API tools faq
paste
Advertisement
jonstond2

Pre-Islamic Arabia

jonstond2
Jan 11th, 2017
1,057
0
Never
Add comment
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 80.37 KB | None | 0 0
raw download clone embed print report
  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Although sometimes used synonymously, the phrase “pre-Islamic Arabia” and the Arabic al-jahiliyya have different connotations. The English phrase implies only a temporal relationship to Islam. The Arabic expression (meaning literally “the age or condition of ignorance”), on the other hand, indicates an evaluation of selected parts of earlier Arabian history from a strongly Islamic perspective. The idea of the Jahiliyya is a construct of Islamic thinkers, developed for particular purposes. It ignores much of great interest for modern scholarship on the Arabs and Arabia and focuses on the immediate background of Islam, the life of the Arabs of western central Arabia (the Hijaz) in the century or so up to and including the early career of the prophet Muhammad (d. 632). This bibliography entry concentrates on aspects of pre-Islamic Arabia that are usually seen as relevant for understanding the rise of Islam, and it does not attempt to cover in any detail those many aspects of Arabian history that do not obviously relate to Islam. Although this entry sometimes goes beyond what has been traditionally included in the notion of the Jahiliyya, it is not concerned substantially with pre-Islamic Arabia in the wider sense.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6.  
  7. The most important reference work for all aspects of the study of Islam, including pre-Islamic Arabia and the Jahiliyya, is the second edition of Encyclopaedia of Islam (Bearman, et al. 1954–2006). Following Islamic historical tradition, most works on Islamic history begin with a discussion of the Jahiliyya, although they often go beyond the Islamic treatment of it. These are often good entryways into the subject for the beginner. Donner 1981 is notable for its comparative and anthropological awareness. Some more recent works on Islamic history (notably Berkey 2003), while still treating pre-Islamic Arabia, reflect an understanding that the rise of Islam needs to be considered in a wider historical and geographical context. There are many works devoted entirely to discussions of the history of the Arabs and Arabia before Islam, ranging much more widely than the traditional understanding of the Jahiliyya. Hoyland 2001 is approachable for English readers, although Retsö 2003 goes into greater detail. Volumes that collect various studies that first appeared in scholarly journals or other specialist publications, such as Peters 1999 and Kister 1980, are useful not merely for the studies they contain but sometimes for the editor’s introduction and consolidated bibliography. Shahid 1984 argues that the role of the Arabs in late Antiquity and the importance of the spread of Christianity among them has been undervalued.
  8.  
  9. Bearman, P., et al., eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. 12 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1954–2006.
  10. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  11. Contains numerous articles on the history, geography, culture, and personalities of pre-Islamic Arabia. For introductory surveys, see the articles “Djahiliyya,” “al-ʿArab,” and “ʿArab (Djazirat al-).” But because these articles appear in the early volumes, they are now inevitably dated, and “Djahiliyya” is somewhat limited.
  12. Bearman, P., et al., eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. 12 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1954–2006.
  13. Find this resource:
  14. Berkey, Jonathan P. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  15. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  16. Part 1 contains a chapter “Arabia before Islam” in the broader context of “The Near East before Islam.” Excellent textbook that reflects informed scholarship on the rise of Islam.
  17. Berkey, Jonathan P. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  18. Find this resource:
  19. Donner, Fred McGraw. “State and Society in Pre-Islamic Arabia.” In The Early Islamic Conquests. By Fred McGraw Donner, 11–50. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
  20. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  21. A thoughtful interpretative survey of geography, tribal life, economic and political conditions.
  22. Donner, Fred McGraw. “State and Society in Pre-Islamic Arabia.” In The Early Islamic Conquests. By Fred McGraw Donner, 11–50. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
  23. Find this resource:
  24. Hoyland, Robert G. Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. London: Routledge, 2001.
  25. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  26. Extending from prehistory to the coming of Islam, this covers all areas inhabited by Arabs before Islam. Also has chapters devoted to economy, society, religion, and other aspects of culture and discusses the issue of Arab identity. Extensive bibliography of sources and secondary literature. Readable and judicious.
  27. Hoyland, Robert G. Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. London: Routledge, 2001.
  28. Find this resource:
  29. Kister, Meir J. Studies in Jahiliyya and Early Islam. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1980.
  30. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  31. From the Variorum Collected Studies Series, along with Society and Religion from Jahiliyya to Islam (1980) and Concepts and Ideas at the Dawn of Islam (1997), this contains all the important articles devoted to the Jahiliyya and early Islam by a leading scholar in the field, renowned above all for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Islamic source material.
  32. Kister, Meir J. Studies in Jahiliyya and Early Islam. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1980.
  33. Find this resource:
  34. Peters, F. E., ed. The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.
  35. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  36. A selection of studies by different authors on various aspects of pre-Islamic Arabia with a useful orientation and bibliography by the editor.
  37. Peters, F. E., ed. The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.
  38. Find this resource:
  39. Retsö, Jan. The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  40. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  41. Covers much the same ground as Hoyland 2001. Although it is much more detailed than Hoyland, its controversial general thesis has generally been rejected by scholars and Retsö’s scholarship, philologically driven, has been widely criticized. Useful, but use with caution.
  42. Retsö, Jan. The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  43. Find this resource:
  44. Shahid, Irfan. Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1984.
  45. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  46. Subsequent works with the same general title treat the 5th and 6th centuries. The author’s scholarly method has been criticized and his conclusions seen as exaggerated, but the works are valuable as an indication of the amount of possible evidence available on the Arabs in the centuries before the rise of Islam.
  47. Shahid, Irfan. Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1984.
  48. Find this resource:
  49. Definition and Perspective
  50.  
  51. The Arabic jahiliyya is an abstract noun connected with the word jahl (ignorance). It has, therefore, generally been understood to mean “the state, condition or time of ignorance.” Goldziher 1967 argues that it connotes barbarism more than lack of knowledge (ʿilm). Rosenthal 2007 and Pines 1990, on the other hand, emphasize the contrast with knowledge (of God’s law). Pines 1990 suggests a Jewish Christian source for the concept of jahiliyya. As an abstract noun, jahiliyya has been understood by many Muslims to refer not merely to the life of the Arabs before Islam but to denote any society or ideology understood to be incompatible with Islam. Shepard 2003 discusses the way that one of the founders of contemporary Islamist thought uses the concept in his critique of secularist Western societies. That sort of usage may indicate that the depiction in Muslim literature of the life of the Arabs in the Jahiliyya is as much a moralistic fantasy as a historical record, a view advocated by Hawting 1999.
  52.  
  53. Goldziher, Ignaz. “What is Meant by ʿal-Jahiliyya’?” In Muslim Studies. Vol. 1. Edited by Ignaz Goldziher, 201–208. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967.
  54. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  55. Classic essay by one of the most important founders of the academic study of Islam. English translation of Muhammedanische Studien, bd. 1 (Halle, Germany: Max Niemeyer, 1889), pp. 219–228.
  56. Goldziher, Ignaz. “What is Meant by ʿal-Jahiliyya’?” In Muslim Studies. Vol. 1. Edited by Ignaz Goldziher, 201–208. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967.
  57. Find this resource:
  58. Hawting, Gerald. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  59. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497490Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  60. Argues that Islam emerged in a monotheistic (not pagan) milieu and questions Muslim accounts of the Jahiliyya.
  61. Hawting, Gerald. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  62. Find this resource:
  63. Pines, Shlomo. “Jahiliyya and ʿIlm.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 175–194.
  64. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  65. Argues that the notion of ignorance implicit in the word jahiliyya was inherited by Islam from Jewish Christian references to the pagan Arabs. Reprinted in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, Vol. 3, Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy, edited by Sarah Stroumsa, 231–250. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996).
  66. Pines, Shlomo. “Jahiliyya and ʿIlm.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 175–194.
  67. Find this resource:
  68. Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2007.
  69. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004153868.i-355Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  70. Profound, wide-ranging study of the idea of knowledge in Islamic culture, in which the concept of jahiliyya is discussed on pp. 32–34. First published in 1970.
  71. Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2007.
  72. Find this resource:
  73. Shepard, William, E. “Sayyid Qutb’s doctrine of Jahiliyya.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36 (2003): 521–545.
  74. DOI: 10.1017/S0020743803000229Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  75. Discussion of an influential modern Islamist’s use of the concept as a critique of Western societies.
  76. Shepard, William, E. “Sayyid Qutb’s doctrine of Jahiliyya.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36 (2003): 521–545.
