Religion in Pre-Islamic Arabia

when we look at a religion and its development from a historical and scholarly perspective rather than through a theological or apologetic lens one of the most important aspects to keep in mind is the historical context in which the religion emerges this is of course also true for the religion of islam the prophet muhammad on whom the islamic religion is based basically lived and preached in western arabia in the 7th century so what was the historical social religious and intellectual context and environment that led to this massive event or in more general terms what was the religious landscape like in pre-islamic arabia the classic or common narrative is pretty straightforward and simple the arabs were polytheistic pagans who worshipped many different gods before the arrival of islam after which everyone basically became monotheistic muslims the main source or sources that have been used both historically and mostly today also in describing pre-islamic arabia has actually been on the one part the seerah literature or the biography literature of the prophet muhammad written by muslim authors a few centuries after his life furthermore perhaps the most important source that we have is the text called kitab al-asnam or the book of idols written by hashem eben alkelby in the 9th century for obvious reasons these sources are very problematic in several ways they were of course written with a specific purpose in mind to legitimize the islamic monotheistic tradition as triumphant or with the backwardness of the pre-islamic arabs in the words of the scholar ahmed al-jalad paganism was an established trope used to bring into sharp relief the distinction between islamic practice and what came before it goes without saying that these accounts are biased and polemical in nature and that the people that are actually talked about the people who actually practiced the polytheistic religions of pre-islamic arabia get to have no say in telling the story about their own religious tradition that isn't to say that everything that abner kelby or the cedar biographers write is inaccurate far from it actually a lot of the information that a person like ibn khabib gives us is actually often confirmed by the archaeological evidence and it's still a very good source to use but to get a picture that is more balanced nuanced and historically accurate we need to look elsewhere luckily for us the last few years has seen an absolute explosion of activity when it comes to scholarship on ancient arabia archaeological excavations and expeditions are continuously conducted in northern arabia and and other places as well as by amateur archaeologists across the arabian peninsula that are turning up some absolutely revolutionary findings for example many rock inscriptions from the ancient arabs give us first-hand accounts of the culture and tradition and religion of this sort of lost culture and once we start to look at the new scholarly and archaeological findings a picture emerges that is a lot more complicated than the simple classical narrative that i presented at the beginning so with the latest scholarly research in mind let's take a look at the fascinating world of religion in pre-islamic arabia [Applause] [Music] late antiquity was a very vibrant period and arabia was not isolated from the major historical events and happenings of the time indeed scholars realize more and more just how much arabia and the arabs participated in the wider culture of the middle east being a major part of trade routes and often being vassals to great empires now talking about pre-islamic arabia gives us pretty enormous spans of time in which things could of course differ and change a lot but we're going to focus mainly on the period very shortly before the prophet muhammad on the eve of islam as it is sometimes called the middle east at this time was dominated by two major empires the byzantine or eastern roman empire and the sassanian persian empire arabia being basically sandwiched in between the two the byzantine empire at this time were christians and the sasanian persians generally followed the zoroastrian religion an important aspect to remember is that the arabs quote unquote were not a unified and homogenous group of people at this time arabia consisted of a number of different tribes and clans whose affiliations and traditions could differ for example at this time were the lachmids of north eastern arabia who allied themselves with the sasanian empire and were primarily polytheistic on the other hand there were the razonids of northwestern arabia who functioned as a client state to the byzantine empire and who were mostly christians so already we can see a diversity here and things get even more complicated in general looking at the various archaeological evidence that we have like rock inscriptions for example we can conclude that most of the inhabitants of the arabian peninsula historically did follow a kind of polytheism or paganism the details of this religious tradition is quite obscure and unknown but we do know a few things the ancient arabs worshiped a number of different deities and gods some of these gods were associated with a specific place or with a specific tribe and so on there were also sanctuaries for different deities located all around arabia which worshippers could visit many of these deities also seem to have representations of natural phenomena or abstract concepts one example is the god shems which literally means sun the historian robert j hoyland writes quote loosely of course the gods represented those forces that were important to the lives of their devotees but beyond their control rain fertility health love death and so on by seeking the favor of the gods typically making some votive gift one might thereby influence these forces we also have many other famous deities including allat a goddess or fertility probably similar to and possibly even linked with aphrodite of the greek pantheon and the ishtar of mesopotamian mythology a lot is one of the deities that are mentioned the most in all of the rock carvings that have been found and clearly played a major role for the ancient arabs she is also one of the three goddesses that are actually mentioned in the quran itself alongside manat and al-uzza although recent scholarships suggest that the latter may have been identical to a lot and simply been a kind of title for this goddess another central deity appears to have been rudow associated with the moon and sometimes considered the father of allah rudow was a powerful god who was particularly associated with the region of chaldea in southern mesopotamia we also have baal-sami more simply baal a deity of rain and storm whose name we recognize from the canaanite religion as depicted in the bible in any case these are just a few examples of the many different gods that the arabs would worship as hoyland suggested these gods could be invoked for many different reasons most commonly probably mundane things like good health or to help with various troubles in life take for