Political Conditions of the Pre-Islamic Tribal Zone

Last updated: May 18th, 2025 at 7:41 am · Est. Reading Time: 5 minutes

The Tribal Zone of pre-Islamic Arabia had only one constitution.  That was the tribal tradition.

Political Management of the Tribal Zone

For almost three centuries before the advent of Islam, several self-governing tribes inhabited and controlled the regions we call the ‘Tribal Zone’.  The only constitution of the land was tribal tradition.  Absence of any state authority meant slightest clash of interest could lead to an armed tussle.  The tribes were constantly at strife with each other.  A typical example of a tribal feud will be a fight between Ghassans (Ghassān غَسّان) on one side and Asad and Fazarah (Fazārah فَزارَه) on the other, preserved by pre-Islamic poet Nabigha.¹

The tribal alliances and enmities did not have any permanence.  The rapidity of change in allegiances and enmities is evident from a study of the relationship between Tayi, Ghatafan (Ghaṭafān غَطَفان) and Asad tribes.  They used to be in alliance with each other by of 6^th century CE.  A few decades later, sometimes just before the advent of Islam, the relationship changed.  Ghatafan and Asad joined hands to chase the Tayi away from their lands in Jadilah and Ghawth.  A few years further later, during the Ridda Wars, the relationship changed again.  Many Tayi clans sided with Ghatafan and Asad against forces of the Rashidun Caliphate.²   Endless fighting among Arabs kept the population sufficiently small for the meagre resources of the desert to support.³

Tribal Confederations and Coalescing of the Tribes

Constant threat to the life and property of a weak tribe by a powerful neighbouring tribe would have compelled some of them to join hands in mutual defence as confederates (حليف, ḥalīf).  Once the process started, it would have a snowball effect, encouraging more to join them.  Such tribal confederations had played a significant political role in the Tribal Zone after a decline in state influence.  We hear about a number of them during this period.  One of them was Ma’add (مَعَدّ), who is well attested in inscriptions.⁴  The tribal confederations were not well-cemented political organisations or chiefdoms.  They were simply loose alliances against others with a lot of internal conflicts.⁵

Some of the individual tribes mentioned by early Islamic sources were big numerically, and distributed extensively.  They might be representing a powerful tribe, which instead of entering a confederation, coalesced with many small tribes.  Tamim (Tamīm تَمِيم) was the largest tribe of Central Arabia, scattered throughout Nejd, Yamama and Bahrain.  Almost all of its clans were nomads.⁶  This, as well as Ghatafan, falls under this category.⁷

Development of tribal confederations did not solve the question of security to full extent.  The constituent tribes of a confederation did not give up their identity.  The confederation remained a leaderless alignment of equals.  Each of them retained the right to take advantage of others’ weaknesses.  As the confederating tribes were still dagger drawn at each other, some of them had to ally with the surrounding states to strengthen their respective position as compared to their opponents.  The luxury of having a foreign patron came at a cost.  The principal power imposed some kind of tax on its nomadic ally.  Despite having auxiliary relations with foreign states and state-like entities, the Tribal Zone never strived to organise itself into a true state.

By mid of sixth century very few tribes were left without any kind of affiliation with a foreign power, anyhow.  Like their own internal politics of frequently changing allegiance and enmity, they used to switch their allegiance to foreign powers at their convenience.

It is worth noting that the tribe was too big to accommodate the political aspirations of all consisting clans.  Resultantly, these were mainly clans that acted as sovereign political units.⁸

The Tribes Were Territorial

The Bedouin tribes, though not staying at one place, did not have the liberty to roam wherever they wished.  They had their well-defined territories in which they could graze their livestock.⁹  Further, at least for some part of the year, they had to sojourn in one of the towns near their territory for trade exchange.  The town of each tribal unit was fixed.  That is the reason the authorities of Sasanian Iran waited patiently for many months to catch the Tamim in their trading town, who had scattered in the desert after looting the Sasanian caravan.¹⁰  Baladhuri, a 9th-century Islamic scholar, has compiled a detailed genealogy and history of Arab tribes.¹¹  In light of his reports, we can confidently know about the specific territory of each tribe.  Generally main body of a tribe concentrated in that particular area, but some clans and individuals resided far from their traditional territory.  A vivid example is that of Kindah.  Its main body was resident in Yemen, but one clan was the ruling family of Dumat al Jandal in the north.¹²

Failure of States to Assimilate the Tribal Zone

The states surrounding the Tribal Zone of pre-Islamic Arabia wished to assimilate the area into their respective empires.  However, they never had the means to do so.

The reason for the state’s failure in the Tribal Zone was clear.  The nomads were desert-adapted, while the soldiers of the states were not.  Very early in their history, people of the Tribal Zone, in Diodorus’s view, had developed the technique of storing water in underground reservoirs and hiding them from outsiders.¹³  Archaeologists have confirmed that this was the case.¹⁴  This technique was their key defence system.  Whenever a strong state attacked the Tribal Zone, its people dispersed into the desert.  The soldiers of the state armies retreated being thirsty, hungry, exhausted and disappointed.

Further Reading

www.historyofislam.org

Endnotes

 

1. Diwan al Nabigha al Dubyani, ed. M. Ibrahim, (Cairo, 1977), 52.
2. Abū Jā’far Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, The History of al- Ṭabarī. Vol. X, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater, trans. Fred M. Donner (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 42, 68.
3. Montgomery W. Watt.  Muhammad at Medina (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 105.
4. Irfan Shahīd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Vol. 1, Part 2 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995), 160 – 166.  AND Michael J. Zwettler, “Ma’add in Late-Ancient Arabian Epigraphy and Other Pre-Islamic sources,” Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes 90 (2000):  268 – 270; Jeremie Schiettecatte and Mounir Arbach, “The political map of Arabia and the Middle East in the third century AD revealed by a Sabaean inscription,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 27 no. 2 (2016): 2. (Inscription Riyam 2006-17).
5. Fred M. Donner, “The Bakr b. Waʾil tribes and politics in North Eastern Arabia on the Eve of Islam,” Studia Islamica 51 (1980): 10.
6. Al-Bakri. Kitāb mu’jam māsta’jam, ed H. F. Wustenfield, (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1876), vol. I, p 88.
7. Warner Caskel, “The Bedouinization of Arabia,” American Anthropologist 52, no. 2, part 2, memoir no. 76 (1954):  37.
8. Montgomery W. Watt.  Muhammad at Mecca.  London: Oxford University Press, 1953; Repr. 1965.
9. Abū Jā’far Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. V, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater, trans. C. E. Bosworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 289.
10. Abū Jā’far Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. V, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater, trans. C. E. Bosworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 292.
11. Baladhuri, Ahmad ibn Yahya al-, Ansab al Ashraf, ed. Mahmud al Firdaus al-‘Azm (Damascus: Dar al Yakzat al-Arabiyya, 2000), in 25 volumes.
12. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq,  The Life of Muhammad.  Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 607.
13. Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus, trans. G. Booth, (London: John Churchill, 1700), P 649, book XIX, Chap. VI.
14. Sa’ad bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al Rāshid, al-Rabadhah, a portrait of early Islamic civilisation in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh: King Saud University, 1986; Al-Dayel, K., al-Ḥilwa, Salāh, and Neil Mackenzie, “Preliminary report on the third season of Darb Zubaydah survey, 1978,” ATLAL 3 (1979): 43 – 54.