Meccan Trade

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Review: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics

Author(s): R. B. SerjeantSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 110, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1990), pp. 472-486Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603188 .

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REVIEW ARTICLES

MECCAN TRADE AND THE RISE OF ISLAM:MISCONCEPTIONS AND FLAWED POLEMICS1

R. B. SERJEANT

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Meccan Trade sets out to prove that the accepted history of the rise of Islam is largely

fabrication, that the security system established by Quraysh for caravan trade, if it existed at all,

was of a minor local sort, and that pre-Islamic Mecca was a quite unimportant sanctuary. Its

author starts, with deep-seated prejudices,to produce a confused, irrationaland illogical polemic,

further complicated by her misunderstanding of Arabic texts, her lack of comprehension of the

social structure of Arabia, and twisting of the clear sense of other writing, ancient or modern, to

suit her contentions. The present article, basing itself on the Arabic sources, treats a limitednumber of salient issues, mostly historical, and demonstrates the book's serious fallacies. It offers

logical interpretation of the data, including rectification of errors in translations from Arabic

passages cited in support of her arguments.

How DOES ONE DEAL WITH such a book as this,

calculated to attract publicity by shocking Islamists

through the strange theories it advances on pre-

Islamic Mecca, novel theories to be sure, but founded

upon misinterpretations,misunderstandingof sources,

even, at times, on incorrect translations of Arabic?

Add to this the author's arrogant style! Yet, being

nicely printed and with the imprimatur of PrincetonUniversity Press, this diatribe might easily attract the

credulous attention of those not well informed on

Islam and its origins in the Arabian setting. The

simplest course open to the reviewer seems to be to

re-examine the sources cited by Dr. Crone to support

her contentious and often fallacious notions and

attempt to arriveat what they actually do say.

Of the nature of the source material for early

Islamic history Arabists and Islamists are, of course,

fully aware. Traditions range from legend to reports

of events by historians such as Ibn Ishaq (d. 150 H.)

and al-WaqidT (d. 207 H.). Inconsistencies there are;nevertheless in the Traditions there is an undeniable

core of "fact," but the sources are selective and the

data they record so fragmentary that argument from

negative evidence has little value. To illustrate what

historical tradition has "left out" let me take two

'This is a review article of: Meccan Tradeand the Rise of

Islam. By PATRICIA CRONE. Princeton: PRINCETON UNI-

VERSITY RESS,1987.Pp. 300.$32.50.

examples on which I am directly informed. Trial by

ordeal, bishcah, found in the customary law of Jordan

and south Arabia in modern times, is known to me

only in early Arab history through a reference in

Kitdb al-Munammaq (p. 118), and the word in this

sense does not figure in the lexicons. Secondly, the

ritual hunt of the ibex, linked with certain pre-Islamic

gods and rain-making, is unknown to early Arabicliterature. Yet it figures in a group of pre-Islamic

inscriptions and has survived in Hadramawt to our

own day. It is negative evidence nevertheless that

forms a large part of Dr. Crone's argument. Data

collected from oral accounts will naturally contain

inconsistencies, sometimes suppressions or contradic-

tions, the amazing Arab memory for detail notwith-

standing. She eagerly seizes on these where they occur

but as often as not she throws all her ingredient

Traditions into the pot, stirs them together and uses

the resultant mess to fudge the question at issue-thus

she builds up to a reductio ad absurdum and a giggle!"Islamic tradition on the rise of Islam," she says

(p. 91), "consists of little but stories," but then so do

the Gospels, and why not?

In Islam the existence of spurious Traditions was

early recognized and Western scholars go further in

distinguishing the element of factionalism in Tradi-

tion. Methodologically we cannot but start from the

premise that a Tradition is a genuine report of "fact"

until it is creditably shown to be false, or partially or

472



SERJEANT: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam 473

wholly invalidated by palpable bias. The slant, for

instance, given to historical tradition by sympathy for

the House of Hashim can, when it occurs, be readily

perceived, but this in itself need not invalidate a

Tradition.

In surveying the history of Mecca, its sanctuary, itstrade, its political significance in 6th-century Arabia,common sense requires that the following inescapableconsiderations should be kept in mind:

1. The valley is devoid of natural resources ade-

quate to support population.2. Qusayy, ancestor of Quraysh, cannot but have

had a sound reason for taking it over and settling

people there.

3. As Mecca lacks natural resources the Meccans

must import footstuffs such as grain and dates.

4. To purchase foodstuffs the Meccans must have

had some source of income.

5. It is not unusual for a sanctuary to be located ina relatively remote desert place like the vale of

Mecca.2

6. A shrine implies a pilgrimage to it, whether

casual or organized. It is inconceivable that an or-

ganized pilgrimage should not involve trading, even if

this be located a little removed from the actual shrine.7. Apart from votive offerings (nudhiir) and possi-

bly income from waqfs external to it, Mecca's income

could hardly derive from anything but commerce

and/or crafts.

To the above I would add that if the Quraysh

system of agreements with tribes on commerce berejected as fabrication (a notion with which I totally

disagree), it becomes the more difficult to account forthe ascendancy established by Quraysh and inherited

by Muhammad.

Lammens and the followers of his theories exposedin La Republique marchande de la Mecque3 are theprime target of Dr. Crone's attack, and their assump-tion that the commerce described by Pliny and thePeriplus was inherited by the Meccans attracts herscorn! Learned as he was, Lammens often shows a

2 In south Arabia I know Daniyal b. HUd's tomb in Wadi

Hada and Mawla Matar in the district of the tribe Sayban.

Also reported is that of Salih in Jabal 'Asnab. Qabr HUd is

in an area deserted nowadays, but it may not always have

been so.

3 "La Republique marchande de la Mecque vers l'an 600 de

notre &re,"Bulletin de l'Institut EJgyptien, th ser., IV (1910):

23-54. The very title begs the question of the form of social

and governmental organization at Mecca.

lack of critical judgment, as in his BNtyles4wherein he

misinterprets al-bayt wa- '1- adad, the (ruling/holy)

house (of a tribe) and the (greatest) number, a cate-

gory of relevance to this discussion. Crone also attacks

W. M. Watt's theory (p. 231), developed out of

Lammens' article, that "the QurashTtransition to amercantile economy undermined the traditional orderin Mecca, generating a social and moral malaise towhich Muhammad's preaching was the response."

Reflecting the fashionable socialist views of the fifties

combined with an evangelist coloring, this theory of

pagan Mecca is simply without foundation. If, in

dealing with this period of Arabian history, one must

look for patterns, as Watt does, surely they should be

Arabian patterns? Indeed, given the nature of the

historical sources for the 6th-7th centuries, such

patterns should be applied as criteria, but judiciously,

where they may help to enlighten. In plain terms the

picture the sources for the period present is that of astruggle within a holy house' between an able cadet

and the house's holders of office. A service Dr. Crone

has done here is to show up the extent to which

Quraysh commercial activity has been inflated byWestern writers with trade patterns of the classical agein their minds, relying on these to fill out the sparsedata of the early Arabic sources; but this does not

negate the existence of Quraysh commerce.

Regarding Quraysh trading with southern Arabia,the problem recently presented itself to me as follows."The famous summer and winterjourneys of Quraysh,

to which the Qur'dn alludes, would have been timedto coincide with the arrival of the India trade fleet inthe South-we do not know at which points, or even

whether the Quraysh caravan route ran along the

Tihamah coast or by the interior east of the moun-

tains. Goods travelling such distances overland would

surely be light in weight, high in value, to ensure aprofit: tribal insecurity or piracy at sea could affect

the commercial viability of land or sea routes."6No mention is made of Quraysh merchants, or

indeed of merchants of any other Arab group, in the

4 "Le Culte des BMtyles t les processions religieuses chez

les Arabes preislamites," Bulletin de l'Institut Francais d'

Archeologie Orientale (Cairo), XVII (1919).

5 I employ this term faute de mieux and avoid such a term

as "sacerdotal."6

"Yemeni merchants and trade in the Yemen, 13th-16th

centuries," in Marchands et hommes d'affaires asiatiques,

ed. Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin (Paris: E-ditions de

1'EHESS, 1987 [written 1985]).



474 Journal of the American Oriental Society 110.3 (1990)

account given of the trade cycle by Ibn al-KalbT,7

which describes the movement of merchants in the

pre-Islamicperiod, startingout from Duimatal-Jandal,

proceeding via the Persian Gulf to Hadramawt, and

thence to Aden and San'a', terminating at the fair of

'Ukaz. Ibn al-KalbT'strade pattern is to be acceptedas, broadly speaking, authentic.