example rock inscriptions such as these quotes help ib with that which he desires or o allat daughter of rudow deliver so and so from the year of war indeed most of the rock carvings from ancient arabia contains prayers like this prayers asking the gods for protection or security from their enemies or for from other misfortunes as i said earlier certain gods could be associated with a specific tribe and act as the protector of that tribe while other gods would be more universal and worshipped across the a wider population including gods like alat and i have mentioned but we also find of course regional preferences since the tribes and the various groups of arabia differed on a number of accounts so we find certain gods that are specifically popular in southern arabia while other gods are more popular in northern arabia and so on it was a diverse religious context or environment we should also keep in mind not only that arabia is a large place that contains many different groups that differed on a number of accounts but also that the population of arabia could live different lives so some people some arabs were nomads who moved around lived in in desert environments and so on while others lived in developed city environments and these different circumstances also of course affected the religious traditions and religious practices that that the arabs would partake in now aside from these prayers the deities were worshiped through various different rites the worshippers or servants called abed in arabic could make offerings to the gods probably things such as food and so on like in many other polytheistic traditions like in so many other cultures of antiquity animal sacrifice appears to have played a major role in their religious rights animals often camels would be sacrificed before major events or to aid in the effectiveness of certain prayers for example as we saw earlier there were also shrines dedicated to specific deities located in locations all around arabia and this is connected to another one of the most central and important rituals or rights or practices of the pre-islamic arabs which was the pilgrimage pilgrimages referred to as hajj just like in the islamic equivalent would be undertaken to a shrine at a specific time during the yearly calendar like an annual festival or celebration these shrines or special places were referred to as haram or sanctuaries where all forms of violence were forbidden presumably one of these common shrines that were visited by pilgrims was the kaaba in mecca something that the islamic tradition itself affirms the classic narrative is that the kaaba in mecca thought by muslims to have been built by abraham himself served as an important site of pilgrimage for people across arabia and that it housed the images of many different gods in the broader pantheon before of course being liberated and once again dedicated to the one monotheistic god by muhammad and the arrival of islam and our information about the general practices of pilgrimage in pre-islamic times seems to corroborate this story other connections or similarities to the later islamic tradition can be found in the rules relating to ritual purity so before going on a pilgrimage or praying to a god or really before any kind of religious rite the worshiper was expected to make ablutions and to purify himself and wash himself to enter a state of ritual purity in general we find that the religion of ancient arabia is one that is in some ways familiar to an antique middle eastern context there are other beliefs and practices that we don't have too much information about for example and as we have explored in a previous episode the arabs believed in other mysterious beings such as the jinn ghost-like figures who would hang around abandoned ruins and dark places we also know of various occult practices such as divination and techniques involving the evil eye poetry played a major role in the lives of the ancient arabs and poets were sometimes considered to be inspired by the divine beings to recite their verses becoming almost like messengers for the gods but even in less extravagant circumstances poetry served an important function of storytelling and the literary form that held the highest of esteem in this culture the most famous collection of pre-islamic poetry the mualaqat or hanging poems is another important source for the culture and traditions of the arabs at this time as well as being some of the greatest literary achievements in the arabic language but so far i've only talked about polytheism with gods like allat and ruda and so on but as it turns out the religious landscape of ancient arabia was a lot more complicated than that and there were a lot of different religious traditions and movements that actually coexisted on this peninsula especially in the last few centuries before the arrival of islam and this includes as we will see various forms of monotheism indeed as we saw in the beginning arabia was very much involved in the wider political and social context of the middle east at the time including the cultures of the two great empires by the fourth to fifth century there existed many different religious groups on the arabian peninsula including many jewish tribes as well as christians of various different denominations indeed the razanids who were often vassals to the byzantine empire followed a monophysite christianity and it is quite likely that there lived christian groups further inside the peninsula as well even if they weren't as numerous as the jews to a lesser degree but still significant there were also zoroastrians living in arabia at the time so we get the picture of a quite diverse and complex religious milieu so monotheism was actually quite common in arabia at this time but of course this could differ from region to region and from different cities for example it seems that the city of mecca was largely polytheistic while the city of yathrib which later became known as medina housed a large amount of jewish monotheistic communities and the presence of monotheism in arabia can also be seen very clearly in a lot of the archaeological evidence that we have there even seems to have been monotheistic communities in arabia that were neither jewish nor christian but who consider themselves as belonging to a primeval original monotheism of abraham in the islamic tradition this independent monotheistic community or group is known as the hanifia although there is less evidence for them in the archaeological record now looked at from a historical perspective and putting aside theological perspectives or narratives we can see where some of these central aspects of the later islamic religion comes from including the name allah for god as well as other names the primary name of god in islam is allah the precise etymological origins of the name has been debated but the majority of scholars i would say even muslims and non-muslims agree that it is probably an abbreviated form of al-ilah meaning literally the god illah being the arabic word for god or divinity and al being the