In order to understand the genesis of Islam we must know something of the condition of Arabia before the advent of Mohammed. We shall then be able to discover the factors that influenced the hero-prophet and made it possible for him so powerfully to sway the destinies of his own generation and those that were to follow.

Mohammedan writers call the centuries before the birth of their Prophet wakt-el-jahiliyeh—“the time of ignorance”—since the Arabs were then ignorant of the true religion. These writers naturally chose to paint the picture of heathen Arabia as dark as possible, in order that the “Light of God,” as the prophet is called, might appear more bright in contrast. Following these authorities Sale and others have left an altogether wrong impression of the state of Arabia when Mohammed first appeared. The commonly accepted idea that he preached entirely new truth and uplifted the Arabs to a higher plane of civilization is only half true.[49]

No part of Arabia has ever reached the high stage of civilization under the rule of Islam which Yemen enjoyed under its Christian or even its Jewish dynasties of the Himyarites. Early Christianity in Arabia, with all its weakness, had been a power for good. The Jews had penetrated to nearly every portion of the peninsula long before Mohammed came on the scene.[50]

In the “Time of Ignorance” the Arabs throughout the peninsula were divided into numerous local tribes or clans which were bound together by no political organization but only by a traditional sentiment of unity which they believed, or feigned to believe, a unity of blood. Each group was a unit and opposed to all the other clans. Some were pastoral and some nomadic; others like those at Mecca and Taif were traders. For many centuries Yemen had been enriched by the incense-trade and by its position as the emporium of Eastern commerce. Sprenger in his ancient geography of the peninsula says that: “The history of the earliest commerce is the history of incense and the land of incense was Arabia.” The immense caravan trade which brought all the wealth of Ormuz and Ind to the West, must have been a means of civilization to the desert. The tanks of Marib spread fertility around and the region north of Sana was intersected by busy caravan-routes. W. Robertson Smith goes so far as to say that “In this period the name of Arab was associated to Western writers with ideas of effeminate indolence and peaceful opulence ... the golden age of Yemen.”

The Arabs had enjoyed for several thousand years, an almost absolute freedom from foreign dominion or occupation. Neither the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the ancient Persians nor the Macedonians in their march of conquest ever subjugated or held any part of Arabia. But before the coming of the Prophet the proud freemen of the desert were compelled to bend their necks repeatedly to the yoke of Roman, Abyssinian and Persian rulers. In A.D. 105, Trajan sent his general, Cornelius Palma, and subdued the Nabathean kingdom of North Arabia. Mesopotamia was conquered and the eastern coast of the peninsula was completely devastated by the Romans in A.D. 116. Hira yielded to the monarchs of Persia as Ghassan did to the generals of Rome. Sir William Muir writes, “It is remarked even by a Mohammedan writer that the decadence of the race of Ghassan was preparing the way for the glories of the Arabian prophet.” In other words Arabia was being invaded by foreign powers and the Arabs were ready for a political leader to break these yokes and restore the old-time independence. Roman domination invaded even Mecca itself not long before the Hegira. “For shortly after his accession to the throne, A.D. 610, the Emperor Heraclius nominated Othman, then a convert to Christianity, ... as governor of Mecca, recommending him to the Koreishites in an authoritative letter.”[51] The Abyssinian wars and invasions of Arabia during the century preceding Mohammed are better known. Their dominion in Yemen, says Ibn Ishak, lasted seventy-two years, and they were finally driven out by the Persians, at the request of the Arabs.

Arabia was thus the centre of political schemes and plots just at the time when Mohammed came to manhood, the whole peninsula was awake to the touch of the Romans, Abyssinians and Persians, and ready to rally around any banner that led to a national deliverance.

As to the position of women in this “Time of Ignorance” the cruel custom of female infanticide prevailed in many parts of heathen Arabia. This was probably due, in the first instance, to poverty or famine, and afterward became a social custom to limit population. Professor Wilken suggests as a further reason that wars had tended to an excess of females over males. An Arab poet tells of a niece who refused to leave the husband to whom she had been assigned after capture. Her uncle was so enraged that he buried all his daughters alive and never allowed another one to live. Even one beautiful girl who had been saved alive by her mother was ruthlessly placed in a grave by the father and her cries stifled with earth. This horrible custom however was not usual. We are told of one distinguished Arab, named Saa-Saa, who tried to put down the practice of “digging a grave by the side of the bed on which daughters were born.”