We are on fairly sure ground in deducing that

Quraysh made regular journeys to points in northern

Yemen. Ibn al-KalbT infra) speaks of Tabalah, Jurash,

and the sea-coast of the Yemen as supplying the

Meccans with the grain they needed in a year8 of

drought. Tabalah, eight days' distance from Mecca,

and Bishah lie in the northern mikhldf of the Yemen.

MERCHANTCOMMODITIES

Chapter II discusses the "Classical Spice Trade,"

drawing mostly on the standard authorities and, whereincense is concerned, much on the two excellent

studies by Nigel Groom and Walter Muller. From this

not uninteresting chapter, though couched in polemi-

cal terms, Dr. Crone moves to "Meccan Spice Trade,"

treating in detail of individual "Arabian spices." Her

argument produces the negative result that the sources

do not mention Quraysh as trading in any of them-

which, given the limited data they provide, particularly

on economic matters, is hardly surprising. But the

lack of literary evidence does not prove that Quraysh

did not trade in them. So why this rodomontade when

a simple statement to this effect would have sufficed?Dr. Crone rejects the statement in al-AghanT

([Biilaq, 1285 H.], XIX:75) that, as she puts it, al-

Nu'man of al-Hyrah would send goods to 'Ukaz and

buy Yemeni products in return, in order to deny that

silk could have been traded in western Arabia. The

text9 states that al-Nu'man bought silk (harlr) ... and

striped material (burud) of 'asb-cloth, washy-silk and

striped cloth of Aden (musayyar AdanT). The poet

'Amir b. al-Tufayl, approximately contemporary with

al-Nu'man (al-Mufa4kialTydt,Lyall, 711), alludes to

al-dimaqs al-musayyar'l and the commentator notes

that musayyar was burud min al- Yamanyu'ti bi-ha,

striped material brought from the Yemen. cAmirwas

7 In al-MarziiqT,al-Azminahwa-'l-amkinahQatar,1968-

69),11:231eq.8 Sanah, sanawfi, in old Arabic usage, means a year of

drought.9 See my Islamictextiles(Beirut,1972[reprint rom Ars

Islamica]),123seq.,withevidence n Yemeni ilks.

10 Musayyar s "stripedcloth with an admixtureof silk,

striped cloth with yellow stripes."

of the Hawazin of al-Th'if, so musayyar which had an

admixture of qazz-silk was evidently known there,

while dimaqs is a word for silk known to a number of

pre-Islamic poets (Fraenkel, Fremdworter, 40). There

is no reason to question today that al-Nu'man bought

these three still well-attested types of Yemeni cloth,several of which were of silk, probably including the

Aden cloth, or that they were high-quality luxury

goods that were imported to the Hijaz. In the first

centuries of Islam Yemeni textiles were almost pro-

verbial for their excellence -actual examples have

been found and published. In a country so noted for

its skills in the handicrafts it could well be that silk

was not only woven in the Yemen before Islam but

that it could compete with that of other countries. Dr.

Crone (p. 83) says "the claim that he [al-Nu'man]

bought silk* was already rejected as mistaken by

Fraenkel," but Fraenkel wrote over a century ago

when little was known about the high level of culturein parts of Arabia and he has no grounds whatsoever

for this statement. So while we must not accept

exaggerated reconstructions of Quraysh trade in silk,

there was clearly a trade in western Arabia in this

commodity in which Quraysh may have taken part.

She cannot however but concede with the sources

that there was trading by the Meccans in "perfume,"

leather, clothing (sic, better understood as "cloth"),

animals, raisins. Wines come from Syria and some

from al-Taif--one would have expected wine to

come from the Yemen also where it is made to this

day and by Muslims. I cannot recall any reference totrade in it about this period.

Udm, rendered as "leather," has a range of mean-

ings-from hides and skins, coarse everyday utensils,

to the red leather from Khawlan upon which the

Prophet himself wrote that still comes from the north

of present-day Yemen. It occurs to me that skins

might have been an acceptable export to Byzantium

for the manufacture of parchment.

Dr. Crone gives the misleading impression that at

Qabr HUd leather was sold to the itinerant merchants

of al-bahr wa- '-barr, land and sea, though in fact the

text states that these merchants sold leather12 and in

exchange bought kundur-incense, myrrh(murr), aloes

11In the Umayyad period the Caliph Hisham appears to

have had Yemeni silkfirdsh.12 Leather sleeping mats made in the Dhofar/7afar region

are described in A. G. Miller, M. Morris and S. Stuart-

Smith, Plantsof Dhofar(Edinburgh, 1988), 192, as "of no

little value." In local terms this means worth "one or two

goats." I came across elaborately tooled mats upon which

bodies of the dead had been laid, in a Sabaean bee-hive




and dukhn-incense. As they did so, it can only havebeen for distribution further afield. There is no reason

why Quraysh merchants should not have boughtkundur or lubdn, so common in Hadramawt todayand to be seen in Yemen markets today as well, from

merchants at 'Ukaz or possibly Tabalah and otherYemeni markets.

The account of Hashim's meeting with the Byzantineemperor (perhaps actually a local official?), avers thatHashim said that he had a tribe who are the traders of

the Arabs. Hashim then asked him for a writingguaranteeing security to them and their merchandiseso that they could bring him "what is deemedchoice/rare of the leather and cloth (thiydb) of the

Hijaz so that they will be selling it in your country(`inda-kum) and it will be cheaper for you." With anot untypical disregardfor the Arabic text, Dr. Cronesees this last sentence as applying to "thick and coarse

clothes of the Hijaz," i.e., woolens, "and we areassured that they were cheap." But the Arabic refersto the new trading agreement proposed by Hashim,not to the actual commodities, which it specifies aschoice/rare. She argues: would it be worthwhile takingwoolen goods (for which there is no evidence that thecloth was wool) to Syria where they are alreadyabundant? But HijazT cloth could simply be clothimported to the Hijaz by land or sea and called HijazTin the same way as lubdn is called lubdn ShihrT,though it is not produced but only collected there,and as we speak of Mocha coffee though Mokha isonly an assembly point for the bean, which

grows inthe mountains.

Rhetorically Dr. Crone exclaims: "Yetthe Meccansclaimed that bulky woollens carried by caravan fromthe Hijaz to Syria at a distance of eight hundred mileswould be cheaper for the Syrians than what theycould buy at home. It makes no sense!" Certainly itdoes not, but then the text does not say this! Sherejects the idea (p. 141) that the Meccans dominatedthe exchange of goods between north Arabia andsouthern Syria, but the Arabic sources upon whichshe relies do not suggest that they did. Nor does theargument that, because a commodity was plentiful in

Syria and Byzantium, these countries would be un-interested in importing it from elsewhere, take anyaccount of the taste for foreign rarities, fluctuations ofprices, or scarcities arising from political action. Nordoes she consider such accidents as piracy, weatherconditions and the many other factors that affect

shaped tomb at Bir Fadl, close to Aden. Might these mats

have been imported from Dhofar?

trading. In fact, her whole treatment of the subject is

strictly mechanical, not allowing for such eventualities.

Further evidence is provided on Quraysh tradingand industry by Hisham b. al-Kalbi (say about 100 H.)

on the authority of his friend Abii Salih, in Hisham's

al-Mathdlib."3 So ardent a Rafidi, i.e., ShTll, wasHisham that al-Dhahabi, who considers him unreliable

as a transmitter of Tradition, would accord him no

more than the briefest mention in his Tadhkirat al-

huffaz~,with the remark that he was not a thiqah, areliable authority. Nevertheless this should not deterus from taking into consideration what he has to sayabout the professions of prominent Quraysh personali-

ties, though he and his father may have manipulatedthe historical data to detract from the honor of

certain Quraysh nobles against whom they entertainedprejudices,so as to manufacture a scandal (mathlabah)about them.

In Arabia the trades of butcher, blood-letter, barber,circumciser and tanner14 are demeaning occupations;the tailor and blacksmith have an ambiguous status,

seemingly quite respectable amongst townsfolk but,like all craftsmen, despised by the tribesmen. Ibn al-

KalbT's Mathalib lists a number of Quraysh who he

alleges practiced one or other of the demeaningoccupations; when we look into these more closelythey turn out to be members of the 'Abd Shams

group of the holy house of 'Abd Manaf and their

supporters, opponents of the Prophet up to his occu-

pation of Mecca, and members of the Taym b.Murrah

clan,the least in social

statusin

Mecca, theclan to which Abl Bakr belonged.' Even Zubayr b.

al-'Awwam is stigmatized as a butcher-that he gaineda livelihood as such is improbable, though the head of

"Amjed Hasan, Kitdb Mathdlib al-'Arab of Abu '1-

Mundhir Hisham b. Muhammad al-Sd'ib al-KalbT,a critical

edition, awarded the Ph.D. in the University of Punjab,

Lahore (n.d.).14 The demeaning crafts and trades are well documented

both in classical texts and my corpus of customary law texts.

