The history of Islam
Arabia before Islam
Sixth-century Arabia was tribal, trading and religiously mixed: idol shrines, Jewish tribes, Christian communities and a Kaaba ringed with idols.
Tribes and shrines
Mecca was ruled by the tribe of Quraysh, guardians of the Kaaba, a sanctuary that held many idols. Ibn al-Kalbi's Book of Idols (early 800s) lists the Arabian deities, including Hubal in the Kaaba and the goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat, whom the Quran names.
19Have ye thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza 20And Manat, the third, the other? 21Are yours the males and His the females? 22That indeed were an unfair division! 23They are but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers, for which Allah hath revealed no warrant. They follow but a guess and that which (they) themselves desire. And now the guidance from their Lord hath come unto them.
Quran 53:19-23 (Pickthall) · context
Sahih al-Bukhari 4287 Summary, not a quotation
At the conquest of Mecca there were 360 idols around the Kaaba; the Prophet struck them with a stick.
Read the full text on sunnah.comJews and Christians
Jewish tribes lived in Yathrib (later Medina), among them Banu Qaynuqa, Banu al-Nadir and Banu Qurayza, and at Khaybar. Christianity was established in Najran, among the Ghassanid and Lakhmid Arabs on the Byzantine and Persian frontiers, and in Ethiopia across the Red Sea. In the 520s the Jewish king of Himyar, Dhu Nuwas, massacred the Christians of Najran, and Ethiopia invaded Yemen in response.
Where scholars disagree
- How central Mecca was to Arabian trade is debated (Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, 1987, argued it was minor; others disagree).
Sources
- Earliest source Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, Kitab al-Asnam (The Book of Idols), trans. N. A. Faris (Princeton, 1952).
- Sahih al-Bukhari 4287.
- Robert G. Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs (Routledge, 2001).