  77. Find this resource:
  78. Sources and Evidence in Translation
  79.  
  80. For many aspects of the history of Arabia before Islam there is external as well as internal evidence, but for the period and region mainly associated with the concept of the Jahiliyya, the vast majority of our evidence comes from later literature written by Muslims, preserving also much poetry said to have been composed in the Jahiliyya. Some early Muslim scholars concerned themselves with collecting (and publishing as a diwan) the poetry that had come to them associated with the name of a particular poet of the Jahiliyya. Several modern scholars have made translations of such poetry; Arberry 1957 and Sells 1989 are especially good. Many Islamic works of history (taʾrikh), such as al-Tabari 1985–1999, al-Masʿudi 1861–1877, and Wüstenfeld 1857–1861 and traditional lives of the Prophet Muhammad (sira), such as Guillaume 1955, begin with sections on the history of the world before Islam, in which the Jahiliyya plays a prominent part. Other works, such as Ibn al-Kalbi 1952, are devoted to reports about the gods worshiped by the pagan Arabs before Islam. Commentaries on the Qurʾan (tafsir), such as al-Tabari 1987, contain much material pertaining to the Jahiliyya, but since the commentaries usually follow the order of the Qurʾan, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, the Jahiliyya is mentioned in them in a fragmentary and topical way. Islamic scholars were also very concerned with the issue of genealogy and the relationships between the various Arab tribes and families: Ibn al-Kalbi 1966 is one of the earliest and most important examples of that particular literature.
  81.  
  82. Arberry, Arthur John. The Seven Odes. London: Allen & Unwin, 1957.
  83. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  84. Informative and readable essays about each of the muʿallaqat: the seven poems that according to an Islamic tradition were written in gold letters and hung from the wall of the Kaʿba in the Jahiliyya. Each essay contains substantial passages in translation by Arberry himself and by previous translators.
  85. Arberry, Arthur John. The Seven Odes. London: Allen & Unwin, 1957.
  86. Find this resource:
  87. Guillaume, Alfred. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.
  88. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  89. A translation of the earliest extant life of Muhammad (d. 632), compiled by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768). The beginning of the work relates to the Jahiliyya, but there are many relevant passages in later sections.
  90. Guillaume, Alfred. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.
  91. Find this resource:
  92. Ibn al-Kalbi, Hisham ibn Muhammad. Ǧamharat an-nasab. Das genealogische Werk des Hišam b. Muhammad al-Kalbi. Adapted by Werner Caskel and Gert Strenziok. 2 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1966.
  93. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  94. An arrangement and study of a fundamental traditional work on the descent and relationship of the Arab tribes, composed by Ibn al-Kalbi (d. 821). The first volume sets out the genealogies in tabular form (transliterated from Arabic), the second contains indexes to tribes and individuals with some discussion (in German) and references to further sources. See M. J. Kister and M. Plessner, “Notes on Caskel’s Ǧamharat an-nasab,” Oriens 25–26 (1976): 48–68.
  95. Ibn al-Kalbi, Hisham ibn Muhammad. Ǧamharat an-nasab. Das genealogische Werk des Hišam b. Muhammad al-Kalbi. Adapted by Werner Caskel and Gert Strenziok. 2 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1966.
  96. Find this resource:
  97. Ibn al-Kalbi, Hisham ibn Muhammad. The Book of Idols. Translated with an introduction and notes by Nabih Amin Faris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952.
  98. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  99. Ibn al-Kalbi’s relatively short work on the idols and sanctuaries of the Arabs of the Jahiliyya. Widely regarded as an important source for the religion of the Arabs before Islam, it shares some material with Ibn Ishaq’s Life of Muhammad (Guillaume 1955). German translation by Rosa Klinke-Rosenberger (Das Götzenbuch, Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1941). French translation by Wahib Atallah (Les idoles de Hicham ibn al-Kalbi, Paris: Klincksieck, 1969).
  100. Ibn al-Kalbi, Hisham ibn Muhammad. The Book of Idols. Translated with an introduction and notes by Nabih Amin Faris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952.
  101. Find this resource:
  102. al-Masʿudi, ʿAli ibn Husayn. Les Prairies d’or/Muruj al-dhahab. 9 vols. Paris: Société Asiatique, 1861–1877.
  103. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  104. About half this anecdotal and often diverting historical work of al-Masʿudi (d. 957) is devoted to the world before Islam. Much that relates to the Jahiliyya is to be found in Volume 3 of this edition of the text together with a French translation, but even the second half concerned with the history of Islam has relevant material.
  105. al-Masʿudi, ʿAli ibn Husayn. Les Prairies d’or/Muruj al-dhahab. 9 vols. Paris: Société Asiatique, 1861–1877.
  106. Find this resource:
  107. Sells, Michael. Desert Tracings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
  108. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  109. Lauded poetic translations of six poems attributed to famous poets of the Jahiliyya, with valuable introduction and commentary.
  110. Sells, Michael. Desert Tracings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
  111. Find this resource:
  112. al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. The History of al-Tabari. 39 vols. Edited by Ehsan Yar-Shater. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985–1999.
  113. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  114. Most of the material pertaining to pre-Islamic Arabia in this translation, each volume by a different scholar, of al-Tabari’s (d. 923) monumental history of the world until his own time is to be found in Volumes 4, 5, and 6, but other volumes have relevant material as well.
  115. al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. The History of al-Tabari. 39 vols. Edited by Ehsan Yar-Shater. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985–1999.
  116. Find this resource:
  117. al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. The Commentary on the Qurʾan by Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad B. Jarir Al-Tabari. Vol. 1. Translated by John Cooper. Edited by W. F. Madelung and A. Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
  118. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  119. A selection from one of the most important Qurʾan commentaries, by the same author who composed the History (al-Tabari 1985–1999).
  120. al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. The Commentary on the Qurʾan by Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad B. Jarir Al-Tabari. Vol. 1. Translated by John Cooper. Edited by W. F. Madelung and A. Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
  121. Find this resource:
  122. Wüstenfeld, Heinrich Ferdinand, ed. Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka. 4 vols. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857–1861.
  123. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  124. An edition of several traditional works in Arabic on the pre-Islamic and Islamic history of Mecca, the fourth volume containing a summary and synthesis in German.
  125. Wüstenfeld, Heinrich Ferdinand, ed. Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka. 4 vols. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857–1861.
  126. Find this resource:
  127. Religion
  128.  
  129. Religion has been the most studied topic pertaining to the Jahiliyya, mainly because it helps to explain the rise of Islam historically; but it was also thought that the pre-Islamic Arabs preserved archaic ideas and practices characteristic of the Semitic people and that understanding them would shed light on biblical reports about the ancient Israelites.
  130.  
  131. Pre-Islamic Arab Religion
  132.  
  133. According to traditional Muslim accounts, the great majority of the Arabs in the Jahiliyya were polytheists and idolaters, and most scholarship has been concerned with the nature of the pagan Arab gods and related them to what is known about the deities of other peoples in Arabia and the Middle East more widely. The original impulse for such study arose from the desire to understand puzzling references in the Bible to ancient Israelite practices and ideas (see, for example, Smith 1894). For a summary of the various theories and for bibliographical information before 1959, see Henninger 1981. Beginning with Wellhausen 1897, scholarship on the pagan religion of the Jahiliyya has been dominated by the theory of evolution from lower to higher forms of religion; although following the work of Ditlef Nielsen, the idea that the ancient Arab gods were associated with worship of the sun, the moon, and the morning star and had been influenced by Babylonian originals has found both support and stronger opposition. Compare, for example, Fahd 1968 and Ryckmans 1951 (see also the updated version in Höfner 1970). Evolutionary presuppositions have led many, such as Wellhausen 1897, to interpret evidence found in the Muslim tradition to mean that on the eve of Islam the old pagan religion had lost any real meaning for the Arabs and had become excessively formal and archaic, whereas Lecker 1993 suggests that idolatry still flourished on the eve of Islam even in Yathrib (Medina), famous for its Jewish community. In discussion of the Arab pagan religion, the evidence of the Qurʾan has often been used, but Hawting 1999 and Crone 2010 have argued that the “idolaters” attacked in the Qurʾan were in fact monotheists rather than real pagans.
  134.  
  135. Crone, Patricia. “The Religion of the Qurʾanic pagans. God and the Lesser Deities.” Arabica 57 (2010): 151–200.
  136. DOI: 10.1163/157005810X502637Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  137. Argues that the “idolaters” (mushrikun) attacked in the Qurʾan were in reality monotheists, and attempts to situate their religion on the map of the varieties of monotheism in the Middle East around 600.
