The pre-Islamic epoch in Arabia is commonly known as the age of Jahiliyya, meaning the age of darkness and ignorance. The word jahiliyya appears in the Qur’an (3:154, 5:50, 33:33, 48:26). The absence of reliable historical sources and evidence, aside from Islamic sources, make ascertaining the truth about the pre-Islamic way of life and culture daunting.

This article addresses the question: Was the pre-Islamic way of life and culture so terrible? To answer, I will compare what the Islamic Creed and the ulama teach about aspects of the pre-Islamic way of life that have become a part of the Islamic way of life: The belief in monotheism, the belief in djinn and angels, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the treatment of women, wine drinking, holding of slaves, blind obedience to hierarchical authority, and the lunar calendar.

Introduction

The ulama (Islamic priests) have a vested interest in promoting a dark image of pre-Islamic religious beliefs, culture, values, and way of life. The reason is to contrast the Islamic age of enlightenment with the pre-Islamic Jahili age of polytheism, licentiousness, adultery, polyandry, gambling, drunkenness, plundering, and girl-infanticide, among others. They succeeded in painting Jahiliyya colours over not only the Prophet’s habitat in pagan Mecca but also over the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula, despite the existence in the northern parts of Jewish tribes in Medina, Fadak, and Khaybar and of Christians in Najran and the southwest of the Peninsula.

The Prophet’s Milieu  

Even in the Prophet’s own household in Mecca Christianity appears to have been known. According to the Hadith collections of Al-Bukhari and Muslim, a cousin of the Prophet’s first wife Khadija, Waraqa Bin Nofal, was a Christian old man when Muhammad’s Prophetic mission started and that Khadija took Muhammad to Waraqa to seek his advice on her husband’s future religious mission (The Six Books, Sahih Al-Bukhari, tradition 3, p. 1 and Sahih Muslim, tradition 403, pp. 704-705).

The Sources

The first three centuries following the death of the Prophet shaped the Islamic Creed.

– The Qur’an

On the Qur’an, John Wansbrough’s extensive analysis led him to conclude that it “was written down in the third-century Hijri” (Qur’anic Studies, 2004, p. xiv), contradicting the traditionists’ construction, which focuses on collecting the Qur’an by the third Caliph, Uthman (644-656). Wansbrough believes that the Qur’anic text evolved in the seventh and eighth centuries, during a long period of oral transmission when Jewish and Christian sects were arguing with one another well to the north of Mecca and Medina, in the region of the Fertile Crescent.

– The Prophetic Actions (Sira)

The earliest and the most widely quoted biography of the Prophet was written a century after His death by ibn Ishaq (704–761) in Sirat Rasul Allah (the life of the Messenger of God). Ibn Ishaq’s original work was lost. There is no surviving copy of his original manuscript. Ibn Ishaq’s work is known in the recension of ibn Hisham (d. 813) (Anthony Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 2006).

– The Prophet’s Sayings (Hadith)

Six Sunni collections, considered canonical, were completed during the first three centuries after the death of Muhammad. The most authoritative collection was by Al-Bukhari (d. 870), followed by Muslim (d. 875), Ibn Maja (d. 886), Abi Dawood (d. 888), Al-Tirmithi (d. 892), and Al-Nasai (d. 915). 

– Poetry

An important window into pre-Islamic living, Taha Hussain, doyen of Arabic Literature, contends that the great majority of the poetry reputed to be pre-Islamic had been forged by Muslims of a later age and has nothing to do with Jahiliyya. Such poetry is Islamic, representing the life of the Muslims, their predilections and inclinations more than the life of the Jahilis (On Jahilyya Poetry, p. 19). Philip K. Hitti adds: These poems were committed to memory, transmitted by oral tradition from one generation to the next, and finally recorded in writing during the second and third centuries after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 (History of the Arabs, 1970, p. 92).

Common Beliefs and Practices

Islam shares with the pre-Islamic epoch a wide range of beliefs and practices, from the belief in monotheism, djinn, and angels to the Mecca pilgrimage, treatment of women, owning slaves, wine drinking, the lunar calendar, and blind obedience to hierarchical authority.

