The Prehistory of Islam

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The Prehistory of Islam

Author(s): Edmond PowerSource: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 2, No. 7 (Sep., 1913), pp. 204-221Published by: Irish Province of the Society of JesusStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30082945.

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204 Studies. [SEPT.,

THE PREHISTORY OF ISLAM.Lecture delivered at the Semaine d'Ethnologie Religieuse,Louvain, September 3rd, 1913.f

By ED600D POWER, .J., D.LITT.ORIENT.Beyrouth).THAT ur first lecture on Mohammedanismshould be an inquiryinto the prehistory of Islam needs little explanation or apology.We wish to study a great man and a great achievement; andeven the greatest of men are largely dependent on circumstances,while achievements destined to be durable presuppose a certainpreparation. what were the circumstancesthat helped and hindered Mohammed in his work How far were the Arabspreparedto adopt the new religion he brought them To answerthese questions, we must make ourselves acquainted with thereligious, and, to some extent, the social and political conditionof Arabia in the sixth century of our era. There are two reasonswhich render this preparatorystudy specially important. In thefirst place, the founder of Islam was not a creative genius. Hisoriginality consisted only in the manner in which he selectedelements from the various religions then represented in Arabiaand combined them into one whole. The religions of Arabia atthe end of the sixth century are thus the sources of Islam, andfor that reasoncannot be neglected by us. Again, the union in acom600 faith of irreligious and disunited Arabs, the rapid conquests and marvellousexpansion of Islam call for an explanation.They have been attributedby Christian apologists to the mightof the sword, by Moslem apologists to a special intervention ofdivine Providence on behalf of the new religion. From ascientific point of view, however, a study of the state of Arabiawhen Mohammed first appeared there is absolutely indispensable if we would arrive at a correct estimate of the causes of hiswonderful success.

Arabia, at the time of which we write, had come into contactwith the Greeks on the north, with the Persians on the east, and

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1913c The Prehistory of Islam. Zoewith the Abyssinians on the south-west. About 500 A.D. theByzantine 600archs had established on the northernfrontier anArab principality ruled over by a native dynasty, theGhassanides,' whose headquarterswere usually at Jabiya, a kindof armed camp situated at a day's journey to the south-east ofDamascus. The Ghassanides extended Greek influence into theinterior, saved Syria from the incursions of the nomads, and, asArab vassals of Greece, undertookto deal with the Arab vassalsof Persia in the almost continuous warfare betweenthe two greatempires. In 583 A.D. the Ghassanides got into difficulties withtheir suzerain, but the state continued to support the Byzantine600archy until it was put an end to by the Persian invasion of613-61 A.D. We do not know if Heraclius, when he conqueredthe Persians in 629 A.D.,reinstatedhis Arab vassals. If so, theycould not have at once recoveredtheir former influence over theneighbouring tribes, and been in a position to stem the tide ofMoslem invasion. The Ghassanide 600archs were all Christiansand very zealous in the cause of 600ophysism .2 Their Christianity was thus unorthodox, and was associatedwith the idea offoreign dominion. Such as it was, it diffused itself a600g theirsouthern neighbours, the tribes of Bahra, Qudae-a,Kalb.What the Ghassanides were to the Greeks on the north, theLachmideswere to the Persians on the north-east-----vassalrincesof a buffer state.3 Already in 400 A.D.we find them reigning atHira, a town situated to the south of ancient Babylon on thebordersof the great desert. The last of them, Nucman III., wasdeposed and executed by his Persian suzerain about the year 602A.D. He was succeededby a Tayyite Christian, Iyas b. Kabisa,who, however, had a Persian officialto watch over him. On hisdeath, Hira became a Persian province. The Persians were soonto discover their fatal mistake in not continuing to govern Arabsby Arabs when they sustained a crushing defeat from the nomadarmy of the Bakr tribes at the battle of Dhu Qar about 610 A.D.This victory roused the self-consciousness of the Arabs, andshowed them the real weakness of the rich Persian empire. Itwill help us to realise its significance for the history of Islam ifwe consider that Moslem theologians felt bound to attribute it to

'Th. Noldeke,Die Ghassanidischeniirsten usden:HauseGa/na'snAbhandlungener Kgl. Ak.derWiss. zu Berlinphil.hist. KI., pp. i-62.1887.2 L. Duchesne, he ChurcheseparatedromRome EglisesS6pareestrans. A. H. Mathew),ondon,9o7,pp.210.219.G. Rothstein, ie Dynastie er Lahmzdenn al-HiraLeipzig,2899,especiallyp.18-28,39-143.Duchesne.c.