  138. Crone, Patricia. “The Religion of the Qurʾanic pagans. God and the Lesser Deities.” Arabica 57 (2010): 151–200.
  139. Find this resource:
  140. Fahd, Toufic. Le panthéon de l’arabie centrale à la veille de l’hégire. Paris: Geuthner, 1968.
  141. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  142. Extensive discussion of the gods and idols of the Jahiliyya in the context of information about other Semitic deities. Dominated by the idea of pan-Babylonianism and speculation about the origins of names is unreliable but still valuable for its lists of deities and sanctuaries and references to sources and literature.
  143. Fahd, Toufic. Le panthéon de l’arabie centrale à la veille de l’hégire. Paris: Geuthner, 1968.
  144. Find this resource:
  145. Hawting, Gerald. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  146. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497490Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. Argues that the accusation of idolatry made against the mushrikun of the Qurʾan was a polemical ploy and that their religion was in fact a form of monotheism.
  148. Hawting, Gerald. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  149. Find this resource:
  150. Henninger, Josef. “Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion.” In Studies on Islam. Edited by Merlin L. Swartz, 3–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1981.
  151. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  152. Analysis of theories about Bedouin religion; valuable especially for discussion of scholarship on the subject before 1959. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews). French original reprinted with other articles of Henninger in his Arabica Sacra. Aufsätze zur Religionsgeschichte Arabiens und seiner Randgebiete (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 40. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1981).
  153. Henninger, Josef. “Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion.” In Studies on Islam. Edited by Merlin L. Swartz, 3–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1981.
  154. Find this resource:
  155. Höfner, Maria. “Die vorislamischen Religionen Arabiens.” In Die Religionen Altsyriens, Altarabiens und der Mandäer. (Die Religionen der Menschheit, 10.2). Edited by H. Gese K. Rudolph, and M. Höfner, 233–402. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970.
  156. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  157. A more up-to-date presentation than in Ryckmans 1951.
  158. Höfner, Maria. “Die vorislamischen Religionen Arabiens.” In Die Religionen Altsyriens, Altarabiens und der Mandäer. (Die Religionen der Menschheit, 10.2). Edited by H. Gese K. Rudolph, and M. Höfner, 233–402. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970.
  159. Find this resource:
  160. Lecker, Michael. “Idol Worship in Pre-Islamic Yathrib (Medina).” Le Muséon 106 (1993): 331–346.
  161. DOI: 10.2143/MUS.106.3.2006034Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  162. Meticulous presentation of material about the idols of the pagan Arabs of pre-Islamic Medina. Reprinted in Lecker 1998 (cited under Jewish and Christian Influences in the Jahiliyya) and in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews).
  163. Lecker, Michael. “Idol Worship in Pre-Islamic Yathrib (Medina).” Le Muséon 106 (1993): 331–346.
  164. Find this resource:
  165. Ryckmans, Gonzagues. Les religions arabes préislamiques. 2d ed. Louvain, Belgium: Bibliothèque du Muséon, 1951.
  166. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  167. Dated but still useful survey that discusses the gods and idols of the Jahiliyya in the context of the information provided by inscriptions on the religions of the Arabs of southern and northern Arabia.
  168. Ryckmans, Gonzagues. Les religions arabes préislamiques. 2d ed. Louvain, Belgium: Bibliothèque du Muséon, 1951.
  169. Find this resource:
  170. Smith, William Robertson. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions. New ed. London: A&C Black, 1894.
  171. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  172. Attempts to define the fundamental religious ideas of the Semitic peoples, relating the reports about the pagan Arabs (for which the author depends greatly on Wellhausen) to those about the religions of other Semitic peoples, especially the ancient Israelites. Anthropologically dated but Smith’s ideas had some influence and are still sometimes discussed.
  173. Smith, William Robertson. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions. New ed. London: A&C Black, 1894.
  174. Find this resource:
  175. Wellhausen, Julius. Reste arabischen Heidentums. 2d ed. Berlin: Georg Reimer Verlag, 1897.
  176. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  177. The most influential study of religious ideas, practices, and conditions in the Jahiliyya. Strongly evolutionary in its interpretation. Never translated into English. The second edition incorporates several suggestions made by Theodor Nöldeke in his review of the first edition (1887). Nöldeke’s article “Arabs (Ancient)” in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (12 vols., edited by James Hastings, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1908–1927), which reflects Wellhausen’s evolutionary interpretation of pre-Islamic paganism, is still useful for those unable to read Wellhausen.
  178. Wellhausen, Julius. Reste arabischen Heidentums. 2d ed. Berlin: Georg Reimer Verlag, 1897.
  179. Find this resource:
  180. Monotheistic Traits in Arab Paganism
  181.  
  182. Muslim accounts of the religion of the Jahiliyya suggest that, among the prevailing idolatry and polytheism, monotheistic traits were to be found in some of its ideas and practices, and that certain individuals, the Hanifs, had rejected paganism in favor of monotheism. On the problems and issues concerning the Hanifs, see Rippin 1991 and Rubin 1990. Furthermore, although worshiping a variety of gods in diverse places, the pagan Arabs are shown as venerating Allah as a high God associated especially with the Kaʿba, a sanctuary honored by most Arab tribes, and Watt 1971 discusses this idea in the light of comparative religion. Certain aspects of the pre-Islamic Hajj (the complex of rituals performed around Mecca), such as the talbiya, are reported as displaying monotheistic as well as polytheistic characteristics, a phenomenon investigated in some detail in Kister 1980. For Muslim tradition, those monotheistic aspects of pre-Islamic Arab paganism were to be explained mainly as remnants of the religion that Abraham had introduced into Arabia when he built the Kaʿba in Mecca at God’s command, as is illustrated by Athamina 2004. Following Brockelmann 1922, however, several academic scholars (e.g., Gibb 1962, Kister 1980) have argued that those monotheistic traits were passed down from an ancestral Arab monotheism that had gradually become corrupted as polytheistic ideas infiltrated into Arabia.
  183.  
  184. Athamina, Khalil. “Abraham in Islamic Perspective: Reflections on the Development of Monotheism in Pre-Islamic Arabia.” Der Islam 81 (2004): 184–205.
  185. DOI: 10.1515/islm.2004.81.2.184Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  186. A discussion of the Islamic material pertaining to Abraham’s activities in Arabia and an argument for the importance of traditions concerning Abraham for the pre-Islamic Arabs and for Muhammad.
  187. Athamina, Khalil. “Abraham in Islamic Perspective: Reflections on the Development of Monotheism in Pre-Islamic Arabia.” Der Islam 81 (2004): 184–205.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Brockelmann, Carl. “Allah und die Götzen: der Ursprung des islamischen Monotheismus.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 21 (1922): 99–121.
  190. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191. Discusses monotheistic elements in pre-Islamic pagan Arab religion in the light of comparative religion theories of primordial monotheism. Influential, but the theoretical basis is dated.
  192. Brockelmann, Carl. “Allah und die Götzen: der Ursprung des islamischen Monotheismus.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 21 (1922): 99–121.
  193. Find this resource:
  194. Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen. “Pre-Islamic Monotheism in Arabia.” Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962): 269–280.
  195. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  196. Stresses the native source of pre-Islamic Arab monotheism and rejects the view that it reflects either a Jewish or Christian influence. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 295–280.
  197. Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen. “Pre-Islamic Monotheism in Arabia.” Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962): 269–280.
  198. Find this resource:
  199. Kister, Meir J. “Labbayka, Allahumma, Labbayka. On a monotheistic aspect of a Jahiliyya practice.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980): 33–57.
  200. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  201. Discusses reports about a religious formula reflecting monotheistic ideas said to have been used at the Hajj by some of the pagan Arabs of the Jahiliyya. Supports Brockelmann’s theory of original Arabian notions of monotheism. Reprinted in his Society and Religion from the Jahiliyya to Islam (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1990).
  202. Kister, Meir J. “Labbayka, Allahumma, Labbayka. On a monotheistic aspect of a Jahiliyya practice.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980): 33–57.
  203. Find this resource:
  204. Rippin, Andrew. “RHMNN and the Hanifs.” In Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams. Edited by W. B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little, 153–168. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1991.
  205. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  206. Questions the suggested link between what has been argued to be a nondenominational monotheism evidenced in some South Arabian inscriptions and that of the Hanifs, whose existence as a historical reality is also questioned.