There is, for example, the hajjdm, blood-letter, sa'igh,

gold/silver smith, and the qassdb, butcher. It is commentedthat the smith is despised for his ghashsh, fraud, and the

other two for their najdsah, uncleanness. It cannot be

thought that Zubayrcame into this category.

'5 Ya'qubi, Tdrikh, ed. Houtsma (Berlin, 1883), 140. Aba

Sufyan, at the time of the election of Ab5 Bakr, addresses

the Banui Abd Manaf and exhorts them not to let the people

be covetous of you, especially Murrah and 'Adiyy. It is not

meant that they are dacTfof course, but they do not rank as

high as 'Abd Manaf.




a house does slaughter the animals consumed by his

household. Abu Sufyan and AbU Lahab are stated to

have dealt in wine (which may have become a dis-

honorable occupation only after Islam) but AbU La-

hab is also said to have exercised the particularly low

craft of tanner-it cannot be credited that he followedtwo such ignoble trades! A Makhztiml is described as

a cobbler (khasyaf), more dishonorable, if anything,

than a tanner, and an obscure person probably of the

house of Umayyah is said to have been a circumciser.

The Yemeni AbU MUsa al-Ash'arT,says Ibn al-Kalbi,

was a barber but the Asha'irah of the ZabNdarea are

honorable tribesmen to this day and it cannot be

credited that he followed so low a trade. This can

surely be only a trumped-up charge against the arbiter

of 'Ali's selection, who deposed him after Siffin. Ibn

al-KalbT's bias is patent and what he says of these

persons unacceptable.Professions in which a Meccan of standing could

engage are attributed by Ibn al-Kalbi to the following

persons. The Caliphs AbU Bakr and 'Uthman sold

cloth. Al-Harith b. 'Abd al-Muttalib used to sell cloth

in al-Sha'm (Syria or the north) and buy slaves. AbU

Talib dealt in cloth and 'itr. Ibn al-KalbT'sMathalib

settles the problem Dr. Crone raises (p. 53) as to what

AbU Talib sold, reading bazz for the burr and laban

of other writers. Throughout Meccan Trade, 'itr is

translated as "perfume,"but Lane's Lexicon defines it

as perfumes and drugs. The 'attar in Islamic manuals

of market law and regulations (hisbah) clearly deals in

both, and the SUq al-Mi'tarah in present day $an'c'deals in a wide variety of drugs, dyes, spices, etc. (cf.

our San'cd, 185 an; below, n. 28). It is likely that 'itr

in the 6th-7th centuries covered a similar range of

commodities, including, perhaps, at least some of the

items which Dr. Crone shows are not actually noted

by the sources as being traded in by Quraysh.

'Abdullah b. Jud'an, the wealthy notable of Taym b.

Murrah, was one of the many 'attars.'Umar b. al-Khattab had various merchandises

(tijarat). Perhaps Ibn al-KalbT s referring slightingly

to 'Uthman b. Talhah of the holy house of 'Abd al-

Dar in saying that he was a tailor (khayydt), but

perhaps not. For Sayyid Ahmad al-ShamT tells me

that in San'ad' notable Sayyid ulema would be black-

smiths and come with their books from the anvil to

study circles. He himself used to make the caps worn

by sayyids; this is recorded also of other ulema, but it

seems not to have been primarily for gain. Abu

Sufyan, says Ibn al-Kalbi, was a wheat chandler

(hannat). This seems unlikely to have been a de-

meaning occupation in Mecca of that time, but per-

haps Ibn al-Kalbi is sneering at the Umayyad caliphs

by recalling the relatively humble background of the

rulers of so vast an empire.

The Mathdlib, at any rate, does show that there

were merchants in cloth and citrat Mecca, though the

author gives no indication of the extent of their

business. Apart from grain dealing, no other respect-able trades are mentioned, but this does not mean

they did not exist in Mecca.

SOCIAL RANKING

At Mecca, Ibn Ishaq16 distinguishes three social

groups, the nobles, i.e., those with sharaf and man'ah

(the latter term indicating that they were capable of

defending themselves), the merchants (tdjir), and the

la'Tf class of subject status. The merchants were

unmistakably people of a certain standing, though not

nobility, as they are today in such cities as San'a',Shibam, Mukalla, and Jeddah, distinct from the

mudakkins who trade from small booths. Dr. Crone

poses the rhetorical question (p. 186) as to who were

the 1ducafd'f Quraysh?If she consults my "The da'Tf

and mustad'af and the status accorded them in the

Qur'an"17 she will find the names of five of them.

They were emphatically not "weaklings. . . who owe

their freedom from tribal molestation to the prestige

of the presiding saint." She confuses the 1da'Tf ith

pariahs, and there are groups in Arabia who might be

dubbed pariahs. A pariah is da'Tfbut a 1da'Tfs not a

pariah. In 1940 our tribal soldiers would eat with a

.1a'Tfbut not with a sweeper. If we accept whatJahizi18 says, that-traders in pre-Islamic Arabia were

despised for their inability to defend themselves, this

most likely applies to mudakkins who are usually

.1a'Tf or, in Tarim city, masdkTn).AbU Sufyan ob-

viously had the sharaf and mancah of the Meccan

nobles yet, if Ibn al-Kalbi is to be credited, he dealt in

grain. Commerce on a large scale seems not to have

been incompatible with nobility. On a lower scale,

when I questioned a tribesman about 'asdkir al-

sultdn, tribesmen who took to petty trading in the

little towns of the former Aden Protectorate when

16 Sirah, ed. Saqqa et alii (Cairo, 1375/1955), 1:320;

Guillaume, 45;Wustenfeld, 07.17 Hamdard slamicus Karachi,1987), X, or Tydskrif ir

IslamkundeJohannesburg,987).18 "Fakhral-sudan 'ala 'l-biddn" in Rasd'ilal-Jahiz, ed.

'Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun (Cairo, 1964), 1:188.

Dr. Crone speaks of "the odd suggestion of both holy men

and social outcasts in Jahiz's discussion of them," but the

odd suggestion is hers, not that of Jahiz!




acting as a sort of bodyguard to a sultan, he repliedthat they had lost their honor while engaging in trade,

but if they left it off they would recover their honor!

This suggests a possibility of how tribesmen may have

felt in 6th-century Arabia. But tribes and townspeople

differ radically on social status-Hayqutdn's taunt(infra) that commerce is despised may have meantlittle in itself to Meccan merchants.

Not only does Dr. Crone signally fail to comprehend

the social structure of Arabia yesterday and today,but she distorts what I have to say about Quraysh.Nowhere do I suggest that they were "holy dispensersof justice" (p. 181), though I do point out that cAbd

al-Muttalib, ancestor of the Prophet, and others of

the House of Hashim were arbiters (hukkdm), as IbnHabib states in both al-Muhabbar and al-Munammaq,

mentioning also other Quraysh arbiter houses and

other families of hukkdm in Arabia. Quraysh arbiters

dealt in the first place with their immediate tribalgroup but this would not preclude them from actingin cases external to that group. In hadarTareas where

the hawtah institution is mostly if not exclusively

found, the mansab provides a venue and presides, buthis role, whatever it may contribute towards settling

disputes, is certainly not "dispensing justice," holy or

otherwise. Tribesmen normally settle their disputes at

meetings of their chiefs and notables. The situation is

exactly mirrored in the opening clauses of the "EightDocuments" (the so-called "Constitution of Media"),no. A and final clause B, where Allah and Muhammad

are designated the ultimate appeal when the judges (?)take a case on which they have failed to agree."9I do not suggest that "saints" do not fight (p. 183).

The Mansab of Thibi in Wadi Hadramawt whom I

knew personally, fought for several years with theKathlri sultans and, of course, the Yemeni Zaydis, theImams, are very warlike indeed.

Nor can I agree that Quraysh were regarded as"holy traders." It was a member of the 'Abd ManafBayt, a holy house, Hashim, who concluded the pactsfor safe-conduct with the tribes and Byzantium, and Ihave further suggested that a member of the Bayt, for

example Muhammad himself, might escort caravans.

If other Qurashis acted as escorts as distinct fromtraders, it would presumably be through delegation bythe Bayt, the holy house. I further maintain that itwould be because of the sanctity of the Bayt to whichhe belonged that Hashim was in the position tonegotiate the original agreements. This has nothingdirectly to do with the inviolability of the Haram.

19 Cf. Qur'an, IV, 59: Fa-in tandzactumfT shay'-in fa-

ruddui-hu la 'lidhi wa-'l-rasili.

It completely distorts my meaning (in a way all too

typical of the book as a whole) to aver that I say the

guardians of the sacred enclaves in Hadramawt re-

solved disputes for the tribes around them "by way of

reward for their recognition of its [a sacred enclave's]

inviolability." In the first place, the guardian(s) of theenclave are the tribes themselves. Arbitration of their

disputes is a secondary consideration to all concerned.

