule but that of the jungle; the strong trod on and
destroyed the weak; the rich enslaved the poor; and they all lived in darkness
with no way out or guidance. Bloodshed, murder, tyranny, and oppression
prevailed all over the world. In fact, humanity had been put on the verge of
the abyss of total destruction!
ARABIA DURING THE DARK
PRE-ISLAMIC TIMES
Arabia,
which has been called `the burnt land', was then a strange place. A collection
of red-hot deserts, valleys, and sand hills was called `Arabia'. There was
hardly any water or plant life in it.
It would
have been a mistake to name the people's dwellings `houses'. They were rather
catacombs in which living beings named `human beings' fidgeted and lived
miserably on dates and stinking water! Tribal fights and disputes formed the
basic principle of the Arabian social system. Makkah was no more than an
idol-temple. Its inhabitants included traders and usurers who even exchanged
human life for money.
The
people of the Arabian Peninsula suffered from their tribal and pastoral life in
the deserts, coupled with blood-thirsty feudalism. The economic crisis
resulting from the exploitation of the people by the ruling class and by bands
of usurers had robbed human life of its meaning and darkened the horizon of
social well-being.
The
wealthy usurers who engaged in trade in Makkah had amassed enormous amounts of
wealth by illegitimate means and exploited the weak and poor classes of
society. In fact, they increasingly exacerbated anti-human social class
differences through usury and oppressive exploitation.
Due to
their ignorance, the Arab tribes in those days generally engaged in worshipping
natural phenomena and in idolatry. The House of God, the Ka'aba, was used as
the idol-temple of the Arabs. [1]
Any one
of the indecent, degrading social and moral customs in Arabia at that time was
enough to destroy the honour of a whole nation. Before Islam, the anti-human
deviations of the Arabs had created a situation whereby the fruit was crime and
corruption, the nourishment was corpses, the motto was fear and dread, and the
logic was the sword.
The Arabs
wrongly believed that only those were superior who descended from the Arab race
and had Arab blood! As a matter of fact, the twentieth-century form of
nationalism and racism was quite prevalent among the Arabs during the first
pagan period. [2]
In
addition, the Arabs vainly gloried in their wealth and the number of their
children. Each tribe having wealth and a large number of offspring prided
itself on them and considered them to be among its crowning achievements.
Plunder,
robbery, savagery, aggression, and treachery were their obvious
characteristics, and genocide was considered a sign of bravery and courage. As
the Arabs before the time of Muhammad (peace and the mercy of God be upon him
and his descendants) believed the birth of a daughter to be harmful or were
either afraid of poverty and destitution, they either killed their innocent
daughters or buried them alive. If a man was given the news that his wife had
borne a baby daughter, his face would become red with rage. He would then
seclude himself plotting what to do with his newborn daughter! Should he bear
the shame and disdain and take care of her or should he bury her alive and
banish the disgrace and disdain from himself because in some cases even the
existence of one daughter in a family was considered shameful.
`And
they ascribe daughters to God, glory be to Him, and for themselves (they would
have) what they desire. And when a daughter is announced to one of them, his
face becomes black and he is full of wrath. He hides himself from the people
because of the evil of that which is announced to him. Shall he keep it with
disgrace or bury it (alive) in the dust? Now surely evil is what they judge' (16:58-59).
`And
do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and
yourselves (too); surely to kill them is a great wrong' (17:31).
In the Nahj ul-Balaghah, Imam 'Ali has described the social
conditions of the Arabs in the following way,'... And you Arabs were at that
time followers of the worst beliefs and lived in a land of burning deserts. You
lived on the stony ground amidst poisonous snakes that fled no voice or sounds.
You drank polluted water, ate rough, unwholesome foods, shed each other's
blood, and removed yourselves from your relatives. Idols had been set all
around you and you did not avoid sins...'.[3]
Thus the
Arabs lived in a filthy, depraved environment and as a result of misdirection
and immaturity, had turned into brutal, plundering, and seditious people. Like
most people of that time, they had adopted superstitious, illusive myths, and
false notions as `religion'. [4]
It goes
without saying that for a basic reformation of such a society, a fundamental,
comprehensive, and all-embracing revolution was quite necessary. However, the
leader of such a vital movement and revolution had to be a divine man sent down
by God so he would be and would remain devoid of tyranny, and any aggressive,
selfish tendencies, and would not destroy his enemies for his own selfish
interests, under the pretext of purification, but would try to reform and rectify
them, working solely for God's sake, for the people's welfare, and for the
improvement of human societies.