  207. Rippin, Andrew. “RHMNN and the Hanifs.” In Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams. Edited by W. B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little, 153–168. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1991.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Rubin, Uri. “Hanifiyya and Kaʿba.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 85–112.
  210. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. Draws attention to details in the sources that suggest tension or opposition between Muhammad and some of the Hanifs, whose attachment to the Kaʿba is identified as the focus of their religion. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 276–294.
  212. Rubin, Uri. “Hanifiyya and Kaʿba.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 85–112.
  213. Find this resource:
  214. Watt, W. Montgomery. “Belief in a ‘High God’ in pre-Islamic Mecca.” Journal of Semitic Studies 16 (1971): 35–40.
  215. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  216. Another reflection of the theory developed by scholars of comparative religion and introduced into studies of the Jahiliyya by Brockelmann, that monotheism preceded polytheism in the evolution of religious concepts. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 307–312.
  217. Watt, W. Montgomery. “Belief in a ‘High God’ in pre-Islamic Mecca.” Journal of Semitic Studies 16 (1971): 35–40.
  218. Find this resource:
  219. The KaʿBa and the Hajj
  220.  
  221. Muslim accounts of the religious life of the Jahiliyya show the Hajj at Mecca and the Meccan sanctuary, the Kaʿba, to be at its heart. Almost all of the Arab tribes are said to have participated in the Hajj, which Abraham had instituted at God’s command at the same time as he built the Kaʿba. Over time, however, they forgot their ancestral Abrahamic monotheism and were corrupted into idolatry. The Kaʿba became a center of idol worship. Muhammad was sent to call the Jahili Arabs back to Abraham’s religion, which was the same as Islam. For a summary of the reports and illustrations drawn from traditional Muslim accounts, see Peters 1994. Non-Muslim academic scholarship has generally understood the Kaʿba and the Hajj to have been originally pagan, and a variety of theories have been put forward about the pre-Islamic significance of the various ceremonies and rites of the Hajj (see Gaudefroy-Demombynes 1923, Grunebaum 1951, Lazarus-Yafeh 1981, and the articles “Hadjdj” and “Kaʿba” in Bearman, et al. 1955–2006). Hurgronje 1880 argued that the originally pagan sanctuary and its rites were transformed into Islamic ones, not by changing their form but by attaching to them the idea of Abrahamic origins. That was done by Muhammad when he was in Medina and influenced by the Jews there. Hurgronje’s arguments have been very influential on subsequent scholarship, although certain problems with his evidence have led some to revise or reject them: for the evidence and references see the article “Ibrahim” in Bearman, et al. 1955–2006. Hawting 1982 and Rubin 1986 also consider the Islamization of a previously pagan sanctuary and its institutions, while Serjeant 1962 argues that it is possible to further understand the nature of the Meccan sanctuary by comparison with sacred areas known in 20th-century Yemen.
  222.  
  223. Bearman, P., et al., eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. 12 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1955–2006.
  224. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  225. See the articles “Hadjdj,” “Ibrahim,” and “Kaʾba.” Discusses the history, adaptation to Islam, and the religious and social and political significance of the Hajj and the Meccan sanctuary with reference to related scholarship.
  226. Bearman, P., et al., eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. 12 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1955–2006.
  227. Find this resource:
  228. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice. Le pèlerinage à la Mekke: étude d’histoire religieuse. Paris: Geuthner, 1923.
  229. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  230. Comprehensive analysis of the Hajj rituals and their historical development in the light of previous scholarship and reference to Muslim legal and religious literature about them.
  231. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice. Le pèlerinage à la Mekke: étude d’histoire religieuse. Paris: Geuthner, 1923.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Grunebaum, Gustave E. von. Muslim Festivals. New York NY: Schuman, 1951.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. Chapter 2, “Pilgrimage,” is an accessible short account of the Islamic Hajj rituals with some discussion of their origins according to Muslim ideas and academic ones.
  236. Grunebaum, Gustave E. von. Muslim Festivals. New York NY: Schuman, 1951.
  237. Find this resource:
  238. Hawting, Gerald. “The Origins of the Muslim Sanctuary at Mecca.” In Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society. Edited by G. H. A. Juynboll, 23–47. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.
  239. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  240. Suggests that some ideas about (and names applied to) the Muslim sanctuary at Mecca were transferred there from other sanctuaries and that the Meccan sanctuary may have been Islamized later and more gradually than the tradition allows.
  241. Hawting, Gerald. “The Origins of the Muslim Sanctuary at Mecca.” In Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society. Edited by G. H. A. Juynboll, 23–47. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.
  242. Find this resource:
  243. Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck. Het Mekkaansche feest. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1880.
  244. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  245. The fundamental and most influential academic account of the Hajj and its Islamization. Reprinted in Volume 1 of his Verspreide geschriften, edited by A. J. Wensinck (7 vols., Bonn and Leipzig, 1923–1927). Italian translation, Il Pellegrinaggio alla Mecca (Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1989). Partial French translations in G.-H. Bousquet and J. Schacht, eds., Selected Works of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1957) and in Revue Africaine 95 (1951): 273–288. Partial English translation in G. R. Hawting, ed., The Development of Islamic Ritual (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006).
  246. Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck. Het Mekkaansche feest. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1880.
  247. Find this resource:
  248. Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. “The Religious Dialectics of the Hajj.” In Some Religious Aspects of Islam. Edited by Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, 17–37. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1981.
  249. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  250. Considers the significance of the Islamization of a previously pagan institution.
  251. Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. “The Religious Dialectics of the Hajj.” In Some Religious Aspects of Islam. Edited by Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, 17–37. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1981.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Peters, F. E. The Hajj. The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
  254. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. The history of the Hajj, illustrated by copious quotations from sources. Chapter 1, “Origins,” is especially relevant for pre-Islamic Arabia.
  256. Peters, F. E. The Hajj. The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
  257. Find this resource:
  258. Rubin, Uri. “The Kaʿba: Aspects of its Ritual Function and Position in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Times.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 97–131.
  259. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  260. Discusses various aspects of the Kaʿba in the transition from Jahiliyya to Islam. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 313–347.
  261. Rubin, Uri. “The Kaʿba: Aspects of its Ritual Function and Position in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Times.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 97–131.
  262. Find this resource:
  263. Serjeant, Robert B. “Haram and Hawtah, the Sacred Enclave in Arabia.” In Mélanges Taha Hussain. Edited by Abdurrahman Badawi, 41–45. Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1962.
  264. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  265. Attempts to throw light on the institution of the sacred enclave (haram) in pre-Islamic Arabia by comparison with the hawta in modern Yemen. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 167–184.
  266. Serjeant, Robert B. “Haram and Hawtah, the Sacred Enclave in Arabia.” In Mélanges Taha Hussain. Edited by Abdurrahman Badawi, 41–45. Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1962.
  267. Find this resource:
  268. Jewish and Christian Influences in the Jahiliyya
  269.  
  270. Both Muslim tradition and external sources show that various and sometimes obscurely understood forms of Judaism and Christianity were present in northern and southern Arabia on the eve of Islam, and some reports in Muslim literature have led scholars to argue that Jews and Christians had an influence in central and western Arabia around the beginning of the 7th century. One of the main themes of academic research has been to find Jewish, Christian, and other monotheist sources for, or influences on, Muhammad and Muslim ideas and practices. Those suggestions often rely on perceived similarities between Muslim ideas and practices and those of other monotheist groups, rather than upon more explicit evidence, and frequently they assume that Muslim ideas and practices were instituted by Muhammad himself, rather than the result of a gradual development continuing after his death and outside Arabia. On those bases it is then argued that one or another monotheist group must have been present in the Jahiliyya and that Muhammad must have been in contact with it. Beginning with Geiger 1898 the authors of many such works have been impressed by structural similarities between Islam and Judaism, and that has led to discussion of the influence of Jews and Judaism on Muhammad. Torrey 1933 is a key text in that field. The large population, known only from Muslim texts, of Arab Jews in Yathrib (Medina) (the town Muhammad migrated to in 622) presents an obvious scenario for contacts between Muhammad and Judaism. Lecker 1998 indicates the amount and type of material in Muslim texts regarding the presence of Jews and Judaism in the Jahiliyya. Wensinck 1908 continues the arguments of Hurgronje 1880 (cited under Kaʿba and the Hajj) that the Jews of Medina had a decisive influence on Muhammad and the origins of Islam. On the other hand, there is good evidence for the spread of Christianity among the Arabs before Islam, and some scholars have viewed Christianity, in one form or another, as the most important influence on Muhammad and the rise of Islam. Andrae 1926 and Bell 1926 are representative of that approach. Muslim tradition has reports about contacts between Muhammad and Christians of Najran in the area between the Hijaz and Yemen, and lives of Muhammad and commentaries on the Qurʾan allude to the persecution of Christians there by a Jewish ruler of Yemen known in Muslim tradition as Dhu Nuwas. That event is reported also in a variety of sources from outside the Muslim tradition, and the evidence is discussed by Beauchamp, et al. 1999–2000. References to Jews and Christians in Arabia on the eve of Islam naturally provoke the question of what types of Judaism or Christianity we should envisage, and some scholars have argued that instead of orthodox or normative forms of religion we should look for more marginal traditions such as Samaritanism or Jewish-Christianity. Finkel 1933 and De Blois 2002 present evidence supporting that approach.