The process may be compared with the Prophet's

action over Qurayzah-he nominated their tribal pro-

tector, a naqTb,or chief, to judge their case.

Nor yet do I, as Dr. Crone asserts, "read every

saiyid and sharif in pre-Islamic Arabia as a holy

man." I cite certain specific cases where the term

"sayyid" is "associated with functions exercised bythose endowed with spiritual power." To say that the

status of a "holy man" (a sayyid?) and trading are not

compatible is to misunderstand the realities of the

situation. I have known quite a number of sayyids inTarim who engaged in commerce to some extent

which per se did not seem to detract from their status

in the city. Dr. Crone asks what functions the

"guardian" of a shrine (in the 6th to 7th centuries)would perform, arriving at the conclusion that "[t]heydid not divine, they did not cure, they did not

adjudicate, they simply kept the Ka'bah in repair and

supplied food and drink for the pilgrims." I have

known many mansabs, lords of shrines, not "guard-ians," in south Arabia, staying on occasion with the

mansab. The mansab would not, I think, feel obliged

to perform cures or divine, though mansabs oftenhave that gift known as kashf.20 They certainly havean important socio-political role in the community.

Mansabs play a leading part in the annual ziydrahs,as doubtless did the Bayt of Quraysh at the pre-Islamic hajj. The mansab leads the ritual Islamic

prayer but we know nothing of pagan prayers. We

cannot expect the constant acts of devotion practiced

by Christians. I have attended an 'Attds hadrah, asort of liturgy accompanied by music, and mawlids-

perhaps something of the kind was practiced at theKa'bah. The pilgrim talbiyah in chanted rajaz versewould surely have called for a reply in kind by the

lord of the sanctuary? In fact, we know next tonothing about its 'Abd al-Dar servitors, Tradition

being silent on so much of pagan worship. Can we notnevertheless credit them with the function of interpret-ing the divine will and acting as an intermediary withAllah? We should surely not be very far wrong insupposing they had much the same functions as those

20 L.e., knowing what happens at another time and/orplace.




of mansabs, sadah and the mashayikh2"classes of

present day south Arabia.

THE WINTER AND SUMMER JOURNEYS

(RIHLATAL-SHITAT WA-'L-SA YF)

Great play is made by Dr. Crone of the two

accounts of the winter and summer journeys of Qu-

raysh in the Kitdb al-Munammaq (pp. 31, 262) by Ibn

al-KalbTand his father, respectively. Al-KalbTflour-

ished from 66-146 H./685-763 A.D. His information

goes back to the first century of Islam. His report

reads as follows:

Quraysh was accustomed [to make] two journeys,

one of them in winter to the Yemen and the other in

summer to al-Sha'm. And they remain so [doing]

until stress (jahd, to be understood as "drought")

became acute for them, but Tabalah, Jurash and the

people of the sea-coast of the Yemen had plentiful

crops. So the people of the coast transported by sea

and the people of the land on camels and the people

of the coast put in to harbour at Jeddah and the

people [travelling by] land put in to al-Muhassab.

And the people of Mecca procured the grain they

wanted, and Allah supplied them [with what they

would get] from the two journeys they used to

undertaketo the Yemen and al-Sha'm.

22

Al-Sha'm means either Syria or the north;

Tabalah and Jurash are in Wadi Bishah of 'Aslr,which latter was part of the Yemen with its ports of

Qunfidhah and HalT. Al-Muhassab is a little over a

mile and a half north of Mecca and a convenient

place for caravans to stop. Dr. Crone (p. 213) trans-

lates kafd-hum mu'nat al-asfdr as "saved them the

trouble . . . ," deriving this sense from Wehr, but this

is not classical Arabic. Kafd-hu ma'unata-hu in the

lexicons means "he supplied him with his provision."

This is no mere linguistic quibble, for she utilizes her

mistranslation to back a theory (loc. cit.).

21 I have given a description of the south ArabianMashayikh class in Commoners, climbers and notables: A

sampler of studies on social ranking in the Middle East, ed.

C. A. 0. van Nieuwenhuijzen (Leiden, 1977), 256. Were she

to read this it might help Dr. Crone to a better understanding

of the social structureof Arabian society past and present.

22 In western Arabia an Aden Western-Protectoratetribes-

man would speak of going to al-Sha'm when he meant

Imamic Yemen. The principle is that Shalm and Yaman are

north and south of whereveryou happen to be standing.

In a separate Tradition, this time in explanation of

suirah CVI, Al-Kalbi follows with reference to the

iylif/lillif of Quraysh which provides them with

food against hunger and makes them secure against

khawf. Khawf then, as now, however Qur'an exegesis

may embroider on it, means simply physical insecurityfrom armed attack. Famine years (sanawdt) ran away

with Quraysh money/property and, even though it is

not mentioned, this should include the weakening or

death of transport animals. So Hashim went to al-

Sha'm and brought back woolen sacks of bread

(khubz) on camels to Mecca. There is no indication

that Quraysh discontinued their journeys north or

south to purchase grain. The initiative of the Yemenis,

in themselves transporting grain to Mecca, has the

appearance of being a single, isolated incident. But al-

KalbT's account in the first story is important in

showing a link between Mecca and the Yemen by both

the seacoast and inland routes-this is most likely tohave been the regular route followed by Quraysh in

their journeys southwards and a point at which they

could contact merchants from Aden by land or sea, if

indeed they did not go furthersouth.

Ibn al-KalbT seems to differ from his father in

asserting that Quraysh trading did not go beyond

Mecca, but the Persians used to bring goods to the

Meccans which they purchased to sell among them-

selves and to the Arabs around them, that is, until

Hashim's visit to al-Sha'm. Of course the arrival of

Persians (A'ajim) from the Yemen by land or sea is

not in itself unlikely.It was with the visit of Hashim to al-Sha'm, Ibn

al-KalbTmaintains, his dispensing of tharld and his

contact with the Byzantine emperor that a security

pact was made with the Byzantines and the route to

Syria for caravans established. I have always felt that

Hashim's role has been inflated and that any contact

made in the north is more likely to have been made

with a Byzantine official. His inflated account of the

iyldf is patently crude fabrication, intended to build

up the reputation of the House of Hashim.

At this point let me suggest an alternative interpre-

tation for the rihiat al-shita' wa-'l-sayf. From the

Meccan point of view the prime purpose of thejourneys was to obtain a supply of grain. Ibn al-

KalbT, or instance, speaks of a TamlmlT aljf (ally or

client) of Banii 'Abd al-Dar as saying: "I went forth

with a number of Quraysh, making for al-Sha'm for

grain provision for us (mTrah a-nd)." Their purpose,

as al-Bayqaaw- uccinctly defines it, was to buy grain

and to trade (yamtdruin wa-yattajiruin). The terms

mTrahsayfiyyah and mTrahribciyyah are cited by

Lane as meaning, respectively, the spring and be-




ginning-of-winter grain provision. Now in Hadramawt,for example, the crop called shita' is sown in July andripens six months later in January. Sayf is a termwidely used for the other of the two annual graincrops.23In Iraq today the terms shitaw! and sayfTare

used for the two crops. Shitd' and rib'! are really twoterms for the same cropping season. I have happenedon the information24that during the Umayyad periodthe Amlr of Iraq used to give the Arab soldiery two

'atd's, that of al-shitd' and that of al-sayf, grainallowances and stipends. It is natural that the timingof the payment of allowances should be related to the

harvests. So Quraysh journeys are likely to have been

so arranged as to coincide with the appearance of the

season's grain crop in the markets. In south Arabia

this would also be the season when the Persian,Indian and Far Eastern merchandise was arriving atthe coastal ports.

