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Pre-Islamic Arabia

Pre-Islamic Arabia. DJ ĀHILLIYA الجَهل العصر الجاهليّ. Nabateens Routes. Why study pre-Islamic Arabia?.

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Pre-Islamic Arabia

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  1. Pre-Islamic Arabia DJĀHILLIYA الجَهل العصر الجاهليّ

  2. Nabateens Routes

  3. Why study pre-Islamic Arabia? • Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabic civilization which existed in the Arabian Plate before the rise of Islam in the 630s. The study of Pre-Islamic Arabia is important to Islamic studies as it provides the context for the development of Islam.

  4. What is the “DJĀHILLIYA”? • Opposite of the word Islam. • Paganism (sometimes even non-Arab lands) • “barbarous” • Not knowing God • The time of ignorance. • “heathondom” – kingdom of heathens. • 1st period from Adam to Noah and 2nd period between Jesus and Muhammad.[FATRA] Q33,33

  5. The notion of “DJĀHILLIYA” • It is a pre-Islamic period contrasted to the time and ethos of Islam. • The term is found 4 times in the Qur’an as an idea and 10 times in reference to people. Is also used in verbal derivations with the same sense connected to those who ‘ignorant of God’ – at least this is the way most Muslim commentators on the Qur’an have explained the word.

  6. Qur’an 48/ 26 • “While those who disbelieved were setting up fanaticism, the fanaticism of Ignorance {“DJĀHILLIYA”} in their own hearts, God sent His serenity down upon His messenger and on believers, and obliged them to respect the formula of heedfulness.” Islam appears to rest upon the desire to prove the divine status of the religious dispensation in transforming society from DJĀHILLIYA to ‘serenity’ as proof of the divine nature of the religion.

  7. History of Pre-Islamic Arab Literature • Poems of the Tramps 525 – 605 AD • Poems of suspense 540 – 661 AD • Poets of the courts 569 – 629 AD • Knights poets 531 – 641 AD • Other poets 550 – 645 AD • Prose: rhetoric and its rules 600 - 630 AD • {al-Munjad – fial’A’laam p.677}

  8. ABŪ ‘UBAYDAMa’mar B. Al-Muthannā • Born in Basra 728 d. 824-5 AD a mawlā of the Kurayshite clan of Taym. Studied under Abu ‘Amr b. Al-’Ala’ and Yunus b. Habiib as a grammarian and philologist. • Applied systematic methods on philological schools on scattered oral materials pointing at first on Arabs in early Islamic history and tribal traditions which later led him to study pre-Islamic Arabia. (KitaabalKhayl) ; manakib (virtues) and mathaalib (vices) categories of various tribes.

  9. Early compilation of historical traditions and literary materials • Philological work on the Qur’an • Hadiith – his Ghariib al-Hadiith • Tariikh Baghdad • Magjaazal-Qur’an – the first known work on tafsiirmadjazmeanng “interpretation”. • IbnHishaamfor the redaction of the Siira by IbnIshaak

  10. The formative period of Islam • Does the Islam we know today in its developed form, has always been so? • The initial impetus for the religion was tied with the Hijaz in Arabia, does that mean that the character the religion adopted is isolated to Arabia? • The Near East before Islam.: Monophysite Christians, Zoroastrian Persians, Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia • Jusinan Byzantine throne empire at Constantinople 527 AD.

  11. The situation of the Arabian peninsula • Confused political situation due to the interaction between nomads of Arabia with Byzantines and Persian powers and on the Jewish, Christian sects and Zoroastrian religions. • Yemen ‘s Himyar kingdom (inter tribal warfare) • Weakening of Greco-Roman economy and the collapse of traditional agricultural basis of the local economy (drought in 300 AD). • Central Arabian trade boom • The role of Mecca as a sanctuary – spirits inhabiting ...

  12. The role of the Abrahamic myth • A non recorded pre-Islamic material for the understanding of the Qur’an. • The Book of Idols by Hishamibn al-Kalbi d. 819 AD. With various pre-Islamic texts on dieties, that are cited in the Qur’an. • “When Ishmael, son of Abraham,...”Kitaab al-asnam by Ibn al-Kalbi; full English text translated from Arabic by NabihAminFaris, The Book of Idols , Princeton University Press, 1952.

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