Mohammed improved on the barbaric method and discovered a way by which not some but all females could be buried alive without being murdered—namely, the veil. Its origin was one of the marriage affairs of the prophet with its appropriate revelation from Allah. The veil was unknown in Arabia before that time. It was Islam that forever withdrew from Oriental society the bright, refining, elevating influence of women. Keene says that the veil “lies at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation.” The harem-system did not prevail in the days of idolatry. Women had rights and were respected. In two instances, beside that of Zenobia, we read of Arabian queens ruling over their tribes. Freytag in his Arabian Proverbs gives a list of female judges who exercised their office in the “time of ignorance.” According to NÖldeke, the Nabathean inscriptions and coins prove that women held an independent and honorable position in North Arabia long before Islam; they constructed expensive family graves, owned large estates, and were independent traders. The heathen Arabs jealously watched over their women as their most valued possession and defended them with their lives. A woman was never given away by her father in an unequal match nor against her consent. “If you cannot find an equal match,” said Ibn Zohair to the Namir, “the best marriage for them is the grave.” Professor G. A. Wilken[52] adduces many proofs to show that women had a right in every case to choose their own husbands and cites the case of Khadijah who offered her hand to Mohammed. Even captive women were not kept in slavery, as is evident from the verses of Hatim:

Polyandry and polygamy were both practiced; the right of divorce belonged to the wife as well as to the husband; temporary marriages were also common. As was natural among a nomad race, the marriage bond was quickly made and easily dissolved. But this was not the case among the Jews and Christians of Yemen and Nejran. Two kinds of marriage were in vogue. The mota’a was a purely personal contract between a man and woman; no witnesses were necessary and the woman did not leave her home or come under the authority of her husband; even the children belonged to the wife. This marriage, so frequently described in Arabic poetry, was not considered illicit but was openly celebrated in verse and brought no disgrace on the woman. In the other kind of marriage, called nikah, the woman became subject to her husband by capture or purchase. In the latter case the purchase-money was paid to the bride’s kin.

The position of women before Islam is thus described in Smith’s “Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia.” “It is very remarkable that in spite of Mohammed’s humane ordinances the place of woman in the family and in society has steadily declined under his law. In ancient Arabia we find ... many proofs that women moved more freely and asserted themselves more strongly than in the modern East.... The Arabs themselves recognized that the position of woman had fallen ... and it continued still to fall under Islam, because the effect of Mohammed’s legislation in favor of women was more than outweighed by the establishment of marriages of dominion as the one legitimate type, and by the gradual loosening of the principle that married women could count on their own kin to stand by them against their husbands.”[53]

In “the time of ignorance” writing was well known and poetry flourished. Three accomplishments were coveted—eloquence, horsemanship and liberal hospitality. Orators were in demand, and to maintain the standard and reward excellence there were large assemblies as at Okatz. These lasted a whole month and the tribes came long journeys to hear the orators and poets as well as to engage in trade. The learning of the Arabs was chiefly confined to tribal history, astrology and the interpretation of dreams; in these they made considerable progress.

According to Moslem tradition the science of writing was not known in Mecca until introduced by Harb, Father of Abu Scofian, the great opponent of Mohammed, about A.D. 560. But this is evidently an error, for close intercourse existed long before this between Mecca and Sana the capital of Yemen where writing was well known; and in another tradition Abd el Muttalib is said to have written to Medina for help in his younger days, i.e., about 520 A.D. Both Jews and Christians also dwelt in the vicinity of Mecca for two hundred years before the Hegira and used some form of writing. For writing materials they had abundance of reeds and palm-leaves as well as the flat, smooth shoulder-bones of sheep. The seven poems are said to have been written in gold on Egyptian silk and suspended in the Kaaba.

