Arabia and its Neighbourhood in Muhammad's time

This is mainly a post on the significance of politics, social forms, culture and religion in the region in the time of Muhammad for our story.

As Muhammad was being born, the fates of two Empires to the north of Arabia were being decided by wars between them. They were the Persian Empire and Byzantium or the Eastern Roman Empire. The weakening of these empires by their wars was significant for the later military success of Islam.

Arabia was largely beyond the direct ambitions of either of the powers to the north. Nevertheless, they and their African allies attempted to exercise influence on Arabia as a trading and ideological/geopolitical asset. The Nabataeans of Petra who had originated in Yemen attempted for some time to exercise their influence to their south in the northern Hijaz town of Dedan and in other direction but the Romans had defeated that civilisation much earlier in the Common Era leaving Palmyra to the north of Petra independent for a short period. The Arab kingdom centred on Edessa was proud to have produced the first king to convert to Christianity (in the 1^st century). The Arab civilisation centred on Hatra allied itself more with Persia. Hira’s Arab rulers also preferred to deal with Persia as they amassed support in the interior of Arabia. The Kindah rulers of Yemen and the Ghassanid rulers of southern Syria swayed as necessary to maintain some independence.

While both Empires preferred monotheism (the Persians Zoroastrianism from the 3^rd Century CE and Byzantium Christianity from the 4^th Century CE) and the Arab rulers aimed to please their patrons for the time being, many of the people of the Arabian kingdoms continued to practice polytheism along with the monotheistic religions of the Empires and Judaism. Deities included the sun, the moon and stars and agriculture and weather Gods and Goddesses.

Al-Lat (mentioned by Herodotus) was one of the three Goddesses worshipped widely including at Mecca, at-Taif, Hatra, Petra and Palmyra.

Marriage customs varied between regions and polygyny (along with isolated cases of polyandry) were a reasonably common feature of social life on the Peninsula. Women were generally regarded as inferior and the property of their male ‘guardian’, as were children.

The major pre-Islamic art form unique to the Arabs was predominantly a Bedouin desert art: Arabic pre-Islamic poetry. It was generally meant to be sung and accompanied by instruments. There was little writing or literacy at the time these lyrical poems were composed and so poetry was handed down orally between the generations and perhaps refined and/or embellished from generation to generation until modern times. Genealogies were passed down in a similar way and were also prized by the Bedouins. Some of the poets were women whose speciality was often elegy (praise of a dead person).

The Ka’ba in Mecca, which is now the geographical focus of all Islamic prayer, contained hangings of at least seven noted long pre-Islamic poems (called the “mu’allaqāt” or “hangings”) written in gold leaf on calf-skin parchment before the time of Muhammad. Towns like Mecca held poetry contests probably open to all the Arab tribes of which the mu’allaqāt were likely the winners and Mecca’s was a major contest on the Peninsula. Arab high school children continue to learn a few of these poems in modern times.

The poetry had many uses but it was predominantly art, expressing the feelings of the poet and each poem tended to concern several themes rather than being focused on one (themes such as love, ego, eulogy, reconciliation, social criticism, political comedy, the meaning and arbitrariness of human life and death, loss, longing, hunting, justice, the past, wine and journeys through the harsh region). These works of poetry (and the poets) were dynamic and identified with the plight of the poor and the poets often lived their ideals by acting to right poverty or reconcile tribes at war. The Arabic word for poet (sha’ir) means literally “one who has deep feelings”. Muhammad was significantly thought by some of his earliest opponents to be a mere poet rather than a prophet.

Such was the world of 7th Century central Arabia. Open to many religions, trade, discussion of questions of justice and art but dominated by global geopolitical interests and not much more than a lawless land with some settlements (often with religious significance and therefore used as a place of sanctuary from their lawless surroundings) but dominated by itinerant tribes (I may discuss this further in a later post). The generally accepted rules of religious sanctuaries thus exerted a peaceful influence and therefore became useful places for these tribes to safely negotiate, stage caravans and trade.

Arabia in the beginning

The Arab language and Islam as we know it today both began in the Arabian Peninsula. So what did the Greeks know about this area before both spread far from it? Herodotus and Pliny knew of what was called Arabia Felix in Latin (beautiful or fertile/productive Arabia) - a place now occupied by the southern Arabian states of Yemen and Oman. This southern Arabian area experienced high rainfall (it still does) and significant civilisation, using a language and script related to the Arabic used further north, well before the time of Muhammad (indeed well before the Common Era there were significant civilisations there). Frankincense and Myrrh were grown there. Dates and coffee were endemic there and/or nearby. Pearls were also dived for off the southern and eastern seaboards of Arabia (up to around Bahrain in the East) from early times. Arabia was also situated on major sea routes (and land routes) linking great trading civilisations from China, South East Asia and India to Africa, Babylon, Persia and the Mediterranean.

Arabia was thought of as being something of an island bordered by the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Jordan River, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf, hence the news network Al Jazeera (the island).

Arabs well knew how to navigate about this island (pictured above) and beyond. They had occupied the Sinai and Eastern desert regions of Egypt as well as northern Iraq (also called by them al-Jazeera) and Syria and southern Turkey since before the time of Muhammad.

The Bab al-Mandab strait that separates Yemen from Djibouti has a width of about 30 kilometres and it is also dissected by islands thus permitting communion between Arabian and African flora and fauna (including humans) for millennia.

Arabia figures significantly in the culture of the region. There are traditions that both the Apostles (albeit briefly on the day of Pentecost as they spoke in many ‘tongues’) and Cleopatra spoke Arabic.

All in all, Arabia was well placed, once sea routes and land routes (after the Arabs domesticated the camel) became relatively easy, to participate centrally (certainly geographically) in the major Old world trading system and the traders also brought their ideas (and religious beliefs) to Arabia.

Makkah (Mecca), at-Taif, Yathrib (which became Medina) all in the Hijaz (and the Hijaz generally) were the most immediate settings of early Islam so here's a brief overview of this specific part of the Arabian Peninsula:

The Western seaboard of the Arabian Peninsula was watered by rivers, springs and rain which permitted a degree of fertility and trade routes naturally therefore passed through it, of all possibilities in the otherwise somewhat desiccated central part of Arabia, given the position of Arabia on the larger trade routes mentioned above. The name al-Hijaz (the barrier) refers also to the mountain range in western Arabia that somewhat separates the Hijaz region from the rest of Arabia (and prevents rain-laden clouds penetrating to the interior of the Peninsula).

Petra is in this mountain range further north and it also extends south to Yemen where it becomes a more formidable barrier certainly in terms of height. It includes Dedan (north of Medina) - an early major town of the region mentioned in Ezekiel 38:13, Sheba to the south in modern day Yemen and Tarshish (believed to be Tarsus in southern Asia Minor to the north).

The Arabian Peninsula contained settled areas but also the shifting homes of the domesticators of the camel vital for the caravan trade that passed through the Hijaz, the Bedouin tribes.

Mecca, where Muhammad spent much of his youth, was not a typical oasis town of the west of Arabia as it was in a mountainous setting but it possessed a powerful spring with a tradition of being miraculous and traditionally associated with the family of Abraham. By Muhammad’s (the alleged final Prophet of Islam’s) time it was therefore a thriving commercial town, pilgrimage centre and caravan hub under the protection of and in compliant awe of its Gods. I will write more about its religions in later posts.