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206 Studies. DEPT.,the prayers and merits of their still undeclaredprophet, and thatthe invasion of Persia, twenty years later, was not only led, buteven initiated without any authorisation from headquarters, bythe chief of the same Arab tribe that took the lead in the battleof Dhu Qar.1With the sole ex300tion of Nucman III., who was convertedto Christianity about six years before his death, the Lachmidesseem to have been all pagans. Christianity, being the Byzantine state religion, was looked on with evil eyes by the Persian600archs. Al-Mundhir III., who reigned at Hira during thefirst half of the sixth century, sacrificedto the goddess Uzza 400Christian nuns, as well as the son of the Ghassanide 600arch,who was brotherto his own wife, Hind. This Hind was a devoutChristian, and possibly convertedher son Amr, though there aregood reasons for believing him to have been a pagan. But, ifthe princes of Hira and some of its inhabitants were pagans, theinfluential families were Christian. These families belonged todifferent tribes, e.g., that of Abi b. Zaid,to Tamim, that of theBanu Marinato Lahm, that of the Banu Bukaila to Azd, yet all,settling in the same town, bore the generic and specifically religious name Ibad, servants or worshippers (of the one true God).Thus we find what is generally looked upon as the most originalfeatureof Islam, the religious bond superseding the tribal bond,existing already a600g the Christians of Hira as the naturalresult of the adoption of a com600 religion and a settled modeoflife. Hira had bishops from 400 A.D. onwards, sometimes twosimultaneously when 600ophysism vainly strove with Nestorianism for the mastery. The Christianity of Eastern Arabiahad its centrein Hira, but was not confined to it. Christian werethe tribes of Taghlib and., Iyad in 'the north, and, in varyingdegrees, some of the sub-tribes of Bakr ibn Wa'il in the southlike the Banu Shaiban and the Banu Hanifa of Yamama. Christian were the Banu Abd-al-Qais of Bahrein. There were fivebishoprics about the shores of the Persian gulf. Christianityhad reached the Tayy in northern and the Tamim in southernNejd.The ancient kingdom of Sabafln South Arabia, a most important trading centre, had early but vainly attracted the

Cf. Rothstein,.c., p. 123, Caetani,Annalidell'Islam, ., 238,Goldziher,Muhammedanischetudien,., 103,on the importancef this battle.2 Cf.H. Grimme,ieWeltgeschiehtlicheedeutungrabiens, ohammed,Munster,904,esp.pp.37sq. E. Glaser,ZweiInschrztencabereuDammbruchvon Mari in MVAG,Berlin,1897. M. Hartmann, ie ArabiscbeFrage,Leipzig, 9og,L. Duchesnep.cit. pp. 189-210.