It is asserted by Dr. Crone (p. 212) that theproposition that Quraysh had agreements known asiyldf can be rejected, and she alleges that sarah CVI

engendered the story about Hashim's iyldf agreementscovering the two annualjourneys. This notion emergesfrom her fixation, not to say obsession, with Qur'an

tafsrr or exegesis, but her twisted statement thatQur'an tafsrrgenerated masses of spurious informa-tion is not a discerning appreciation of such works as

Tabari's Jdmi', either. There are some philologicalproblems over the forms of the word iyldf, but thedefinition of it is given by Ibn Hablb (Muhabbar,162): al-iyldf

'uhad,means "iyldf is

pacts," i.e., eachiyldf was a series of pacts.25 Her assertion that IbnHablb takes iyldf as a plural is incorrect; moreover, ithas no lexical support. In point of fact the iyldf

system of security pacts accords with well knownArabian patterns. For instance, as long ago as 1962, I

pointed out that the Yemeni caravan travelling toMecca in the mediaeval period could be protected bythe presence of even a small boy belonging to thefamily of the Yemeni saint Ibn 'Ujayl. So also Hashimused to escort caravans to al-Sha'm. Kharaja Hdshim

yujawwizu-hum26 wa-yuf7-him iylafa-hum alladhT

23 See my "The cultivation of cereals in mediaeval Yemen,"Arabian Studies (London-Cambridge), 1 (1974): 25-74.

24 A. A. Bevan, The Naki'id of Jarir and al-Farazdak(Leiden, 1905-12), 11:1090.

25 The quotation a few lines below shows unequivocally

that Ibn Habib understood iyldf as a singular noun since he

follows it with a masculine alladhT, had it been a plural a

feminine pronoun would have been used.26 Yujawwizu-hum, lit., making them to pass. Instead of

akhadha, passive, ukhidha,might be read.

akhadha la-hum min al-'Arab, Hashim went forth

escorting them and fully exercising for them the iyldf-

pacts he had received on their behalf from the Arabs

(al-Munammaq, 33). The escorted were Quraysh mer-

chants, but no doubt others, also from the tribal

districts through which the caravan passed, attachedthemselves to it.

Hashim's organization of the journey to al-Sha'm

is almost mirrored by the experiment of the cAlawi

sayyids from Tarfm (n. 30 infra) who set out almost acentury and a quarter ago to establish a land haij-route from the Wadi Hadramawt towns to Mecca.They sent ahead to the Naq-b of the Yam tribe in the

Najran area, Ahmad b. Ismac'l al-MakramT,askingfor a bond/pact (mfthdq) and guarantee of securityand protection (dhimmat amdn wa-jiwdr) for the

'Alawi pilgrims, inhabitants of Hadramawt, and those

travelling in their company. They also sent to the

Amir of 'Asir, Muhammad b. 'Ayid, for an 'ahd wa-mrthdq wa-sakk dhimmah. Such pacts were known as

qd'idah mujawwirah. It should be remarked that al-

MakramT was an Ismac'lT, Muhammad b. cAyid awell known WahhabT and the cAlawi sayyids, of

course, Shaficls.

In brief, on the evidence of the Arabic texts at our

disposal, linked also with the existence of parallelinstitutions in Arabia-to say nothing of mere proba-

bility-there is no valid reason to doubt that Qurayshdid make journeys twice a year to purchase suppliesof grain and for commerce in general. To achieve

their purpose they had to have security guaranteesfrom the tribes through whose country they passed. A

commodity which would meet the requirementsI have

detailed on p. 473, light in weight, high in value, andalso small in bulk, would be silk-it is mentionedthree times in the Qur'an as clothing of haut luxeworn by the Believers in Paradise.

ShIc' sympathizer as he was-like his son-al-Kalbl, in the passage quoted above (p. 478), does not

directly allude to Hashim's role in establishing theiyldf system, which he simply calls a Quraysh practice(da'b), though he does describe how Hashim relievedMecca from a famine. Significantly he does not speak

of Hashim as initiating either journey. Ibn Ishaq27clearly has doubts about his part, for he says: "Ha-

shim, as they aver (yaz'amuna), was the first whoinstituted the two journeys of Quraysh." He hadpreviously noted that Hashim was in charge of the

27 Srrah, op. cit., 1:136. Ibn Ishaq used the term sanna, i.e.,

(Hashim) "instituted" the two journeys, but Ibn HabTb,al-

Munammaq, does not commit himself.




rifddah and siqdyah, feeding and watering the pil-

grims. To this he adds that "this was that 'Abd Shams

[his brother] was a man perpetually travelling (rajul

saffdr), rarely staying in Mecca, and he was poor with

many children."

What emerges from these statements is that eachbrother of the house of 'Abd Manaf managed offices

it held. While Hdshimattendedto functions hereditarily

linked with the shrine, 'Abd Shams, the elder and

leader, accompanied the caravans. The term saffdr,

used in describing him, in contemporary Bahrain for

instance, denotes a deep-sea voyager. Hashim's ap-

parently out-of-turn venture into what we might call

"famine relief," was, says al-Kalbi, the cause of

jealousy in Umayyah, son of 'Abd Shams, that led to

an honor case of the mundfarah kind; it was won by

Hashim. The fact that Abui Sufyan b. Harb b.

Umayyah was leader of the Quraysh caravan to Syria

in the Prophet's day suggests that conduct of thecaravans was hereditaryin the house of 'Abd Shams.

Chronologically, before al-Kalb-i's reports, one

should firstconsider the ballad style verses of Wahb b.

'Abd b. Qusayy and Matriid b. Ka'b al-Khuzac', the

latter like the Yemani madddh28 in character, who

declaims laudatory elegies at the funeral of a person

of note. More likely genuine than not, these verses

may well have been preserved by the house of 'Abd

Manaf and are quite independent of Qur'an exegesis.

He speaks of 'Abd Manaf as "those who make the

iyldf caravan set forth (al-rdhilan bi-rihlat al-iyldf),

who, each winter, contend with the wind until the sundisappears in the sea (rajjdf)" (al-Munammaq, 38). If

we accept the editor's understanding of rajjdf as al-

bahr, the verse would indicate that the caravan or

convoy made at least some of its journey by sea; this

should be compared with al-KalbT's account of the

Yemenis of the Tihamah (p. 478) who travel by sea to

Jeddah. It is one of Matriid's verses cited by Ibn

Ishaq29that directly credits Hashim with instituting

the two journeys.

Lengthy as land routes from Mecca to al-Sha'm

are, they might be compared to the caravan which

comes to the Mansab of 'Inat of Hadramawt, carrying

coffee, ghee and grain from the Mansab's awqaf inJabal Yafi', a distance of some 500-600 miles as the

crow flies, but much more in the large mountain

28 Matrud is described in al-Munammaq, 36-37, as under

the protection (Jf kanaf) of Banu 'Abd Manaf. R. B.

Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, SancJ9:An Arabian Islamic

city (London, 1983), 169a.

29 STrah,op. cit., 136. He uses the term sunnat (ilay-hi al-

rihlatdni). Cf. n. 26.

country intervening, with its warrior tribes.30While

al-KalbTdefines the journeys as being to al-Sha'm

and the Yemen, this does not exclude Quraysh from

going on occasion to Ethiopia, which is not far from

the Yemeni coast, or even from continuous contact

with more distant Iraq. The differing explanations ofthe two journeys Dr. Crone cites (p. 205 seq.) are not

in reality as inconsistent as she says, but she has

fudged up the quite reasonable account of them,

methodologically not a sound or correct way to treat

the sources.

She suggests further that the transhumance of

Quraysh to al-Ta'if (p. 210) may have been invented.

This is easily disposed of when we consider the

Prophet's agreement with Thaqlf of al-Ta'if, a clause

of which stipulates that "the grapes of Quraysh which

Thaqlf irrigates, half of them belong to those who

irrigate them." The season of the grape harvest must

surely have seen the Quraysh owners at al-Ta'if. IfDr. Crone accepts Jahiz's explanation of the poet

HIayqutan's ampoon cited by her in another context,

why not accept that Hayqutan is alluding to the fact

that Quraysh, the affluent among them at least, spend

their summer holiday in al-Ta'if and their winter

break in Jeddah?

MARKETSAND THE MECCAN HARAM

In her valiant effort to prove the Meccan pilgrimage

did not even exist before Islam, Dr. Crone makes

some play with the factthat Muhammad's early

negotiations with the Yathrib tribes took place at the

pilgrim stations like Mina, but not at Mecca. This is

to ignore the natural understanding of Muhammad's

wish not to negotiate with outsiders on his home

ground.

It does not follow that, because fairs took place in

certain places outside Mecca classified as harams and

formed part of the hajj routine, seasonal trading in

grain, cloth and 'itr was not also carried on in the city

itself. In the first place were these harams sacred

enclaves or, simply, protected saqs, the latter a com-

30 Starting out from Tarim of WaddHadramawt in Febru-ary 1866, a party of 'Alawi Sayyids travelled to Mecca via

Najran, Hall b. Ya'quiband al-Qunfudhah in thirty stages of

nine hours each. I have myself at various times travelled

along sections of the entire route from Najran to Bir 'All

and Husn al-Ghurab (Qana'), passing by Shabwah, and can

confirm that there are no great physical obstacles for cara-

vans. Though there is no evidence that they did use this

route, Quraysh could have done so by organizing a series of

security pacts over the route.




monplace in Islamic Yemen? Such places are suitable

as animal markets and for the bivouacing of numbers

of tiibesfolk-as for instance, 'Ukaz where skins

(adTm) were sold. As we have seen, the grain caravans

came to al-Muhassab, close to Mecca but well re-

moved from it. Mecca would be an unsuitable placeto keep any number of camels. Camels have to be

grazed as regularly as possible and, travelling in the

WahidTsultanate in 1947, this was the main concern

of our camel-man. Quraysh merchants going around

the seasonal fairs attended by tribesfolk may be

compared with the Hudaydah merchants who goround the Tihamah saqs held on different week days.The obvious reason (p. 173) for slaughtering sacrificial

animals at Mina on Yawm 'Arafah ('Id al-Adha)would be on account of the unpleasantness of much

rotting offal-there is no need to think that the visits

to Mecca were added to an independent ritual at

Mina. Individual sacrifices appear to have been madein Mecca. If they did not buy and sell at Mina on this

day the obvious reason is that they would be fullyoccupied with slaughtering, cutting up, and cooking-a process which, in my personal experience, can take

some three hours or more!