– Monotheism

Although the pre-Islamic pagan Arabs worshipped many deities, they recognized a supreme God, “Allah.” The Qur’an testifies that the pre-Islamic Arabs recognized Allah’s awesome powers:

In 29:61, if you asked “. . . Who created the heavens and the earth and set the sun and the moon to work, they will certainly reply, Allah.”

In 29:63, if you asked “. . . Who sends down rain from the sky and gives life to the earth after its death they will reply Allah.”

In 39:3: “Those who take for protectors other than Allah say: we only serve them in order that they may bring us nearer to Allah.”

Abdullah Al-Udhri noted in his Ph.D. dissertation Jahili Poetry Before Imru Al-Qais [School of Oriental and African Studies (1991), p. 73] that, “when Khalid Bin Sinan’s daughter heard the Prophet reciting the Al-Ikhlas Sura (Qur’anic Chapter 112, composed of four Verses), she said:

‘O Messenger of Allah, this is what my father used to say.’ The Prophet did not contradict her and praised her father.”

In naming their children, the pre-Islamic Arabs often preceded the name of a preferred deity by the word Abd (meaning slave, servant) as a sign of respect, fear, or subservience. The name of the Prophet’s father was Abd Allah.  

In making the first article of the Islamic faith “La ilaha illa Allah,” meaning: “There is no God (deity) but God,” in designating Allah as the only omnipotent God, Islam did not invent a new deity (The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, s.v. Arabs – Ancient):

“Muhammad contended himself with ridding the heathen Allah of His ‘companions’ subjecting Him to a kind of dogmatic purification.”

– Djinn

Islam has in common with the pre-Islamic Arabs their belief in djinn. The pre-Islamic Arabs were “fully convinced,” in the existence of shadowy, crafty, mischievous, even destructive beings called djinn (Watt and Bell, Introduction to the Qur’an, 1977, p. 153). While usually invisible, the djinn are capable of assuming forms of snakes, scorpions, lizards, and other creeping things or mad humans (Ibid.). Surat al-djinn (Qur’anic Chapter number 72, composed of 28 Verses), is dedicated to these spirits. Other parts of the Qur’an recognize djinn’s existence: “They link Him with djinn by lineage” (37:158); that God created djinn from fire (55:15), and that djinn’s end, like men’s, is to serve and worship God (51:56). The Qur’an reveals also that God sent messengers to djinn and men (6:130) and teaches that djinn may believe in God and His Holy Book (72:1), as well as that djinn may be unbelievers (6:130). Djinn promised that they will not “associate in worship any gods with our Lord” (72:2).

– Angels

The Qur’an speaks in 41:14 as if the conception of angels had been known and accepted by pagans:

“They said, if our Lord had so pleased, He would certainly have sent down angels.”

The angel Gabriel plays a central part in Muhammad’s spiritual mission.

– The Mecca Pilgrimage

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition, s.v. Kaaba) states: “It is incontrovertible” that Islam took from the pagan Arabs “an entire pre-Islamic ritual, previously steeped in paganism.” This ritual is the veneration of and the pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca. For the pre-Islamic Arabs, “the Kaaba was the centre of worship where the Jahilis prayed and went round it seven times. The Jahilis went on pilgrimage to the Kaaba once a year in Dhul-Hijja for a week, and they performed the Waqfa on Mount Arafat” (Al-Udhhri, 1991, 77). In their ritual, the pre-Islamic pilgrims halted at Muzdalifa, stayed at Mina, made seven runs between Safa and the Marwah Hills, sacrificed animals, and shaved their heads. They performed the lesser pilgrimage (umrah) outside the month of Dhul-Hijja.

Islam adopted the entire ritual. It recognized the Kaaba as the temple of God and the centre of worship, retained the Black Stone, consecrated the Haram sanctuary, and ordered Muslims to perform the pilgrimage, if possible, once in a lifetime on the eighth day of the last month of the Islamic lunar year, Dhul-Hijja. Muslims today, like their pre-Islamic ancestors, circumambulate the Kaaba seven times, halt at Muzdalifa, stay at Mina, make seven runs between Safa and the Marwah hills, sacrifice animals, stone the devil, shave their heads, and wear a special simple garb. They perform the lesser pilgrimage (umrah) outside the month of Dhul-Hijja.

