Chapter 1 Prehistory

For an illustration of a variety of scholarly views on the pre-Islamic period see the collection

of articles assembled in F. E. Peters (ed.), Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam, Aldershot,

Ashgate Variorum, 1999.

The foundations of Islam

For a sense of the world at the time prior to the rise of Islam, the power elements at play,

and the extent of continuity between the Islamic empire and late antiquity see Garth Fowden,

Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity, Princeton,

Princeton University Press, 1993.

The Near East before Islam

For an excellent overview of pre-Islamic Arabia, including historical, cultural and religious

elements with illustrations and generous provisions of source texts see Robert G. Hoyland,

Arabia and the Arabs From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam, London, Routledge,

2001.

The situation in the Arabian peninsula

For Christians in Arabia, the standard source is J. Spencer Trimingham, Christianity Among

the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times, London, Longman, 1979, chapter 5.

The issue of the nature and extent of pre-Islamic trade is much debated. On the specific

point of the role of trade in South Arabia and its bearing on the rise of Islam see Patricia

Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987.

Extensive debate about this thesis has arisen; Crone has added valuable supplements in

How did the Quranic Pagans make a Living? Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African

Studies, 68 (2005), 38799, and Quraysh and the Roman Army: Making Sense of the

Meccan Leather Trade, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70 (2007),

6388. A different approach with contrary conclusions is undertaken in Gene W. Heck,

Arabia Without Spices: An Alternate Hypothesis, Journal of the American Oriental Society,

123 (2003), 54776.

Religion in the Arabian peninsula

On South Arabian religion see Ulf Oldenburg, Above the Stars of El: El in Ancient South

Arabic Religion, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 82 (1970), 187208. Also

see Gerald Obermeyer, Civilization and Religion in Ancient South Arabia, Bulletin of the

Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, 1 (1999), 3563. On the religious aspects of South

Arabian inscriptions see G. Ryckmans, Heaven and Earth in the South Arabian

Inscriptions, Journal of Semitic Studies, 3 (1958), 22536.

On the use of ramanan also see Jonas C. Greenfield, From il rmn to al-ramn The

Source of a Divine Epithet, in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren (eds),

Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction; Essays in Honor of William

M. Brinner, Leiden, Brill, 2000, pp. 38193, and for its significance in the later Islamic context

see Andrew Rippin, RMNN and the anfs, in Wael B. Hallaq, Donald P. Little (eds),

Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1991, pp. 15368,

reprinted in Andrew Rippin, The Qurn and its Interpretative Tradition, Aldershot, Variorum,

2001, chapter 3.

A helpful introduction to early inscriptions, including some South Arabian examples making

reference to Athtar and Almaqah, is found in Christian Robin, Les critures de larabie

avant lIslam, Revue du monde musulman et de la Mditerrane, 61 (1991), 12737,

available online at http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/issue/remmm_0997-

1327_1991_num_61_1 In the same issue, Robins article Du paganisme au monothisme,

pp. 13955, also provides a valuable overview.

The significance of Central Arabia

See Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Princeton, Princeton University

Press, 1987, esp. pp. 14967 for details on the likely extent of the trade and how it impacted

Mecca; also note the follow-up articles by Crone and Heck mentioned above.

For Arab Bedouin religion see Joseph Henninger, Pre-Islamic Bedouin Religion, in Merlin

L. Swartz (trans. and ed.), Studies on Islam, New York, Oxford University Press, 1981, pp.

322, although much of the detail in this chapter is open to debate.

For the place of Mecca in pre-Islamic ritual see G. R. Hawting, The Origins of the Muslim

Sanctuary at Mecca, in G. H. A. Juynboll (ed.), Studies in the First Century of Islamic

Society, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1982, pp. 2347.

Pre-Islamic poetry is documented in A. J. Arberrys The Seven Odes: the first chapter in

Arabic literature, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1957, available online at

http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/books/odes.pdf (note that an 18.5 MB file is downloaded).

Prehistory in Muslim identity

The notion of tradition is well theorized among cultural historians. See, for example,

Edward Shils, Tradition, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13 (1971), 12259.

The notion of jhiliyya

A concordance of the Qurn can be helpful in seeing the sense of the word jhiliyya in the

scripture. For example, using the tools available at

http://corpus.quran.com/morphologicalsearch.jsp one may enter the root letters (in lower

case letters) jhl (the root of the word jhiliyya) and return the 24 passages in which it is found

in both Arabic (with the word containing the root jhl highlighted) and in English.

For some understanding of the way in which the idea of jhiliyya was transmitted and

controlled in classical times see Rina Drory, The Abbasid Construction of the Jahiliyya:

Cultural Authority in the Making, Studia Islamica, 83 (1996), 3349.

Discontinuity of Islam with the past

Al-Wids book on the contexts of revelation, Kitb Asbb al-Nuzl, is available in English

translation in published form: Asbab Al-Nuzul: The Great Commentaries of the Holy Quran,

translated by Mokrane Guezzou, edited by Yousef Meri, Amman: Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute

for Islamic Thought, Louisville KY, Fons Vitae, 2008; the same text is available online:

http://www.altafsir.com/WahidiAsbabAlnuzul.asp. A selection of the material is also available

in Norman Calder, Jawid Mojaddedi and Andrew Rippin, Classical Islam: A Sourcebook of

Religious Literature, London, Routledge, 2003, section 4.3.

On the interpretation of asbb al-nuzl anecdotes see A. Rippin, The Function of Asbb al-

Nuzl in Qurnic Exegesis, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 51

(1988), 120, reprinted in Andrew Rippin, The Qurn and its Interpretative Tradition,

Aldershot, Ashgate Variorum, 2001, chapter 17.

For the overall interpretation of Q. 2/158 see Mahmoud M. Ayoub, The Qurn and its

Interpreters, volume 1, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1984, pp. 1769.

For other examples of the uncertainty in facts among Muslim writers in dealing with pre-

Islamic times see M. A. Cook, Muhammad, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, chapter

7. On the ambivalence when dealing with food laws see M. Cook, Early Islamic Dietary

Law, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 7 (1986), 21777, especially pp. 2701.

The role of the Abrahamic myth

On Ibn al-Kalbs book see G. R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam:

From Polemic to History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, chapter 4.

A full English translation of Ibn al-Kalb is available: Nabih Amin Faris, The Book of Idols:

being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitb al-Anm by Hishm ibn al-Kalb, Princeton,

Princeton University Press, 1952. The book is also available online at http://answering-

islam.org/Books/Al-Kalbi/

On Abraham and Mecca see Reuven Firestone, Abrahams Association with the Meccan

Sanctuary and the Pilgrimage in the Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Periods, Le Muson, 104

(1991), 35987.

The significance of prehistory

For an illustration of the difficulties involved in dealing with the pre-Islamic period as it blends

into the conception of Islam itself see G. R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the

Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

1999.