In the earlier part of his mission Mohammed despised the poets for the good reason that some, among them a poetess, wrote satirical verses about him. The Koran says “those who go astray follow the poets” (Surah 26: 224) and a more vigorous though less elegant denouncement is recorded in the traditions (Mishkat Bk. 22, ch. 10): “A belly full of purulent matter is better than a belly full of poetry.” When two of the heathen poets, Labid and Hassan embraced Islam, the prophet became more lenient, and is reported to have said “poetry is a kind of composition which if it is good, it is good, and if it is bad, it is bad!”

Concerning the religion of the heathen Arabs the Mohammedan writer Ash-Shahristani says: “The Arabs of pre-islamic times may, with reference to religion be divided into various classes. Some of them denied the Creator, the resurrection and men’s return to God, and asserted that Nature possesses in itself the power of bestowing life, but that Time destroys. Others believed in a Creator and a creation produced by Him out of nothing but yet denied the resurrection. Others believed in a Creator and a creation but denied God’s prophets and worshipped false gods concerning whom they believed that in the next world they would become mediators between themselves and God. For these deities they undertook pilgrimages, they brought offerings to them, offered them sacrifices and approached them with rites and ceremonies. Some things they held to be Divinely permitted, others to be prohibited. This was the religion of the majority of the Arabs.” This is remarkable evidence for a Mohammedan who would naturally be inclined to take an unfavorable view. But his absolute silence regarding the Jews and Christians of Arabia is suggestive.

When the Arabian tribes lost their earliest monotheism (the religion of Job and their patriarchs) they first of all adopted Sabeanism or the worship of the hosts of heaven. A proof of this is their ancient practice of making circuits around the shrines of their gods as well as their skill in astrology. Very soon however the star-worship became greatly corrupted and other deities, superstitions and practices were introduced. Ancient Arabia was a refuge for all sorts of religious-fugitives, and each band added something to the national stock of religious ideas. The Zoroastrians came to East Arabia; the Jews settled at Kheibar, Medina, and in Yemen; Christians of many sects lived in the north and in the highlands of Yemen. For all pagan Arabia Mecca was the centre many centuries before Mohammed. Here stood the Kaaba, the Arabian Pantheon, with its three hundred and sixty idols, one for each day in the year. Here the tribes of Hejaz met in annual pilgrimage to rub themselves on the Black Stone, to circumambulate the Beit Allah or Bethel of their creed and to hang portions of their garments on the sacred trees. At Nejran a sacred date-palm was the centre of pilgrimage. Everywhere in Arabia there were sacred stones or stone-heaps where the Arab devotees congregated to obtain special blessings. The belief in jinn or genii was well-nigh universal, but there was a distinction between them and gods. The gods have individuality while the jinn have not; the gods are worshipped, the jinn are only feared; the god has one form; the jinn appear in many. All that the Moslem world believes in regard to jinn is wholly borrowed from Arabian heathenism and those who have read the Arabian Nights know what a large place they hold in the everyday life of Moslems.

The Arabs were always superstitious, and legends of all sorts cluster around every weird desert rock, gnarled tree or intermittent fountain in Arabia. The early Arabs therefore marked off such sacred territory by pillars or cairns and considered many things such as shedding of blood, cutting of trees, killing game, etc, forbidden within the enclosure. This is the origin of the Haramain or sacred territory around Mecca and Medina. Sacrifices were common, but not by fire. The blood of the offering was smeared over the rude stone altars and the flesh was eaten by the worshipper. First fruits were given to the gods and libations were poured out; a hair-offering formed a part of the ancient pilgrimage; this also is imitated to-day.

W. Robertson Smith tries to prove that totemism was the earliest form of Arabian idolatry and that each tribe had its sacred animal. The strongest argument for this is the undoubted fact that many of the tribal names were taken from animals and that certain animals were regarded as sacred in parts of Arabia. The theory is too far-reaching to be adopted at haphazard and the author’s ideas of the significance of animal sacrifice are not in accord with the teaching of Scripture. It is however interesting to know that the same authority thinks the Arabian tribal marks or wasms were originally totem-marks and must have been tattooed on the body even as they are now used to mark property. The washm of the idolatrous Arabs seems related to their wasms and was a kind of tattooing of the hands, arms and gums. It was forbidden by Mohammed but is still widely prevalent in North Arabia among the Bedouin women.