Despite Dr. Crone's theorizing to the contrary, it is

quite consistent for Mecca of the pre-Islamic age to

have been the main sanctuary and pilgrimage centreof the Hijaz province, yet to have minor sanctuary-

markets associated with it. The 'Arafah visitation is

comparable to the annual excursions so common in

the little south Arabian towns, to a place outside ofwhich usually some sanctity attaches. I attended one

such excursion just outside Dhamar, and at San a',the Musalla al-'Idayn lay outside the city until en-

gulfed by modern building. Archaeologists have dis-covered in Hadramawt, on the mountain sides abovethe little towns, pre-Islamic temples, though the towns

themselves have temples too; I think they must have

served as places of visitation extra muros on suchoccasions as 'Tds. Qabr HUd and the tomb of the

ancestor of the Hadraml Sayyids, 'Isa al-Muhajir, areboth located at sites on the mountain sides.

SECURITY AND INVIOLABILITY

According to Dr. Crone (p. 182): "Jahiz explainsthat traders in pre-Islamic Arabia, including Quraysh,were despised for their inability to defend themselves."However, she quite correctly notes that Quraysh didfight for one cause or another.

She bases her statement on the well-known essay,"The Vaunting of the Blacks over the Whites," inwhich Jahiz, probably tongue in cheek, argues for

Black superiority! He reproduces verses by a black

poet, Hayqutan, of not earlier than the first decade of

the 2nd century of the hijrah, lampooning Quraysh,though nowhere actually referring to them by name.

"Not by you," the poet says, "is the Veiled Sanctuary

(al-Hardm al-Musattar) guarded. No wintering orsummering place, no pasture, . . . is there in Mecca,

but only trading, and commerce is despised (tuhqar)."Jahiz explains Hayqutan's meaning, but this does not

imply that he endorses his sentiments: "He means bythis, all of it, Quraysh. He says: 'They are merchants,having had recourse for protection to the Temple

(i'tasamui bi- '-Bayt). And when they go out theyhang dawm-palm fruit and bark (liha') of trees [under-

stand, of the Haram] upon themselves so that theymay be recognized and no one will kill them'." Jahiz

adds that Hayqutan means that the Meccans are .daclf

to the last degree (_f hadd al-duf) in people's eyes

and a people without the capacity to defend them-selves (imtind'). The lampoon of course seeks to

humiliate the Meccans by manipulating the facts andto that extent it is inadmissible as evidence. These

circumstances are not revealed by Dr. Crone who

allows herself to "conjure up pariahs" as the explana-tion of Quraysh status. But it is precisely in identifying

Quraysh nobles with classes like the Jewish packmenof Iraq mentioned by Jalal al-HanafT, or of San'ad'

before 1950, that the satire of the lampoon bites, the

la'Tf class without imtind'.

Dr. Crone works herself into a thorough muddle

over Jahiz' explanation of Hayqutan's satirical verses,and about imtind',31 which she mistranslates as "in-

violability"-a sense not reported in classical or

modern lexicons. "Jdhiz," she says, "contrives to finda reference to this inviolability [of Quraysh] in a pre-Islamic poem, though this time in a contemptuous

vein." This is in reference to the passage, supra, on

Quraysh taking protection in the Temple. But Jahiz isnot referring to the three pre-Islamic verses thatimmediately precede the passage (which could not

possibly refer to Quraysh "inviolability") but toIlayqutan's lampoon as a whole. After further wrang-ling she proposes the conclusion, quite unwarranted

by the sources, that these latter "confuse temporaryinviolability during the holy months with permanentinviolability arising from association with a sanctuary"(p. 183). They do not. It is only Dr. Crone who isconfused!

31 The Tdjal-'arfis defines mancah as quwwah tamna' man

yurTdu-hubi-sa' and one who yamna' al-jdr, protects him

from being wronged,yahuitu-humin an yuddm, and imtana'a

means ihtamd.




The Prophet possessed mancah and sharaf, the

ability to protect oneself, and honor; in fact he

belonged to the nobility of Mecca as defined by Ibn

Ishdq. Nor will this status be denied 'Abd Manaf and

'Abd al-Dar. The honor that is theirs by virtue of

birth is the greater through their hereditary tenure ofoffice at the sanctuary.

Yet the small numberof Quraysh and their followers

at Mecca would be utterly inadequate to maintain the

inviolability of the Haram against aggression by large

tribes. The SIrah itself reveals how few Quraysh were

engaged in actions against Muhammad. In the case of

a hawtah, a sacred enclave, the tribes in its vicinity

guarantee its security. If one of these tribes commits

such an outrage as to infringe the inviolability of the

hawtah, its lord would call for support on the other

tribes who would make common cause against the

offender. It is only to be expected that the Haram's

inviolability was protected on parallel lines. Lookingfor which tribes did act in this capacity, we might

consider the Ahabish, Ghatafan,32Kinanah and people

of the Tihamah who supported Quraysh at al-

Khandaq, several of which had hilf alliances with

Quraysh. These tribes were present also at SUq al-

'Ukaz. Ibn al-Habib, in fact, positively affirms that

when Qusayy and Qurayshhad taken Mecca, Quda'ah

and Asad, who had supported them to do so, separated

from them; then Quraysh, diminished in number and

fearing Bakr, made an overture to the Ahabish who

responded and made an alliance with them. Further

alliance pacts into which Quraysh entered include onewith Thaqif (al-Munammaq, 280) involving free pas-

sage in the Haram and Wadd Wajj/Wijj for both

parties. There appears to be good evidence for the

construction of a whole edifice of treaties around the

Haram, but this is not a subject to pursue here. Let

me say, however, that this would resolve one point

that puzzles Dr. Crone-that Quraysh could go to

war but retreat into the Haram into which their foes

could not follow them. Quraysh might use these allied

tribes to fight their battles or even against one

another-but a tribe at war with Quraysh, having

undertaken to respect the boundaries of the Haram,

would, in infringing on them, bring the Haram's otherprotectors down upon themselves.

It is the tribes who protect a haram that render it

inviolate, not the haram that gives protection to those

domiciled in it. The haram of Buss, when its pro-

tectors, Ghatafan, were defeated, was desecrated and

32 ThoughGhatafanwerepersuaded y the BandNadTro

join withMeccanQuraysh n thisoccasion.

destroyed.33A holy house, Dr. Crone avers, cannot at

the same time be guardians of shrines as well as

traders. In this she fails to appreciate the actuality of

the situation. Firstly, the guardians of the shrine are,

as we have seen, not Quraysh, but the tribes. Quraysh

were the servitors of the temple, but obviously serviceof the sanctuary would furnish a living for a quite

limited number of persons-the rest must find some

other occupation. It could be that the two 'Abd

Manaf brothers, Hashim and 'Abd Shams, were in

effect sharing the same office 'Abd Shams ensured

that supplies came to Mecca and Hashim saw to their

distribution. There is however no reason to assume

that 'Abd Shams was losing sharaf through this.

THE PRE-ISLAMIC TRADING CYCLE

Protection of merchants is a matter of interest to

Ibn al-Kalbi in his description of the seasonal pattern

of the movement of commerce from the Gulf to the

Yemen and the Hijaz.

Merchants of the sea, he says, proceeding from al-

Shihr, with whom any goods remained or who had

not been to markets on the way before it, would meet

the people at Aden. Here obviously they could sell the

kundur-incense and myrrh they had bought in Hadra-

mawt. The merchants of the sea would take al-tab al-

ma'mul, manufactured perfume, to Sind and Hind

and the merchants of the land (tujjdr al-barr) would

take it to Fars and al-Rum. (In 20th-century Aden

al-barr always meant "the hinterland.") So, if Qurayshmerchants did come as far as Aden, they could pur-

chase incense.

Cotton, saffron and dyes were taken to San'c' and

the merchants bought cloth (bazz) and iron. This

looks accurate since GhuthaymT ocks manufactured

at Sa'dah are found all over western Arabia and cloth

is well attested. It is noteworthy that Ibn al-KalbT

records that selling takes place by al-jass bi- '-yad

there, as it still does today, being termed al-hakTbi-'1-

yad (our Sand'a, 269) "talkingwith the hand."