There is
no doubt that a leader who is himself immoral, unscrupulous, and without
praise-worthy human characteristics is unable to rectify human societies and
save the people. It is only divine leaders who, inspired by Almighty God, are
able to make profound basic transformations in all phases of the people's
individual and social life.
Now we
must try to understand what kind of person such a leader of the worldwide
revolution was and what changes he made in the world.
Political Conditions
in Arabia
The most remarkable
feature of the political life of Arabia before Islam was the total absence of
political organization in any form. With the exception of Yemen in the
south-west, no part of the Arabian peninsula had any government at any time,
and the Arabs never acknowledged any authority other than the authority of the
chiefs of their tribes. The authority of the tribal chiefs, however, rested, in
most cases, on their character and personality, and was moral rather than
political.
The modern student of
history finds it incredible that the Arabs lived, generation after generation,
century after century, without a government of any kind. Since there was no
government, there was no law and no order. The only law of the land was
lawlessness. In the event a crime was committed, the injured party took law in
its own hands, and tried to administer "justice" to the offender.
This system led very frequently to acts of horrendous cruelty.
If the Arab ever
exercised any modicum of restraint, it was not because of any susceptibility he
had to questions of right or wrong but because of the fear of provoking
reprisals and vendetta. Vendetta consumed whole generations of Arabs. Since
there were no such things as police, courts or judges, the only protection a
man could find from his enemies, was in his own tribe. The tribe had an
obligation to protect its members even if they had committed crimes. Tribalism
or ‘asabiyya (the clan
spirit) took precedence over ethics. A tribe that failed to protect its members
from their enemies, exposed itself to ridicule, obloquy and contempt. Ethics,
of course, did not enter the picture anywhere.
Since Arabia did not have
a government, and since the Arabs were anarchists by instinct, they were locked
up in ceaseless warfare. War was a permanent institution of the Arabian
society. The desert could support only a limited number of people, and the
state of inter-tribal war maintained a rigid control over the growth of
population. But the Arabs themselves did not see war in this light. To them,
war was a pastime or rather a dangerous sport, or a species of tribal drama,
waged by professionals, according to old and gallant codes, while the "audience"
cheered. Eternal peace held no appeal for them, and war provided an escape from
drudgery and from the monotony of life in the desert. They, therefore, courted
the excitement of the clash of arms. War gave them an opportunity to display
their skills at archery, fencing and horsemanship, and also, in war, they could
distinguish themselves by their heroism and at the same time win glory and
honor for their tribes. In many cases, the Arabs fought for the sake of
fighting, whether or not there was a cause belli.
Economic
Conditions
Economically, the Jews
were the leaders of Arabia. They were the owners of the best arable lands in
Hijaz, and they were the best farmers in the country. They were also the
entrepreneurs of such industries as existed in Arabia in those days, and they
enjoyed a monopoly of the armaments industry.
Slavery was an economic
institution of the Arabs. Male and female slaves were sold and bought like
animals, and they formed the most depressed class of the Arabian society.
The most powerful class
of the Arabs was made up by the capitalists and money-lenders. The rates of
interest which they charged on loans were exorbitant, and were especially
designed to make them richer and richer, and the borrowers poorer and poorer.
The most important urban
centers of Arabia were Makkah and Yathrib, both in Hijaz. The citizens of
Makkah were mostly merchants, traders and money-lenders. Their caravans
traveled in summer to Syria and in winter to Yemen. They also traveled to
Bahrain in the east and to Iraq in the northeast. The caravan trade was basic
to the economy of Makkah, and its organization called for considerable skill,
experience and ability.
Social
Conditions
Arabia was a
male-dominated society. Women had no status of any kind other than as sex
objects.The number of women a man could marry was not fixed. When a man died,
his son "inherited" all his wives except his own mother. A savage
custom of the Arabs was to bury their female infants alive. Even if an Arab did
not wish to bury his daughter alive, he still had to uphold this
"honorable" tradition, being unable to resist social pressures.
Drunkenness was a common
vice of the Arabs. With drunkenness went their gambling. They were compulsive
drinkers and compulsive gamblers. The relations of the sexes were extremely
loose. Many women sold sex to make their living since there was little else
they could do. These women flew flags on their houses, and were called
"ladies of the flags" (dhat-er-rayyat).