Covenants of blood and of salt are also very ancient Semitic institutions and prevailed all over Arabia. The form of the oath was various. At Mecca the parties dipped their hands in a pan of blood and tasted the contents; in other places they opened a vein and mixed their fresh blood; again they would each draw the others’ blood and smear it on seven stones set up in the midst. The later Arabs substituted the blood of a sheep or of a camel for human blood.

The principal idols of Arabia were the following; ten of them are mentioned by name in the Koran.

• Hubal was in the form of a man and came from Syria; he was the god of rain and had a high place of honor.
• Wadd was the god of the firmament.
• Suwah, in the form of a woman, was said to be from antediluvian times.
• Yaghuth had the shape of a lion.
• Ya’ook was in the form of a horse, and was worshipped in Yemen. Bronze images of this idol are found in ancient tombs.
• Nasr was the eagle-god.
• El Uzza, identified by some scholars with Venus, was worshipped at times under the form of an acacia tree.
• Allat was the chief idol of the tribe of Thakif at Taif who tried to compromise with Mohammed to accept Islam if he would not destroy their god for three years. The name appears to be the feminine of Allah.
• Manat was a huge stone worshipped as an altar by several tribes.
• Duwar was the virgin’s idol and young women used to go around it in procession; hence its name.
• Isaf and Naila stood near Mecca on the hills of Safa and Mirwa; the visitation of these popular shrines is now a part of the Moslem pilgrimage.
• Habhab was a large stone on which camels were slaughtered.

Beside these there were numerous other gods whose names have been utterly lost and yet who each had a place in the Pantheon at Mecca. Above all these was the supreme deity whom they called ? ?e??, the God, or Allah. This name occurs several times in the ancient pre-islamic poems and proves that the Arabs knew the one true God by name even in the “time of ignorance.” To Him they also made offerings though not of the first and best; in His name covenants were sealed and the holiest oaths were sworn. Enemy of Allah was the strongest term of opprobrium among the Arabs then as it is to-day. Wellhausen says, “In worship Allah had the last place, those gods being preferred who represented the interests of a particular circle and fulfilled the private desires of their worshippers. Neither the fear of Allah nor their reverence for the gods had much influence. The chief practical consequence of the great feasts was the observance of a truce in the holy months; and this in time had become mainly an affair of pure practical convenience. In general the disposition of the heathen Arabs, if it is at all truly reflected in their poetry, was profane in an unusual degree. The ancient inhabitants of Mecca practiced piety essentially as a trade, just as they do now; their trade depended on the feast and its fair on the inviolability of the Haram and on the truce of the holy months.”

There is no doubt that at the time of Mohammed’s appearance the old national idolatry had degenerated. Many of the idols had no believers or worshippers. Sabeanism had also disappeared except in the north of Arabia; although it always left its influence which is evident not only in the Koran but in the superstitious practices of the modern Bedouins. Gross fetishism was the creed of many. One of Mohammed’s contemporaries said, “When they found a fine stone they adored it, or, failing that, milked a camel over a heap of sand and worshipped that.” The better classes at Mecca and Medina had ceased to believe anything at all. The forms of religion “were kept up rather for political and commercial reasons than as a matter of faith or conviction.”[54]

Add to all this the silent but strong influence of the Jews and Christians who were in constant contact with these idolaters and we have the explanation of the Hanifs. These Hanifs were a small number of Arabs who worshipped only Allah, rejected polytheism, sought freedom from sin and resignation to God’s will. There were Hanifs at Taif, Mecca and Medina. They were in fact seekers of truth, weary of the old idolatry and the prevalent hollow hypocrisy of the Arabs. The earliest Hanifs of whom we hear, were Waraka, the cousin of the prophet Mohammed, and Zeid bin Amr, surnamed the Inquirer. Mohammed at first also adopted this title of Hanif to express the faith of Abraham but soon after changed it to Moslem.

It is only a step from Hanifism to Islam. Primary monotheism, Sabeanism, idolatry, fetishism, Hanifism, and then the prophet with the sword to bring everything back to monotheism—monotheism, as modified by his own needs and character and compromises. The time of ignorance was a time of chaos. Everything was ready for one who could take in the whole situation, social, political and religious and form a cosmos. That man was Mohammed.