Pre-Islam

Pre-Islamic Arabs were familiar with the concept of imprisonment.  It is mentioned in pre-Islamic poetry with the background of the Lakhmids and the Ghassans.  People of Hejaz practiced it as well.  For example, Ibn Ishaq mentions that Salma bin Hisham (Hishām هِشام), an early convert, was imprisoned by his uncle in Mecca, and he could […]

Nature of the Crime Punishment of theft and adultery is often dealt with together in the earliest codes of law originating in the region of the Middle East. Adultery was a form of theft in the Middle Eastern mindset from the earliest times, albeit more abominable than common theft. Punishment of adultery in the Middle

An Arab tribe was composed of all those individuals who were descended from a reputed common ancestor.  Here, the keyword is ‘reputed common ancestor’. The common ancestor of a tribe could be real or legendary.  Historians have figured out how the Roman authorities created four civic tribes out of fourteen at Palmyra in the 1st

Arabic language had matured into classical Arabic before advent of Islam.  Classical Arabic was spoken and written all over Arabian Peninsula on the eve of Islam. Arabic language developed in three stages.  During first phase of its development it was mainly a spoken language and did not have alphabets of its own.  Due to this

Political self-identity The tribe was the main political self-identity of an Arab in the late pre-Islamic period.  It simply means individuals identified themselves by the tribe they belonged to.  The tribe’s name was a kind of identity card for a person.  Each individual needed to know his genealogy, the knowledge of his descent.  And by

Pre-Islamic Arabia was not a country.  It was a land comprising a number of political entities and regions. Hejaz The portion of the land where Mecca and Medina are located currently was Hejaz.  It not only included the northern portion of the main mountain range of Arabia but also the adjacent portion of Tihamah. Taif

Arabs (‘Arab عَرَب) became an identifiable ethnic group around the beginning of first millennium BCE. Assyrian king Shalmaneser III has recorded his victory over a coalition of Syrian and Palestinian kings on Kurkh Stele.  This war, known as battle of Qarqar, was fought in 853 BCE. Shalmaneser III writes that among others, a certain ‘Gindibu

Medina (Madīnah مَدىِنه), whose ancient name was Yathrib (Yethrib يثرب), is clearly identified at its present location by pre-Islamic sources. Inscription of Nabonidus, dating from 552 BCE or little after and discovered at Harran (Sultantepe) near present day Urfa in south-eastern Turkey, reads ‘I hied myself afar from my city Babylon [on] the road to

The location of the Ka’ba in pre-Islamic times was at the same place where it is located right now. Debate Historians have been debating the location of Mecca, and hence the Ka’ba, in pre-Islamic times. The doubt about its location started when the archaeologists discovered the ruins of the mosque of Wasit in Iraq around

Arabic developed and matured in a span of at least six centuries before the advent of Islam. At one stage of its development it was written, and probably spoken, in a style called Old Arabic.  Scholars have given it a fancy name of Palaeo-Arabic.  Lately Palaeo-Arabic refashioned into Classical Arabic. The earliest document, which its