Sayyid Qutb of Egypt in
his book, Milestones,
published by the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations,
Salimiah, Kuwait in 1978 (pp. 48, 49), has quoted the famous traditionalist,
Imam Bukhari, on the institution of marriage in Arabia before Islam as follows:
The Shihab (az-Suhri)
said: 'Urwah b. az-Zubayr informed him that Aishah, the wife of the Prophet
(God bless and preserve him), informed him that marriage in the Jahiliyah was
of four types:
1. One was the marriage of people as it is today, where a man
betroths his ward or his daughter to another man, and the latter assigns a
dower (bridewealth) to her and then marries her.
2. Another type was where a man said to his wife when she was
purified from her menses, ‘Send to N and ask to have intercourse with him;' her
husband then stays away from her and does not touch her at all until it is
clear that she is pregnant from that (other) man with whom she sought
intercourse. When it is clear that she is pregnant, her husband has intercourse
with her if he wants. He acts thus simply from the desire for a noble child.
This type of marriage was (known as) nikah al-istibda, the marriage of seeking
intercourse.
3. Another type was when a group (raht) of less than ten men
used to visit the same woman and all of them had to have intercourse with her.
If she became pregnant and bore a child, when some nights had passed after the
birth she sent for them, and not a man of them might refuse. When they had come
together in her presence, she would say to them, ‘You (pl.) know the result of
your acts; I have borne a child and he is your (sing.) child, N.' – naming
whoever she will by his name. Her child is attached to him, and the man may not
refuse.
4. The fourth type is when many men frequent a woman, and she
does not keep herself from any who comes to her. These women are the baghaya
(prostitutes). They used to set up at their doors banners forming a sign.
Whoever wanted them went in to them. If one of them conceived and bore a child,
they gathered together to her and summoned the physiognomists. Then they
attached her child to the man whom they thought (the father), and the child
remained attached to him and was called his son, no objection to this course
being possible. When Muhammad (God bless and preserve him) came preaching the
truth, he destroyed all the types of marriage of the Jahiliya except that which
people practice today.
Education Among the
Arabs Before Islam
Among the Arabs there
were extremely few individuals who could read and write. Most of them were not
very eager to learn these arts. Some historians are of the opinion that the
culture of the period was almost entirely oral. The Jews and the Christians
were the custodians of such knowledge as Arabia had. The greatest intellectual
accomplishment of the pagan Arabs was their poetry. They claimed that God had
bestowed the most remarkable qualities of the head upon the Greeks (its proof
is their science and philosophy); of hand upon the Chinese (its proof is their
craftsmanship); and of the tongue upon the Arabs (its proof is their eloquence).
Their greatest pride, both before and after Islam, was their eloquence and
poetry.
[1]. See
the Nahj ul-Balaghah of Khui, Vol. 2, p.173; History of World Religions
(Persian translation), p.479.
[3]. Nahj ul-Balaghah,
the first part printed in Damascus, p.66; Fiyd ul-Islam, Vol. 1, p.83, the 26th
sermon.
Rome and Iran:
Before Islam, the world was
dominated by two warring superpowers, the Roman and Persian Empires.Rome was
renowned for its sophisticated system of government, architecture and
unparalleled feats of engineering such as extensive road and sewer networks.
The Romans had conquered a large part of the known world, and had well
established trade links with places as far afield as Africa and China Latin,
the official language of Rome, became so widely used that up until only 100
years ago virtually
all scholars were required to have
knowledge of it. The Sassanid (Persian) Empire was the other main superpower in
the pre-Islamic world, and was known as the ‘cradle of civilisation’ at this
time. Similar to the Roman Empire, the Sassanid Empire was vast, enjoyed
substantial wealth, and was known for excellence in the fields of literature
and art. The Empires of Rome and Iran
were similar; both were comprised of very large areas of land, inhabited by
various peoples with a clear governmental structure overlying the entire area.
The Sassanid Empire was ruled mainly by one man – the king – who could only be
influenced by the clergy. This meant that the success or failure of the entire
government depended on the strengths or weaknesses of the king, and of the
motives of the clergymen who could manipulate him: the general public had
absolutely no say. This aggravated the differences between the working and
upper classes, with the laws set up to benefit those who made them, and the
rights of ownership and education restricted to the aristocrats. This reached a
peak, until just before the advent of Islam the Sassanid
government was a chaos of princes
and nobles fighting for power, with coup d'etat staged in it fourteen times
during a period of only four years. The power lay entirely in the hands of the
upper classes who lived in luxury, while the craftsmen and common people were
denied basic rights and taxed to fund the extravagant lifestyles of the rulers
.