– The Treatment of Women

The ulama created an image of the pre-Islamic Arabs as practitioners of unlimited polygamy and of treating women like chattel. A closer look, however, shows that Islam shares with jahilis similar treatments. In allowing the male to marry four women simultaneously and, divorce any of them at will without giving cause; in giving the woman one-half the weight of the man in an Islamic court of law in testimony and as a witness, and in inheritance; in instituting for Shi’ites the mut’a marriage (the man “marries” the woman for a specific period of time and pays for her companionship during the specified period), and for Sunnis the misyar marriage (the man visits his misyar “wife” at her parents’ home without financial obligation), Islam “sanctioned” adultery and reduced the woman to a piece of property.

By contrast, Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife, a product of jahili Meccan society, we are told, was the best born in Quraish, a successful businesswoman and, too, the richest. Khadija employed young Muhammad and proposed marriage to him. He was 25 years old. She was 40 years old and twice a widow. For their 25-year marriage, until Khadija died in 620, the Prophet remained monogamous to her.

In comparison with Khadija, Aisha, probably the Prophet’s favourite wife, whom he married after the death of Khadija, was nine years of age, too young to have had a say in the marriage. According to attributions to Aisha as recorded in Sahih Al-Bukari, Sahih Muslim, and Sunan Abi Dawood, Aisha reportedly said that the Prophet married her when she was six years old (possibly seven years old according to some accounts) and consummated their marriage when she was nine years old, and that she became a widow after nine years. The Prophet was in his early fifties when he married Aisha. She was one of nine simultaneous wives of the Prophet when he died. For the extra five wives, beyond the allowed four, God granted the Prophet a dispensation. In 33:50:

“We have made lawful for you, O Prophet, wives to whom you have given their dower, and God-given maids and captives you have married… This is a privilege only for You and not for the other believers.”  

– Owning Slaves

Islam institutionalized pre-Islamic slavery. However, the Qur’an instructed that slaves should be treated humanely (2:177) and their manumission was made a pious act (24:33).

– Wine Drinking

Although, Islam prohibited in 2:219 wine drinking on the Earth, Verse 47:15 declares:

“The semblance of Paradise promised to the pious and devout is that of a garden with rivers of water incorruptible . . . rivers of wine, delectable to drink; and rivers of honey pure and clear.”

– The Lunar Calendar

Muslims share with the pre-Islamic pagans the lunar calendar (Hitti, History of the Arabs, 1970, p. 94).

– Blind Obedience to Hierarchical Authority

Islam shares with desert living a culture of blind obedience to hierarchical authority. Survival in the burning heat of desert days, freezing winter nights, and scarcity of food and clean water necessitates obedience to tribal hierarchy, if the tribe’s scant resources are not to be wasted in quarrels. The Prophet, being a product of desert living, enshrined blind obedience to authority in the Islamic Creed. God orders in 4:59: “Obey God and obey God’s messenger and obey those of authority among you.” Similar wording occurs twenty times in the Qur’an. Also, according to Book 20, Chapter 8 of the Hadith compilation in Sahih Muslim the Prophet is reported to have said: “He who obeys me obeys God; he who disobeys me, disobeys God. He who obeys the ruler, obeys me; he who disobeys the ruler, disobeys me.”

The belief in Monotheism could have helped Islam’s adoption of blind obedience to authority. Monotheism transferred in one swoop all the powers of the many gods of the pre-Islamic polytheists into the hands of the one and only omnipotent god, Allah. As the Messenger of Allah, the Prophet was divinely inspired. Being divinely inspired, the Prophet’s authority became rooted in Allah’s unlimited and absolute powers.

Conclusion

From the above, Jahili society was not barbaric. Taha Hussein:

“No, the Jahilis were neither ignorant nor stupid, they were not rough and did not live primitively; rather, they were people of knowledge and intelligence, of sensitivity, delicate emotions, refinement, and affluent living conditions (On Jahiliyya Literature, 1927, p. 74).

It may be concluded that the pre-Islamic way of life and culture incorporated Islam’s way of life and culture.