  271.  
  272. Andrae, Tor Julius Efraim. Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum: Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift. Uppsala, Sweden: Kyrkohistoriska Föreningen, 1926.
  273. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  274. Although dated in parts and only a partial exploration of its subject, Andrae is strong on Syriac Christianity and its importance in the background of Islam. Suggests how its materials might have reached Muhammad through unorthodox channels. The French translation, Les origines de l’Islam et le Christianisme (reprinted in 2006), should be used with caution.
  275. Andrae, Tor Julius Efraim. Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum: Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift. Uppsala, Sweden: Kyrkohistoriska Föreningen, 1926.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Beauchamp, Joelle, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, and Christian J. Robin. “La persécution des chrétiens de Nagran et la chronologie Himyarite.” ARAM 11 (1999–2000): 15–83.
  278. DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.11.1.504451Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. A detailed discussion of the Byzantine, Syriac, and South Arabian evidence for the martyrdom of Christians at Najran at the hands of the Jewish king of Yemen, Dhu Nuwas, and its importance for establishing south Arabian chronology.
  280. Beauchamp, Joelle, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, and Christian J. Robin. “La persécution des chrétiens de Nagran et la chronologie Himyarite.” ARAM 11 (1999–2000): 15–83.
  281. Find this resource:
  282. Bell, Richard. The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment. The Gunning Lectures, Edinburgh University, 1925. London: Macmillan, 1926.
  283. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  284. Series of lectures surveying the Christian presence in and around Arabia at the time of Muhammad, his attitude to Christianity, and Christian influences in early Islam. Very focused on orthodox forms of Christianity. Reprinted in 1968 (London: Cass).
  285. Bell, Richard. The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment. The Gunning Lectures, Edinburgh University, 1925. London: Macmillan, 1926.
  286. Find this resource:
  287. De Blois, François. “Nasrani and Hanif: Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and Islam.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65 (2002): 1–30.
  288. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  289. Important, linguistically sophisticated discussion of the origins of the Qurʾanic word for Christian and Hanif, which suggests a specific Jewish-Christian environment for nascent Islam.
  290. De Blois, François. “Nasrani and Hanif: Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and Islam.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65 (2002): 1–30.
  291. Find this resource:
  292. Finkel, Joshua. “Jewish, Christian and Samaritan Influences on Arabia.” In The Macdonald Presentation Volume, 145–166. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1933.
  293. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  294. Argues for a Samaritan as well as Jewish and Christian presence in Arabia and influence on Muhammad. The argument is based mainly on similarities between Qurʾanic accounts of biblical stories and those found in literatures of other groups.
  295. Finkel, Joshua. “Jewish, Christian and Samaritan Influences on Arabia.” In The Macdonald Presentation Volume, 145–166. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1933.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Geiger, Abraham. Judaism and Islam. Madras: MDCSPCK Press, 1898.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. Obviously now somewhat dated, this work by an important figure of the Jewish Enlightenment is nevertheless a landmark in scholarship, not least because it was one of the first works of European scholarship to accept the authenticity of Muhammad. It set the terms for much subsequent research. Original Was hat Mohammed aus den Judentume aufgenommen? was published in 1833.
  300. Geiger, Abraham. Judaism and Islam. Madras: MDCSPCK Press, 1898.
  301. Find this resource:
  302. Lecker, Michael. Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
  303. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  304. A collection of Lecker’s studies between 1985 and 1997, many of them concerned with Jews in the Jahiliyya; also includes his “Idol Worship in Pre-Islamic Yathrib (Medina).” Lecker, like Kister, exhibits encyclopedic command of the Muslim sources.
  305. Lecker, Michael. Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
  306. Find this resource:
  307. Torrey, Charles Cutler. The Jewish Foundations of Islam. New York: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1933.
  308. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  309. A series of lectures. The first surveys the evidence for Jews in Arabia, while the fourth and fifth suggest similarities between Qurʾanic and Jewish stories and laws. Reprinted in 1967 (New York: Ktav) with an introduction by Franz Rosenthal.
  310. Torrey, Charles Cutler. The Jewish Foundations of Islam. New York: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1933.
  311. Find this resource:
  312. Wensinck, Arthur Jan. Mohammed en de Joden te Medina, Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1908.
  313. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  314. Strongly influenced by his mentor Hurgronje’s ideas regarding the influence of the Jews of Medina on Muhammad, Wensinck’s doctoral thesis expanded the areas in which that influence supposedly operated and is important for its lasting impact on academic scholarship. English translation: Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: K. Schwarz, 1975).
  315. Wensinck, Arthur Jan. Mohammed en de Joden te Medina, Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1908.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Society
  318.  
  319. Although Muslim tradition stresses the importance of the culture of the nomadic Arabs as the most important source of subsequent Islamic culture, it reports the career of Muhammad mainly in the context of the life of two towns: Mecca and Medina. Modern scholarship has indeed emphasized the character of Islam as a religion intimately associated with urban life and contested the widespread popular image of it as a desert religion. Although it may be possible to shed light on Jahiliyya society by studying the life of Arab Bedouins in modern times and assuming, as some have, that fundamental structures are likely to have survived until the impact of modernity, almost all of our evidence comes from Islamic times (including the poetry often referred to as jahili): this needs to be kept in mind when considering conditions in western Arabia before Islam.
  320.  
  321. Tribes and Bedouin Life
  322.  
  323. Our sources present society in the Jahiliyya as tribally based, consisting of numerous relatively large and theoretically distinct groups that are portrayed as related by ties of kinship. For an initial perspective see Henninger 1959. Caskel 1954 argues that the whole of Arabia had been subject to a process of Bedouinization in the century or so before Islam, but that theory has received considerable criticism (see Lancaster 1988). Donner 1989 argues that the role of nomads as a factor in the history of the Near East between about 400 and 800 has been undervalued in scholarship, while Crone 1994 is an important discussion of the relationship between tribes and states in the Middle East. In a tribal society lacking an outside authority, loyalty to one’s tribe is portrayed as the primary duty, although that included generosity to and protection of outsiders in receipt of tribal hospitality. Law was customary and unwritten, the dominant institution being the payment of compensation (bloodwit) for injuries caused by one individual to another. Each family bore responsibility for its members’ obligations. When that broke down, feuds developed between rival groups, and alliances were formed, sometimes formalized by changes in claimed ancestry. Clearly there would have been considerable tension between the ideals of such a society and the egalitarian (not tribally centered) ideals of a religion such as Islam. That tension is the subject of Goldziher 1967, and Farès 1932 is another stimulating investigation of tribal ideals and their role in a stateless society. There are a number of studies devoted to the fortunes of one particular tribe in the transition from the Jahiliyya to Islam, a good example of which is Landau-Tasseron 1985. Finally, Crone 2008 argues that the Hollywood image of the way in which the nomads actually looked in the Jahiliyya is likely to be anachronistic.
  324.  
  325. W. Caskel. “The Bedouinization of Arabia.” In Studies in Islamic Cultural History. Edited by G. E. von Grunebaum, 36–46. Menasha, WI: American Anthropological Association, 1954.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Argues that the century before Islam had seen a marked expansion of Bedouin life and influence at the expense of settlement and state authority. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 34–44. Originally published as “Zur Beduinisierung Arabiens,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 103 (1952):28–36.
  328. W. Caskel. “The Bedouinization of Arabia.” In Studies in Islamic Cultural History. Edited by G. E. von Grunebaum, 36–46. Menasha, WI: American Anthropological Association, 1954.