The merchants then went on to 'Ukaz, where there

were no tithes ('ushar) or escort (khafarah); it is

probable that khafdrah was usually granted in returnfor a fee. The tribes who attended the CUkaz air were

Hawazin, Ghatafan, Khuza'ah, the Ahablsh, al-Harith

33 Cf. M. J. Kister, "Mecca and the tribes of Arabia...,

in Studiesin Islamichistoryand civilisation n honourof

ProfessorDavidAyalon,ed. M. Sharon(Jerusalem,1986),

42 seq.




b. 'Abd Manat (of Kinanah b. Khuzaymah) ,4 cAdal

(of Khuzaymah, this last a batn of Quraysh) and

Mustaliq (of Khuza'ah). These tribes seem to have

been linked to Quraysh by kinship or treaty and, since

no taxes were imposed at cUkaz, they may have

guaranteed the security of the fair.To clear up some of Dr. Crone's obfuscations,

deliberate or not, it is best to translate what Ibn

al-Kalbi says about the safe-conduct given to pilgrims

(Al-MarziiqT, al-Azminah, 11:236).

A man, when he went out of his house on pilgri-

mage, or as a ddjj, the ddjj being one who trades

during the sacred month, would take a sacrificial

beast and don the pilgrim garb (ahrama), then he

would garland himself and make himself known [per-

haps by shouting, "I am X, son of Y, of the tribe of

Z"]. So this would be a safe-conduct/security (aman)

for him with the muhilluin, those who do not recog-

nize the sacrednessof the sacred month.

Traders accompanied the pilgrims, primarily intent on

buying and selling to them, but no doubt to take

advantage, in modern terms, of the barakah accruing

to the trader though combining the hajy with his

commerce.

If a trader-pilgrim (ddjj), being by himself, was

apprehensive about his safety, yet could find no

sacrificial beast, he would garland35himself with a

necklace of goat or camel hair and make himselfknown by a woolen thread (I read bi-suifat-in for bi-

suifi-hi) and through it be safe/secure. When he came

forth from Mecca he would garland himself with bark

(lihb') of the trees of the Haram. The ddjj, and others

as well, if he took himself to the Temple with no

[distinguishing] sign ('alam) of that and without the

muhrim-garb, the muhillin would take whatever he

had with him.

The text does not suggest that the Haram was

regarded as conferring inviolability upon the pilgrim.

Nor does the animal-hair badge or tree bark mean in

itself that the wearer is muhrim. One mark simplymeans the wearer is going to Mecca and the other that

34 Kinanah b. Khuzaymah, of which Quraysh is a house, is

near Mecca.

35 Qallada, probably a better translation would be "hung

round his neck." "Garland" conveys the impression of cere-

monial or festivity that I think is hardly appropriate to the

context.

he is leaving it. It is true that Tabari36cites Qatadahas saying the Quraysh were secure/safe among the

Arabs (aminTn i I-5Arab), but this is in connectionwith the "winter and summer journey" on which

Quraysh had entered into security pacts with the

tribes.The woolen thread has a simple and often entirely

secular purpose. In 1940 the 'AwdhalTsultan demon-

strated to the political officer and me how he would

take a thread (of cotton) from his indigo-dyed waist-

wrapper to send to a tribesman to summon him toappear before him. A mansab, I have been told,would send a black-wool thread to a man to invitehim to visit the sanctuary-this he would wind round

his dagger hilt or scabbard. As the incomparableLandberg37has noted: "Le cheykh ou le seyyid donne

une frange de son radTa celui qui cherche sa protec-tion." It is, he says, "un talisman pour la route." The

Prophet himself sent the black turban (cimdmah)withwhich he entered Mecca as a gage of security (amdn)to Safwan b. Umayyah. Similarly in Medina we findthe tribal naqzb 'Ubadah b. al-Sdmit's people wereknown as al-Qawaqil because "when a man tookprotection (istajdra) with them they gave him anarrow and said: Qawqil38 bi- Yathrib haythu shi'ta,'Move about in Yathrib where you wish'." In southArabia today a tribesman would give his jdr a bulletto show he is under his protection.

Following up the employment of the dawm-palmfruit and the bark of trees as a sort of badge of safe-

conduct, Dr. Crone (p. 183) tells us: "The inhabitantsof Yathrib would similarly decorate their turrets withropes and stalks of palm leaves when they wished tomake the 'umra and pilgrimage: everyone wouldknow that they had gone into a state of ihram andthey would thus be granted free passage." On minordetails of language, kirndf, rendered as "stalks," arethe stumps or butts of the palm frond (Hadram1karbah) remaining on the palm trunk when the saffoliage has been removed, and utms are just theordinary Arab tower-house, not "turrets." One is tounderstand that the palm butts were tied to the ropesto act as a weight. But what the text actually does say

36Jdmic (Cairo,1954), XXX:309. The hirmr and his prop-

erty were not touched because of the security (amn) Allah

gave them.3 Etudes sur les dialectes de l'Arabiemeridionale, I: Hadra-

moiut(Leiden, 1901), 579, and III: DatLinah, 787.38 Sfrah, op. cit., 1:432; Guillaume, 727. In Zabid about

three years ago, I heard my driver use this unusual word

qawqal when asking another driver to move his vehicle.




is that Banii CAbd al-Ashhal of Aws went on pil-

grimage (ahramat) and 'Abdullah b. MacrUr of the

Banii Salimah of Khazraj would take their property

under his protection (ajafraa-hum amwdla-hum) after

they had gone forth from Yathrib. He took this action

because his mother was of 'Abd al-Ashhal (al-Munammaq, 327-28). There is not the slightest sug-

gestion that this had anything to do with a free

passage-it is simply that a tribesman took it upon

himself to look after their property in their absence.

Ibn al-HabTb(al-Muhabbar, 264) states that "every

merchant coming from the Yemen and the Hijaz used

to ask protection (yatakhaffara) from Quraysh while

they stayed in the land of Mudar because Mudar did

not molest merchants of Mudar nor did an ally (Qalif)of Mudar trouble a Mudari." Dr. Crone does not

really grasp the situation when she proposes that this

was on grounds of kinship rather than because of the

special status of Quraysh. It is not to be imagined that

theoretical kinship in Mudar would eliminate its

constant feuding. Quraysh would have to have posi-

tive security agreements with the Mudar tribes to

ensure the passage unmolested of caravans-as of

course, the sources tell us, were made by Hashim, and

not only by him but by other members of the house of

Qusayy. Ibn Habib's merchants would have to apply

to Quraysh to join in, perhaps even to buy themselves

into the system.

What Ibn al-Kalbi has to say (supra, p. 483) of the

Muhilliun abstaining from attack upon a man dis-

playing the appropriate badge to indicate that he wasgoing on pilgrimage to the Meccan Haram, which

they did not consider inviolable, is highly significant.

It suggests to me that the Arabian tribes may have

observed a customary law or convention not to molest

bona fide pilgrims en route or returning from a

visitation to a site sacred to a deity. Whether the deity

was one's tribal god or not, it would be injudicious to

show lack of respect for the god.Yet another of Dr. Crone's misconceptions (p. 196)

that turns a quite intelligible situation upside down is

that "settlers in Mecca owed their safety to alliances

with members of Quraysh,not to the supposed sanctity

of Meccan territory." Individuals or groups soughtprotection of Quraysh as "Lords of the House" (Wullit

al-Bayt). Wulat she translates wrongly as "guardians"

which, quite rightly, she declares they were not!

Naturally the protection would be sought of an indi-

vidual possessed of sharaf, very likely somebody with

whom they had already established contact-not, of

course, from a committee! The Lords of the House (a

fairly wide term) had the authority to grant entry into

the protection within the sacred enclave, the Haram,

of which they were in charge. Now, in Islamic law and

in tribal law (which belongs to the older pre-Islamic

tradition), the least of persons belonging to a tribe can

grant protection on its behalf, be the granter even a

woman or a slave. The principle is embodied in theIslamic formula: al-mu'minuin yad wa-hid 'ald man

siwa-hum, yu]Tr alay-him adna-hum. So, if one allies

himself with an individual of Quraysh for security, the

obligation to protect that person is binding on them

all. So an ally can automatically enjoy the safety of

the Haram against internal or external aggression. It

is for this reason that the applicant for protection is

given an arrow to display to other Quraysh to identify

him as under the protection of the Lords of the

Haram. The Sunnah Jdmicah, documents F and H,lays down the regulations for the Haram of Yathrib/

Madinah. These state that "[h]e who goes out (of the

Medinan Haram) is secure and he who stays is secure

in Madinah.""