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1913. The Prehistory of Islam. 207cupidity of the Romans. It seems to have been temporarilyoccupied by the Abyssinians shortly after 300 A.D., but the conquest was of short duration. In the fourth century Judaism andChristianity began their struggle for dominion in Saba. Theemperor Constantius sent thither about 356 A.D. an embassyladen with rich presents to obtain liberty of Christian worshipfor Roman merchants and newly-converted natives. TheSabaean 600arch, though he did not change his faith, had threechurches erected at his own expense for his Christian subjects.An inscription, dated 378 A.D., gives reason to think that theking of that period was a 600otheist. Whether or not the Jewsinfluencedthe religious opinions of this prince, they seem, at allevents, in the following century, to have attached the rulingdynasty to their faith. M. Hartmannsupposes the favour shownto Judaism to have been originally decided by commercial andeconomical considerations. The 600archs requiredthe supportof the Jewish tradesmen and financiers in their struggle with thenobles. In an inscription, dated 450 A.D. Sharahbil Yacfurappeals to the help and grace of God, Lord of heaven andearth, and to the might and help of the All-mercifulRahmanan, a Jewish word. His son, Sharahbil Yakkuf, whoalso speaks of the All-merciful in an inscription of 467 A.D.,is declared by the Arabic writers to have been a Jew. Achronicle of saints in the British Museum gives the name of aChristian martyr, Arkir, who was put to death by this 600archat the instigation of his counsellors the Rabbis.' TATehouldprobably locate between these two Jewish or judaizing princes acertain Abd-al-Qulal who is said to have been a Christian, but insecret. From about 510-525 an undoubted Jewish 600arch,Joseph Dhu Nuwas, ruled in Saba. He organised a very bitterpersecution of Christians, apparently for political motives, as hewas allied with Persia, and wished to check Roman andAbyssinian influence, which was a constant menace to SouthArabian independence. His massacres of Christians at Zafarand Nejran seem to have followed other persecuting measures,and are sufficiently notorious to need no more than a passingmention. Punishment came swiftly in the shape of anAbyssinian invasion supported by a --Byzantine fleet. DhuNuwas lost his crown and his life and Yemen became anAbyssinian dependency in 525 A.D. Under Ethiopian protection, Christianity flourished exceedingly in South Arabia untilabout 570 A.D., when a Persian expedition put an end to theI SeeJewishEncyclopaedia,.v. Saba. 0



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208 Studies. [SEPT.,sway of the Ethiopians, and installed a native prince, Saif, as aPersian vassal. When he perished soon after, the victim of anAbyssinian reaction, the Chosroes sent over another expeditionunder his general, Wahriz, who massacred all the Abyssiniansand ruled Yemen as a Persian province. South Arabia remainedin this position until the Moslem invasion. Christianity musthave greatly sufferedby the change of rulers. Ultimately professed in South Arabia under the 600ophysite form adhered toby the Abyssinians, it had there many obstacles to contend with,attachment of the Sabaeans to their native religion, wealth andinfluence of the Jews, the sentiment of national independence,hatred of Byzantium and Ethiopia, and sympathy with Persia.Its chief centres were in the towns of Aden, Zafar, Sanca andNejran.The Hijaz, with its three importantcities of Mecca, Medinaand Taif, and the elevated and fertile Nejd, the paradise of theArabian poets, had never been subject to foreign potentate, andwere renderedby their geographical position least amenable toforeign religious influences. Central Arabia was thus the realcentre of Arabian nationalism and Arabian heathenism. Yet,even here foreign creeds had found an entrance. The Jews, inthe great exodus which followed the destruction of the secondtemple, coming gradually further south, had settled in thefruitful oases of Taima and l adak and Khaibar and Wadi-1Qura, and finally Medina, where they first formed the rulingclass, but subsequently relapsed into a more or less subordinateposition of alliance with the pagan Arabs.' There was a Jewishcolony also at Taif. Of Christians at Medina, Abu Amir, surnamed the 600k, who opposed Mohammed at Uhud, was scarcely an isolated specimen. The subsequent Moslem cemeterythere, called Ad-dair, the 600astery, bears witness to ancientChristianity,2as also does the poet, Hassan b. Thabit, when hetells us that the Christians and the Jews of Yathrib (Medinarejoicedwhen he (Mohammed was put away in the hollow of thetomb. 3 We are told that Christianity at Mecca boasted suchdistinguished adherents as Mohammed's own son-in-law, whowas the son of his great enemy, Abu Lahab, Waraqa, who wasi H. Hirschfeld, ssaisurt'histoireesjuifs deMIdine n R.E.J.VII.,167 q. X., zosq. J. Welihausenn ResteArabischeneidentums,nded.,pp.197q. Leszynsky ieJudenn Arabsen,erlin; g10onwhichef.A.J.iensinckn Der Islam I., 3, p. 288-9).2Lyall,AncientArabian oetry,p. 52.8The suggestionn Noldeke'sDelectusCarminumrabitorum,. 74,note, hatby Christians Pseudo-Muslimsaybemeant,s notveryconvincing.A Medinetanhristian,Habib,efusedMohammedloanof raiment,Musnad11.,244(citedbyMargoliouthohammed,tc.,p. 237