  329. Find this resource:
  330. Crone, Patricia. “The Tribe and the State.” In The State: Critical Concepts. Edited by J. A. Hall, 446–473. London: Routledge, 1994.
  331. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  332. Not really concerned with the Jahiliyya or pre-Islamic Arabia but important for anyone concerned with tribes and their role in history. Valuable bibliographical references. Reprinted in Patricia Crone’s From Arabian Tribe to Islamic Empire: Army, State, and Society in the Near East c. 600–850. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008).
  333. Crone, Patricia. “The Tribe and the State.” In The State: Critical Concepts. Edited by J. A. Hall, 446–473. London: Routledge, 1994.
  334. Find this resource:
  335. Crone, Patricia. “‘Barefoot and Naked’: What Did the Bedouin of the Arab Conquests Look Like?” Muqarnas 25 (2008): 1–10.
  336. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  337. Uses contemporary visual and literary evidence to suggest that the Arab Bedouin of the 7th century did not look like the modern popular conception of them. Original and approachable.
  338. Crone, Patricia. “‘Barefoot and Naked’: What Did the Bedouin of the Arab Conquests Look Like?” Muqarnas 25 (2008): 1–10.
  339. Find this resource:
  340. Donner, Fred M. “The Role of Nomads in the Near East in Late Antiquity (400–800 CE).” In Tradition and Innovation in late Antiquity. Edited by F. M. Clover and R. S. Humphreys, 73–88. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
  341. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  342. Focuses on economic and political issues, arguing for the importance of nomads in the history of the region generally. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 21–33.
  343. Donner, Fred M. “The Role of Nomads in the Near East in Late Antiquity (400–800 CE).” In Tradition and Innovation in late Antiquity. Edited by F. M. Clover and R. S. Humphreys, 73–88. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Farès, Bichr. L’honneur chez les arabes avant l’islam. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1932.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. Interesting and clearly argued work claiming that the pre-Islamic Arab concept of honour (ʿird) functioned as the most important ingredient of law among the Bedouin. Has much to say on many aspects of tribal life.
  348. Farès, Bichr. L’honneur chez les arabes avant l’islam. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1932.
  349. Find this resource:
  350. Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Vol. 1. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967.
  351. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  352. In the classic studies “Muruwwa and Din,” and “The Arab Tribes and Islam,” Goldziher investigates the tensions between the moral ideals of the tribal Arabs before Islam and the new ones brought by Islam. Originally published in German in 1889.
  353. Goldziher, Ignaz. Muslim Studies. Vol. 1. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967.
  354. Find this resource:
  355. Henninger, Joseph. “La societé bedouine ancienne.” In L’antica società beduina. Edited by F. Gabrieli, 69–93. Rome: Instituto di Studi Orientali, 1959.
  356. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  357. Using mainly the evidence of Islamic sources, this survey of Bedouin life includes discussion of marriage and sexual relations, and addresses the theory that ancient Arab society was at one time matrilineal (see A. Korotayev’s “Were There Any Truly Matrilineal Lineages in the Arabian Peninsula?” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 25 [1995]: 83–98).
  358. Henninger, Joseph. “La societé bedouine ancienne.” In L’antica società beduina. Edited by F. Gabrieli, 69–93. Rome: Instituto di Studi Orientali, 1959.
  359. Find this resource:
  360. Lancaster, William, and Felicity. “Thoughts on the Bedouinization of Arabia.” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 18 (1988): 51–62.
  361. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  362. Important critique of Caskel 1954.
  363. Lancaster, William, and Felicity. “Thoughts on the Bedouinization of Arabia.” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 18 (1988): 51–62.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Landau-Tasseron, Ella. “Asad from Jahiliyya to Islam.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985): 1–28.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Discusses the evidence regarding the Islamization of one important tribal group, attested epigraphically as well as in Muslim literature.
  368. Landau-Tasseron, Ella. “Asad from Jahiliyya to Islam.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985): 1–28.
  369. Find this resource:
  370. The Settlements
  371.  
  372. Even the few settlements and towns are described as dominated by one or more tribe. Within the Jahiliyya, three towns have attracted attention because of their association with the Prophet Muhammad. Most attention has focused on Mecca, where Muhammad is said to have received his first revelations and was rejected by those in power. The issue of the political and social structure of the town is closely associated with the question of Meccan trade, the bibliography for which is mentioned in Trade and Economic Life. Lammens 1924 discusses the town with reference to the author’s arguments about its wealth and commercial importance, Wolf 1951 and Dostal 1991 attempt to interpret the reports about Mecca in Muslim tradition in light of anthropological theories. Kister 1986 examines the Islamic material that presents Mecca as the political and commercial center of the Hijaz. Yathrib, subsequently called Medina, the site of the first Islamic polity under the leadership of Muhammad, is said to have had a large population of Jews as well as of pagan Arabs. The nature and origin of those Jews has been much discussed, and Gil 1984 adduces Jewish sources in an attempt to elucidate the problem. Lecker 1995 collects several articles in which the author meticulously examines the Islamic material pertaining to the town on the eve of Islam. The third town, Taʾif, was connected with Mecca economically and politically and was associated with Muhammad as a place in which he tried to implant Islam when it was rejected in Mecca. Muslim tradition says less about Taʾif than it does about the other two, and subsequently it has attracted less scholarly investigation. In addition to the now rather outdated Lammens 1922, see Lecker 2000. Nearly all the evidence for these three places comes from Muslim tradition: Yathrib is certainly attested in texts outside the Islamic tradition, but only Islamic sources provide details about it.
  373.  
  374. Dostal, Walter. “Mecca Before the Time of the Prophet: Attempt of an Anthropological Interpretation.” Der Islam 68 (1991): 193–231.
  375. DOI: 10.1515/islm.1991.68.2.193Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  376. Attempts to build on the work of Wolf 1951, applying anthropological theory to the material of Muslim tradition.
  377. Dostal, Walter. “Mecca Before the Time of the Prophet: Attempt of an Anthropological Interpretation.” Der Islam 68 (1991): 193–231.
  378. Find this resource:
  379. Gil, Moshe. “The Origin of the Jews of Yathrib.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 4 (1984): 203–224.
  380. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  381. Erudite discussion drawing on Jewish as well as Islamic sources, although no Jewish source specifically refers to Jews in Yathrib. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 145–166.
  382. Gil, Moshe. “The Origin of the Jews of Yathrib.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 4 (1984): 203–224.
  383. Find this resource:
  384. Lammens, Henri. “La cité arabe de Taif à la veille de l’hégire.” Mélanges de la faculté orientale de l’Université S Joseph de Beyrouth 8 (1922): 113–327.
  385. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  386. One of a number of studies by this scholar: the interpretations are not always reliable.
  387. Lammens, Henri. “La cité arabe de Taif à la veille de l’hégire.” Mélanges de la faculté orientale de l’Université S Joseph de Beyrouth 8 (1922): 113–327.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Lammens, Henri. “La Mecque à la veille de l’hégire.” Mélanges de la faculté orientale de l’Université S Joseph de Beyrouth 9 (1924): 284–285.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Here as elsewhere, Lammens emphasizes the commercial importance of Mecca in his discussion of its political and social constitution.
  392. Lammens, Henri. “La Mecque à la veille de l’hégire.” Mélanges de la faculté orientale de l’Université S Joseph de Beyrouth 9 (1924): 284–285.
  393. Find this resource:
  394. Lecker, Michael. “Taʾif.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. Vol. 10. Edited by P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2000.
  395. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  396. Much more up to date than Lammens 1922 and with important bibliographical details that have appeared since.
  397. Lecker, Michael. “Taʾif.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2d ed. Vol. 10. Edited by P. Bearman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2000.
  398. Find this resource:
  399. Lecker, Michael. Muslims, Jews, and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1995.
  400. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  401. A collection of the author’s detailed studies on Medina around the time of the prophet. Consult the author’s website for continuing revision of and additions to some of the studies.
  402. Lecker, Michael. Muslims, Jews, and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1995.
  403. Find this resource:
  404. Kister, M. J. “Mecca and the Tribes of Arabia: Some Notes on their Relations.” In Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon. Edited by Moshe Sharon, 33–57. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1986.
  405. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  406. A detailed study of the Islamic reports about aspects of Mecca’s relationship with the Bedouin.
  407. Kister, M. J. “Mecca and the Tribes of Arabia: Some Notes on their Relations.” In Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon. Edited by Moshe Sharon, 33–57. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1986.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Wolf, Eric R. “The Social Organization of Mecca and the Origins of Islam.” South West Journal of Anthropology 7 (1951): 329–356.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. Combines an evolutionary approach with the trade route theory, in order to account for the emergence of a centralized “incipient state structure” in Mecca on the eve of Islam.