Quraysh's special standing stems from the fact that

they were the Bayt of Kinanah. This is expressed in

the clich6,fT-him al-bayt wa- 'l-adad, in them lies the

House and the [greatest] number [of tribesmen or

supporters]. One speaks in south Arabia of bayt al-

'aqdlah, the house in which the hereditary chieftain-

ship lies. Ibn Hazm equates al-bayt with al-sharaf. As

Ibn Ishaq says, Qusayy acquired the entire sharaf of

Mecca, i.e., all the offices connected with the shrine;

thus he would have added to the prestige of Quraysh.

Ibn Hazm traces the tenure of the Bayt back to Fihr,ancestor of Quraysh, and though there may be reserva-

tions about this, 'Abd Manaf and 'Abd al-Dar were

clearly of the Bayt of Quraysh.

* * * *

How an incorrect reading of the Arabic can trick

Dr. Crone into rash assertions is illustrated by her

statement (p. 165) that "it is by no means obvious that

Mecca did surrender [to Muhammad] peacefully." To

support this allegation she cites, from the STrah,verses by 'Abbas b. Mirdas, the usual bombastic

stock-in-trade of the professional poetaster, not to betaken strictly literally, which she renders:"Wetrampled

upon Mecca by force with our swords." The text

actually says: "Allah gave him [the Prophet] the powerover it, and the judgement of the swords and vic-

torious fortune humiliated it." But Ibn Mirdas's line

alludes not to Mecca but to the fHijdz, he "Hijaz" of

the previous line being indicated by the masculine

pronominal suffix. The academic debate of the lawyers




at a later date on whether Mecca was taken by force

or sulh, truce, is irrelevant,not admissible as evidence.

Hassan b. Thabit's insulting invective against CAbdal-Dar is of the same genre as Ibn Mirdas' verses and

contrasts with the granting by the Prophet to them of

the retention of the keys of the Ka'bah, which theirdescendants hold to this day, and his policy of

"composing the hearts" of his erstwhile opponents ofthe noble Quraysh houses.

Turning to the negotiations with Muhammad bythe tribal chiefs, the naqTbs, before the hijrah, Dr.

Crone (p. 217) alleges that Guillaume39has mistrans-lated the important statement that they made. It

should read: "We left our tribe (qawm), there being no(other) tribe among whom there is such enmity andwar (sharr)40 as there is between them-and perhapsAllah may unite them through you." Here we have thesituation where the Yathrib tribes invite a third party

to come in and settle their dispute, which a member ofthe Quraysh Bayt, whose ancestor was known as the"Uniter," was likely to be well qualified to do. But Dr.

Crone continues: "Ibn Ishlaq . .. first tells us that

Muhammad stepped into a political vacuum in Yathriband next that he snatched away authority from a well-

established ruler in Yathrib. Never had Yathrib beenso disunited, or else it had never been so united. Thecontradiction is beyond harmonization." How can ahistorian make such nonsense out of a straight-forward situation? The story is quite clear, though IbnIshaq marshals his information in a manner a little

disjointed.Following the contest at Bucath, the- Aws andKhazraj tribes wished to compose their differencesand arrive at a peaceful settlement. Ibn Ubayy ofKhazraj, about whose honor (sharaf) (not "authority"as it is rendered by Guillaume and followed by Dr.Crone), and therefore his eligibility, there was noquestion, was rallied around by Aws and Khazraj.With Ibn Ubayy was a shardf man of Aws. IbnUbayy's tribe had strung some beads on a fillet4' to

39 Guillaume, 198; STrah,op. cit., 1:429.

40 Noeldeke, Delectus (Berlin, 1890), 87, for this sense ofsharr.

41 This form of investiture was customary in Arabia by the

time of the Namdrah inscription of the 4th century A.D.,

where Imru'u '1-Qaysis dhii -'asral-taj, and as recent at least

as the investiture of the cAwdhalTsultan Sdlih. b. Husayn

with the fatTlah of the Arab match-lock gun. Irfan Shahid,

"Philological observations on the Namara inscription,"Jour-

nal of Semitic Studies XXIV (1979): 33-34.

wind round his head as a form of investiture, intend-ing then to make him king, when the Prophet arrived,and his tribe abandoned him for Islam. Ibn Ubayy is

called the sayyid of the people of Yathrib, i.e., their

chief; there must be reservations about the term

"king," which may possibly have meant something inthe nature of a paramount chief. Ibn Ubayy wasevidently not a "well-established ruler" as Dr. Crone

avers, but since he had held aloof from participatingin the Bu'ath fighting, he may have been regarded asthe most suitable chief available to try and establish

peace, and he certainly was a man of standing.In the meantime, the naqrbs, of lesser rank than a

sayyid, had been secretly negotiating with Muhammadin what was patently a conspiracy against Ibn Ubayy,whom they took care not to inform of what they were

doing. Nine of the naqibs were of Khazraj and threeof Aws. Whether they were motivated by jealousies or

rivalry or not, they had a superior candidate foroffice, not likely to be party to either tribe in their

quarrels, and, as well, having the over-riding prestigeof being a member of a holy house; so Ibn Ubayy hadto acquiesce. The only contradiction is that manu-factured by Dr. Crone herself!

Astonished to find Mecca (p. 198) described in texts

quoted as evidence as having "lush vegetation"(characterized as muctalij al-bathd', rendered as "aplain with luxuriant herbage"), I consulted the Arabic.Dr. Crone's references are to Wfistenfeld, but her

translations are taken from Guillaume42 who does

speak of the "verdant plain of al-Batha'." I havewarned (JRAS [1982]: 181) that though we use his

very readable translation, no reliance is to be placedon it for serious work, because of the manifold errorsin his rendering. A batha' is "the bottom of a water-course or a channel of a torrent producing plants andherbage." Muctalij is strong, tall, tangled of herbage-it can mean luxuriant in the sense of abundant. ButJurhum, looking for pasture after a drought, foundi1dah, i.e., tangled thorny trees-the salam, samar(gum acacia) and plants for pasture. In other wordsthe Mecca valley was a stony flood-bed with tangledthorn trees/bushes growing along the line of it, a

common physical feature in Arabia in areas otherwisebarren. Mecca certainly did not have "an unusuallyfertile environment." As for making sense that a

42Op. cit., 43. Similarly (p. 46) Guillaume speaks of Mecca

as "a town blessed with water and trees" (balad-an dhd md'-

in wa-shajar-in) but a more accurate rendering would be "a

region having water and vegetation."




sanctuary town should be located in a fertile environ-

ment, this does not apply to Mecca.

* * * *

The final chapter, the "Rise of Islam," can only be

described as "maunderings";what is new is untrue (or

irrelevant!)and what is true is not new.

Part 2 of the book leaves the general impression of

the author's confused reasoning, arising largely from

her methodology-if such chaos can be called method-

ology! Her technique, as said, is to throw together a

mass of data in order to produce seeming contradic-

tions (and of course there sometimes are contradic-

tions). But criticism of historical sources should aim

at eliciting from themrwhat is possible to accept as

evidence, not at manufacturing a case for destroying

them in toto. Dr. Crone makes little if any genuine

(might one say, sincere?) attempt at a critical assess-ment of the relative historicity of the sources of which

she disposes. Citation of a multitude of references

should not blind one to her lack of a constructive

critical approach. She sets out to prove that the

commerce and sanctity of pre-Islamic Mecca are a

myth, thereby to outsmart those scholars who accept

that, given the known limitations of the sources, there

is a basis of "fact"to early Islamic historical tradition.

My own feeling is one of surprise at how often one

finds, when least expecting it, how consistent it is.

On the central theme of iyldf, Marsden Jones'"Al-

STra al-Nabawiyya"43 is overwhelming in the positive

evidence it provides for the existence of the iyldf

system, based upon a well-analyzed and critical survey

of the historical texts. In the face of such evidence as

this, it is simply perverse and absurd to attempt toargue the Meccan sanctuary out of any significance

prior to the advent of Islam. The negation of these are

but two of the many unconvincing contentions in the

book.The impression of the author left by reading Dr.

Crone's work is that of a clever undergraduate at a

student debate, intent to win on the points at issue,

but neither over-careful in interpreting the historical

sources, nor with any scruples at twisting what has

already been said, to make it fit her argument. Her

book may gain her the publicity it is clearly designed

to do, but it will in no way advance our understanding

of early Islamic origins.

43' "Al-S ra al-Nabawiyya as a source for the economic

historyof WesternArabiaat the timeof the riseof Islam,"n

Studies in the history of Arabia, Proceedings of the First

InternationalSymposiumon Studies in the History of

Arabia, 23rd-28th April, 1977, Departmentof History,

Facultyof Arts,University f Riyadh Riyadh,1399/1979),

15-23.

Meccan Trade

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