The government in Rome was a
little better; although ultimately the Emperor wielded the power, the presence
of the Senate allowed him to seek advice from nobles and scholars. The purpose
of the Senate was to represent the will of the people and give advice that
would benefit Rome, pushing the governmental structure more from that of a
dictatorship to a democracy, despite the lack of an official public vote. This
afforded a stability to the Roman system of government that the Sassanid Empire
lacked, with the laws set up more to benefit the law-abiding majority and not
just the rich and influential. However, when Christianity became the state
religion of Rome the Church gained power and influence, and started pushing its
opposition hard. Rome was a large empire, comprised of many
political and religious groups,
which faced oppression when their opinions clashed with those of the state. The
population became divided both within and outside the church, pushing Rome to
the brink of civil war as the various groups fought for power, or attempted to
take advantage of the chaos and topple the existing government.
Religion in the World:
By far the largest detriment to
society in Rome, Iran and Arabia was the effect of the religious and moral
ideas present at the time. In the Roman Empire, religion was originally adopted
from ancient Greece and beyond, and developed into a bizarre mythology centred
around figures who were as fallible and selfish as any human but had superhuman
powers. Later on, the Roman state adopted Christianity, but this didn’t really
change the moral structure of society since it had been already defined by the
pagan practices before it. In fact, instead of Christianity improving the pagan
religious views held by the population, the ideas of Christianity became
polluted with concepts like the trinity, which had filtered through from the
previous faith. When Rome first adopted Christianity, the Emperor chose the
four gospels of the Bible that most appealed to him from around 300 books and
burnt the rest, effectively editing the religion to make it more suitable to
the tastes of Rome. In other words the church had been drawn away from the
original faith, becoming polluted and losing a large part of its ideology, and
worse, violently oppressing those that stood against it, leaving the people
without religious guidance or even the freedom to seek it.
The Sassanid Empire was in a
slightly different situation to Rome; a Zoroastrian priest initially
founded it. Zoroastrianism,
considered by many to have once been a revealed religion, was supposed to have
been a beautiful, simple faith with logical beliefs. However, the position of
the clergy in founding the empire and their influence upon rulers led them to
deviate from the faith, most notably with the introduction of fire-worship.
Over time the religion was altered and edited, just as Christianity was in
Rome, to suit the purposes of the priests and nobles, who neglected the
spiritual and instead looked for material wealth. In this way the Sassanid Empire’s state
religion, as with Rome, had ceased to be a source of religious guidance to the people,
who had become spiritually stranded as various groups fought over power or
money.
Religion in Arabia was defined by
the historical and spiritual influence of Hijaz. The most highly
populated city in Hijaz was Mecca,
founded centuries earlier by the Prophet Abraham (as) who built the Ka’bah and
brought a pure and monotheistic faith to the region. Over time, as with faith
in the Sassanid Empire, this pure religion was lost with the introduction of
idols - first as intercessors then later as deities to be worshipped - until
the Ka’bah had become filled by them and there were more than enough for one
for each day of the year. The morals and collective intellect of the Arabs was
overshadowed by the meaningless superstitious rituals in their religion - in
which animals were tortured and mutilated, and people were humiliated to the
extent that they would wear dirty rags and bones, or even bray like a donkey
before entering a village to repel ‘evil spirits’. These pointless practices
only served to stamp out the spirit of logic and reason within the people,
depriving them of any mental development, and confining them to the prison of
ignorance. In Hijaz there was no system of law in place, and no government like
Rome had, so the deterioration in morality seemed to have a greater effect. The
decay was so strong that all kinds of awful rituals worked their way into
common practice, such as the killing of baby girls at birth, and the treatment
of women like possessions, or cattle to be abused and inherited against their
will. Matters worsened until bloodshed, murder and pillage were considered
worthy of praise. The good traits
possessed by the preIslamic Arabs such as generosity, devotion, eloquence,
sharp memory and bravery were brought to nothing before the overwhelming
ignorance and immorality that ruled in their society.
By Dr.Faizan Ahmed Azizi