  412. Wolf, Eric R. “The Social Organization of Mecca and the Origins of Islam.” South West Journal of Anthropology 7 (1951): 329–356.
  413. Find this resource:
  414. Trade and Economic Life
  415.  
  416. Discussion of economic life in the Jahiliyya is dominated by the question of the nature and importance of trade between Arabia and the Byzantine Empire, and how far this is relevant to an understanding of the rise of Islam. Following Lammens 1910, it had become widely accepted that Mecca had established itself as the center and controller of a major international trade route and this enabled the leading Meccans to become very wealthy. This argument established itself as the dominant explanation for the importance of Mecca (Peters 1988, Simon 1989) and was often elaborated to underline its relevance for understanding the rise of Islam. Watt 1953 argued that the trade had important social, moral, and religious consequences in Mecca, transforming its tribal Arab humanism and creating a more centralized and socially unequal town. The resulting crisis then called forth Islam and prepared the way for its acceptance. Crone 1987 attacked this theory and her arguments have led many to abandon or question it, although Serjeant 1990 shows how entrenched “Meccan trade” had become as a scholarly tool. Crone 1992 responds to the criticisms of Serjeant. Heck 2003 attempts to elaborate the debate by deepening its economic basis. Crone 2007 suggests that trade between the pastoralists of Arabia and Roman Syria might have been more significant than one would normally expect because of the needs of the Roman army, but it is not a reversion to the Lammens-inspired theories.
  417.  
  418. Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
  419. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  420. Uses Islamic sources to argue that the Meccan trade theory does not work even in terms of the Muslim tradition. If there was trade, it was relatively insignificant and could not have had the social and religious impact that proponents of the Meccan trade theory envisage.
  421. Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
  422. Find this resource:
  423. Crone, Patricia. “Serjeant and Meccan Trade.” Arabica 39 (1992): 216–240.
  424. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  425. Crone’s response to the attack on her book (Crone 1987) by Serjeant 1990.
  426. Crone, Patricia. “Serjeant and Meccan Trade.” Arabica 39 (1992): 216–240.
  427. Find this resource:
  428. Crone, Patricia. “Quraysh and the Roman Army: Making Sense of the Meccan Leather Trade.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70 (2007): 63–88.
  429. DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X0700002XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  430. Uses mainly comparative material to argue that there may have been a significant leather trade between Arabs and Roman and Byzantine Syria.
  431. Crone, Patricia. “Quraysh and the Roman Army: Making Sense of the Meccan Leather Trade.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70 (2007): 63–88.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Heck, Gene W. “Arabia Without Spices: An Alternative Hypothesis.” Journal of the American Oriental Society. 123 (2003): 547–576.
  434. DOI: 10.2307/3217750Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. By widening the economic perspective to encompass precious metals and agricultural produce, Heck argues for the value of the Islamic sources while accepting the broad thrust of Crone’s arguments.
  436. Heck, Gene W. “Arabia Without Spices: An Alternative Hypothesis.” Journal of the American Oriental Society. 123 (2003): 547–576.
  437. Find this resource:
  438. Lammens, Henri. “La république marchande de la Mecque vers l’an 600 de notre ère.” Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien, 5th ser., 4 (1910): 23–54.
  439. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  440. Lammens was chiefly responsible for elaborating the image of Mecca as a center of international trade, developing the reports and allusions to caravans and wealth in the traditional Muslim literature. This was the first of several expositions of the argument. See too, in English, his articles “Kuraysh” and “Makka” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1st ed.
  441. Lammens, Henri. “La république marchande de la Mecque vers l’an 600 de notre ère.” Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien, 5th ser., 4 (1910): 23–54.
  442. Find this resource:
  443. Peters, Francis Edward. “The Commerce of Mecca before Islam.” In A Way Prepared: Essays in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder. Edited by Farhad Kazemi and R. D. McChesney, 3–26. New York: New York University Press, 1988.
  444. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  445. An approach similar to Watt 1953.
  446. Peters, Francis Edward. “The Commerce of Mecca before Islam.” In A Way Prepared: Essays in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder. Edited by Farhad Kazemi and R. D. McChesney, 3–26. New York: New York University Press, 1988.
  447. Find this resource:
  448. Serjeant, Robert B. “Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (1990): 472.
  449. DOI: 10.2307/603188Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  450. Fiery reaction to Crone 1987.
  451. Serjeant, Robert B. “Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (1990): 472.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Simon, Robert. Meccan Trade and Islam. Problems of Origin and Structure. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó, 1989.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. An expanded English translation of a work in Hungarian written some years before Crone’s Meccan Trade and not updated to consider it. Shares some of Watt’s ideas but is much more detailed, concerned with situating Meccan trade in an international context. Uses Syriac and Greek sources as well as Arabic and displays economic expertise.
  456. Simon, Robert. Meccan Trade and Islam. Problems of Origin and Structure. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó, 1989.
  457. Find this resource:
  458. Watt, William Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953.
  459. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  460. In Chapter 1, “The Arabian Background,” Watt developed the argument that the type of trade elaborated by Lammens transformed Meccan society and created a moral vacuum that prepared the way for the appearance and acceptance of Islam.
  461. Watt, William Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953.
  462. Find this resource:
  463. Culture
  464.  
  465. Our knowledge of the culture of the Jahiliyya largely depends on, and is dominated by, its poetry. For discussion of the poetry from different perspectives, in addition to Arberry 1957 and Sells 1989 (both cited under Sources and Evidence in Translation), see Jones 1992 and Stetkevych 1993. The poetry was transmitted orally over several generations, and we know it only because it was committed to writing by Islamic scholars in the period of the early ʿAbbasid caliphate. On that process, see Drory 1996. Although commonly referred to as Jahili poetry, study of it has been plagued by disagreements about its authenticity both generally and regarding its attribution to individual poets. For references to literature on that topic, see Wansbrough 1977. Early Muslim scholars developed the idea that the language of the poetry was, alongside that of the Qurʾan, the highest form of Arabic, and it was common to cite poetry to throw light on difficult passages of the Qurʾan. The poetry and the society that produced it, therefore, acquired great significance for the Muslim community and for the identity of Muslims. Alongside the poetry, and often as frame for it, there were prose narratives (accounts of the “Days” of the Arabs, ayyam al-ʿarab) about battles between different Arab tribes in the Jahiliyya and early Islamic times (see Jones 2007–). These too were regarded as having been transmitted orally from early times and seen as a source of information about Jahili ideals such as courage, hospitality, and loyalty to the tribe. How far back Arab identity existed before Islam, and what it might have been based on, is the subject of Grunebaum 1963 (also see Hoyland 2001 and Retsö 2003, both cited under General Overviews). In spite of its being part of a predominantly oral culture, northern Arabia and the Syrian desert produced a large number of inscriptions in a variety of scripts and languages, including the earliest examples of Arabic writing in the 5th and 6th centuries. The relationship between this writing and the society that produced it is the subject of Macdonald 2005. Versteegh 1997 and Macdonald 2010 discuss the earliest evidence for the emergence of the Arabic language.
  466.  
  467. Drory, Rina. “The Abbasid Construction of the Jahiliyya: Cultural Authority in the Making.” Studia Islamica 83 (1996): 33–49.
  468. DOI: 10.2307/1595735Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  469. Discusses the transmission and collection of the Jahili poetry and its importance for the developing Muslim community.
  470. Drory, Rina. “The Abbasid Construction of the Jahiliyya: Cultural Authority in the Making.” Studia Islamica 83 (1996): 33–49.
  471. Find this resource:
  472. Grunebaum, Gustave von. “The Nature of Arab Unity before Islam.” Arabica 10 (1963): 4–23.
  473. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  474. Reflects on the various meanings of “Arab” and the basis for an Arab identity before Islam. Argues that despite its lack of stability there was, nevertheless, the growth of a sense of “national” character. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 1–9.
  475. Grunebaum, Gustave von. “The Nature of Arab Unity before Islam.” Arabica 10 (1963): 4–23.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Jones, Alan. Early Arabic Poetry. 2 vols. Reading, UK: Ithaca, 1992.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. Selected poems, edited and translated, with linguistic and literary commentary, and an introduction to the field.