definite article and the archaeological record actually supports this we have inscriptions by a north arabian christians in pre-islamic times that refer to their god precisely as al-ilah and similarly in southern arabia what is today yemen there appears to have been a period of monotheistic flourishing either through the influence of judaism and its adoption by the state or through some independent form of monotheism and in this south arabian context the monotheistic god was referred to as now in the south arabian dialect the definite article was not the prefix al as in the northern equivalent or in classical arabic but rather the suffix an so if we transpose the name to classical arabic this name for god becomes another one of the most primary names of god in islam and moreover in this south arabian context god was also very tellingly called elahan the abbreviated form allah appears to have been the result of a certain arabic dialect in western or north western arabia including perhaps the hijaz but we do find examples of this abbreviated form allah in earlier evidence as well in the nabataean kingdom of northern arabia we find examples of the name allah both as parts of personal names like abdullah and indeed abdullah was according to tradition the name of the prophet muhammad's own father but we also see the name allah used independently in various prayers and rock carvings and the nabatae and script even though it is quite rare there is this inscription for example which states which translates to he made a burnt offering and swore by allah who is living that he shall command with greatness but the name allah is also sometimes invoked alongside other deities quotes and he placed it under the protection of kahel allah and uttar of the east from strong and weak and purchase and pledge for all time so what does this mean well in the islamic tradition there is often the idea that the pre-islamic arabs did worship allah but that they did so alongside other lesser deities and that this is the origins of the concept of shirk or of associating partners with god the which is the greatest sin in the islamic religion many scholars today even argue that the group referred to as the mushrikun in the quran usually translated as the polytheist might actually be referring to other monotheistic groups that nonetheless did not follow a monotheist that was as strict as that of the prophet muhammad in any case what the archaeological evidence shows is that the name allah did exist as a name for god in ancient times some scholars including al-jalad argue that the use of the word allah in the polytheistic context may have simply referred to the most exalted god in a particular context in any case it seems clear however that the name derives from the title al-ilah or the god so commonly invoked by christian inscriptions and in southern arabia as well many features that would later become so important for the religion of islam do appear in pre-islamic arabia in both in polytheistic and monotheistic contexts we have maybe even found a example of the bismillah in a pre-islamic inscription in 2018 an inscription was found in the adali region of yemen which seems to either say taken transposing from south arabian dialect into account quote bismillahirrahmanirrahim assamwat which would translate as in the name of god the merciful and compassionate lord of the heavens with the exception of the last part lord of the heavens this is the formula that starts every quranic chapter of surah except for one and is a major aspect of the islamic religion however this is actually quite uncertain the inscription may in fact instead say quote which would instead translate to in the name of god the merciful have mercy upon us lord of the heavens and this would clearly echo the words of the bible in any case we are clearly dealing with a monotheistic invocation here one that makes sense in the context of southern arabia at the time which had a strong flourishing of monotheism remember the name of god or being used commonly in the region at this time and reappearing in this particular invocation as well as being under christian rule at the time of the inscriptions composition so the inscription makes sense in a lot of ways we can see that arabia by the time of the prophet muhammad was a melting pot of various different religious and intellectual traditions while the polytheism or paganism was probably the religion practiced by the majority of the population there were still very strong monotheistic communities including jewish groups christians as well as maybe even independent monotheistic groups like the hanefia that that's talked about in the islamic station clearly then things aren't as simple as the narrative that i presented at the beginning and we can perhaps begin to understand the context in which a prophet by the name of muhammad would appear on the scene and change world history i hope you enjoyed this dive into ancient arabia and its religious traditions a lot of the material used here was based on the works of the epigraphist philologist and historian of language ahmed al-jalad whose works i highly recommend you check out as always i will leave a list of sources in the description for those especially interested in the languages and cultures of pre-islamic arabia i will also leave links to two very important databases on the south arabian and north arabian inscriptions one is the digital archive for the study of pre-islamic arabian inscriptions and the other is oceana which is also a database for for inscription so you can find all of that in the description as well and as always this video is brought to you by our patrons i'd like to give a special shout out to our new saint abe catbey thank you all so much again again i can't stress this enough it is because of you that i can keep making these videos so thank you if anyone else wants to become a patron i will leave a link to that stuff in the description so thank you all for watching the video if you want to support the channel you can become a patreon and i will leave a link to that in the comments and in the description and otherwise you can support us by only just leaving a like or a comment and of course by subscribing to the channel and i'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 1,146,049

Keywords: Religion in Pre-Islamic Arabia, Religion in Arabia, Pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabia, Religion, Polytheism in Arabia, Paganism in Arabia, Polytheism, Paganism, Pre-Islamic monotheism, Judaism in Arabia, Judaism, Yemen, Christianity Arabia, Christianity, Ancient history, history of arabia, arabia documentary, arabia explained, ancient arabia, ancient middle east, middle eastern religion

Id: w041e9G8NhQ

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

It was a mix. There were polytheists, Abrahamic monotheists who didn’t align with a specific faith (Hanifs), Christians, Jews etc.

[u/[deleted]]

islam claims that preislamic arabs practiced infanticide on a systemic basis, does the archeological evidence support that?