  480. Jones, Alan. Early Arabic Poetry. 2 vols. Reading, UK: Ithaca, 1992.
  481. Find this resource:
  482. Jones, Alan. “Ayyam al-ʿarab.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Edited by Gudrun Krämer, et al. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2007–.
  483. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  484. Clear and balanced introduction to the prose accounts of pre-Islamic Arab battles found in texts from the Islamic period.
  485. Jones, Alan. “Ayyam al-ʿarab.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Edited by Gudrun Krämer, et al. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2007–.
  486. Find this resource:
  487. Macdonald, Michael. “Literacy in an Oral Environment.” In Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard. Edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Alan R. Millard, and Christopher Mee, 49–118. New York and London: T&T Clark International, 2005.
  488. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  489. Informative and sophisticated reflections on the use of writing in predominantly oral cultures such as that of the pre-Islamic Arabs. Contains illustrations of various scripts. Reprinted in M. C. A. Macdonald’s Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009).
  490. Macdonald, Michael. “Literacy in an Oral Environment.” In Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard. Edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Alan R. Millard, and Christopher Mee, 49–118. New York and London: T&T Clark International, 2005.
  491. Find this resource:
  492. Macdonald, Michael, ed. The Development of Arabic as a Written Language. Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, vol. 40. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010.
  493. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  494. Contains the editor’s own “Ancient Arabia and the Written Word” (pp. 5–28), discussing the relationship of writing and orality in pre-Islamic Arabia, and Gregor Schoeler’s “The Relationship of Literacy and Memory in the Second/Eighth Century” (pp. 121–130), which, although dealing with the Islamic period, has several references to practice in the Jahiliyya.
  495. Macdonald, Michael, ed. The Development of Arabic as a Written Language. Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, vol. 40. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Important, anthropologically rooted literary analysis of the pre-Islamic ode (qasida) and of its importance for Islamic culture.
  500. Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney. The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
  501. Find this resource:
  502. Versteegh, Kees. The Arabic Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
  503. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  504. The standard textbook on the history of Arabic with chapters such as “The Earliest Stages of Arabic” and “Arabic in Pre-Islamic Arabia.”
  505. Versteegh, Kees. The Arabic Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
  506. Find this resource:
  507. Wansbrough, John. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
  508. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  509. Chapter 3 is a stimulating, albeit markedly theoretical, discussion of the origins of Classical Arabic, with reflections on the issue of the authenticity of Jahili poetry and the cultural authority ascribed to Bedouin Arabs in Islamic culture. Reprinted in 2004 with an introduction and additional notes by A. Rippin.
  510. Wansbrough, John. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
  511. Find this resource:
  512. Politics and External Relations
  513.  
  514. The century or so before Muhammad’s move from Mecca to Medina (the Hijra, 622) saw a complex series of events in the south of Arabia that are reflected in Muslim biographies of the prophet, commentaries on the Qurʾan, and works of history. A persecution of local Christians by a Jewish ruler was followed by an invasion from Ethiopia to depose him and an alleged expedition against Mecca by an Ethiopian ruler of Yemen who had made himself independent. A Persian invasion and occupation then ended the period of Ethiopian rule. These events were played out against the background of the rivalry for supremacy between the Byzantine and Sasanid (Persian) empire. In that rivalry Arabia was of some importance. Both empires maintained client kingdoms on their borders with Arabia: the Byzantines controlled a group of tribes under the leadership of the Jafnid family of the Ghassanid confederation in southern Syria, while the Sasanids were the overlords of the Lakhmid (Nasrid) rulers who headed similar tribal groups from their capital at al-Hira on the borders of Iraq and Arabia. Meanwhile in South Arabia, the kingdom of Himyar, a significant power until the 6th century, exercised influence over the Arab tribe of Kinda, which dominated central and north Arabia into the 6th century and was at times influential even in the Fertile Crescent. Lecker 1994 and Lecker 1995 exploits the Islamic material regarding Kinda, Robin 1996 integrates the South Arabian epigraphic evidence. For the relationship between the empires and their client states and attempted reconstruction of events, following the pioneering studies of Nöldeke and Rothstein, see Bosworth 1983, Robin 2008, and Shahid 1984 (cited under General Overviews). However, this last work should be read in the light of the important reviews by MacAdam 1995 and Whittow 1999. For the close ties of al-Hira with the Arabs of the Jahiliyya, see Kister 1968.
  515.  
  516. Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. “Iran and the Arabs before Islam.” In Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3.1, The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Edited by Ehsan Yar-Shater, 593–612. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
  517. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521246934Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  518. Survey of the relationship between the Persian empires and the Arabs to the eve of Islam.
  519. Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. “Iran and the Arabs before Islam.” In Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3.1, The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Edited by Ehsan Yar-Shater, 593–612. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Kister, M. J. “Al-Hira: Some Notes on its Relations with Arabia.” Arabica 15 (1968): 143–169.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. Copious details from Muslim tradition regarding the relationship between the town and the Arabs of the Jahiliyya. Reprinted in Peters 1999 (cited under General Overviews), pp. 81–107.
  524. Kister, M. J. “Al-Hira: Some Notes on its Relations with Arabia.” Arabica 15 (1968): 143–169.
  525. Find this resource:
  526. Lecker, Michael. “Kinda on the eve of Islam and during the Ridda.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3d ser., 4 (1994): 333–356.
  527. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  528. A detailed study of the material found in Islamic sources regarding the role of Kinda in the Jahiliyya and early Islam. Reprinted with addenda in Lecker 1998 (cited under Jewish and Christian Influences in the Jahiliyya).
  529. Lecker, Michael. “Kinda on the eve of Islam and during the Ridda.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3d ser., 4 (1994): 333–356.
  530. Find this resource:
  531. Lecker, Michael. “Judaism among Kinda and the Ridda of Kinda.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995): 635–650.
  532. DOI: 10.2307/604732Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  533. Another detailed examination of the Islamic material suggesting that Judaism had spread widely among the Kinda before their conversion to Islam. Reprinted in Lecker 1998 (cited under Jewish and Christian Influences in the Jahiliyya).
  534. Lecker, Michael. “Judaism among Kinda and the Ridda of Kinda.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995): 635–650.
  535. Find this resource:
  536. MacAdam, Henry I. “Imperium et Arabes Foederati: Constantinople and the Ghassanids; A Review Article [of Shahid 1995].” Al-Abhath 43 (1995): 99–118.
  537. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  538. Addresses many of the weaknesses in Shahid 1984 (cited under General Overviews).
  539. MacAdam, Henry I. “Imperium et Arabes Foederati: Constantinople and the Ghassanids; A Review Article [of Shahid 1995].” Al-Abhath 43 (1995): 99–118.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Robin, Christian J. “Le royaume Hujride, dit ‘royaume de Kinda,’ entre Himyar et Byzance.” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres 140.2 (1996): 665–714.
  542. DOI: 10.3406/crai.1996.15622Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. A thorough examination of the role played by Kinda as clients of Himyar in the politics of late Antiquity Arabia.
  544. Robin, Christian J. “Le royaume Hujride, dit ‘royaume de Kinda,’ entre Himyar et Byzance.” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres 140.2 (1996): 665–714.
  545. Find this resource:
  546. Robin, Christian J. “Les Arabes de Himyar, des ‘Romains’ et des Perses (IIIe–VIe siècles de l’ère chrétienne).” Semitica et Classica 1 (2008): 167–207.
  547. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  548. The most up-to-date treatment of the relations between the three great powers of late Antiquity.
  549. Robin, Christian J. “Les Arabes de Himyar, des ‘Romains’ et des Perses (IIIe–VIe siècles de l’ère chrétienne).” Semitica et Classica 1 (2008): 167–207.
  550. Find this resource:
  551. Whittow, Mark. “Rome and the Jafnids: Writing the History of a 6th-c. Tribal Dynasty.” In The Roman and Byzantine Near East. Vol. 2, Some recent archaeological research. Edited by J. H. Humphrey, 207–224. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1999.
  552. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  553. An extremely useful summary of Shahid 1984 (cited under General Overviews) and also a powerful critique of it.
  554. Whittow, Mark. “Rome and the Jafnids: Writing the History of a 6th-c. Tribal Dynasty.” In The Roman and Byzantine Near East. Vol. 2, Some recent archaeological research. Edited by J. H. Humphrey, 207–224. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1999.
  555. Find this resource:
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement
Public Pastes
Advertisement
We use cookies for various purposes including analytics. By continuing to use Pastebin, you agree to our use of cookies as described in the Cookies Policy.  OK, I Understand
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!