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1913, The Prehistory of Islam. 209cousin to his firstwife, Khadija, and the son of the great Meccanchief, Abu Sufyan.z We hear, too, of some Ghassanide Christians who had settled there under the protection of Mohammed'smaternalrelatives, the Banu Zuhra.2 There were, moreover, atMecca, Medina, and Taif certain eclectics, half-Jew, halfChristian600otheists, called Hanifs.3 Before inquiring into thetenets of these individuals, whose name, at least, Mohammedadopted for himself and his followers, and, before examiningmore closely the influence exercised by Christianity and Judaismon the religious life of the Arabs, we must first give someaccount of Arabian heathenism.The religion of the heathen Arabs4 before Islam was a formof fetichism interspersedwith isolated traces of nature worship.The divinities were worshipped under the form of blocks ofwood, or, more generally, stone, which were, for the most part,neither confined within temples nor fashioned into anything likehuman shape. In the neighbourhood of the fetish was a tree forex-votos and a well for sacrificial and other purposes, and allaround was a sacred enclosure in which pasturedanimals sacredto the god. The cult usually assumed three forms, sacrifice, procession and divination. When the victim, sheep, ox or camel,had been slain, the blood was poured on the stone or into a holein the earth for the deity, while the flesh was eaten by the worshippers in the sacrificialbanquet that followed. The processionconsisted in making the round of the sanctuary seven times,either naked or in borrowedgarb, and uttering loud cries. Thiscere600y was gone through in cases of special need. Divinationwas generally practised by means of arrows, which were drawnat haphazard,and bore an inscription forbidding, postponing orpermitting the line of action on which the deity was beingconsulted. There were, moreover, kahins or sooth-sayers whowere supposed to receive their information from familiar spirits.Mohammed raised this con300tion to a higher level. But ifhe had not before him the example of the heathen kahin, saysNoldeke, it is hard to believe that any such idea would haveenteredhis mind. The most importantof the divinities werethe

I Cf. Lammens,Mahometut-il sincere in Recherchese ScienceReligieuse,911, an.-Fev., . 5on. 4, p. 51n. 3,2Azraki,66,citedby Margoliouh op.cit., p. 39.3Cf.especially yall,The WordsDianaandMuslimn J.R.A.S.,1903,PP 771-784.iellhausen,

esteArabischen eidentums,nd ed., Berlin,2897.Noldeke,AncientArabs n Hasting'sEncyclopaediaf Religion ndEthics,1., pp.659-673



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'[SEPT.,Zio Studies.Meccan god, Hobal, a Syrian importation, and probably identifled with Allah, and the three goddesses, Al-L.at, Al-Uzza and.Manat, who were thought by the Meccans, if we would believeMohammed,to be the daughters of Allah, and whose shrines werelocated at Tail, Nakhla (a little to the south of Mecca), andHudhail (also near Mecca), respectively. But, in whateverlight these and other minor deities were regarded, the Arabs ofMohammed's time, and quite especially the Meccans, distinctlyrecognised the supremacy of Allah. According to the Koran,lto Him men turned in their distress, Him they recognised asCreatorand Supreme Provider, in His name solemn oaths weresworn, to Him was a special portion assigned distinct from thatof the other deities. The crime of the Meccans was to worshipother gods besides Allah, to associate other gods with Allah, andthey alleged that Allah had never forbidden them to do so.Had not Mohammed, says Noldeke, been accustomedfrom his youth to the idea of Allah as the Supreme God, in particular of Mecca, it may well be doubted whether he would everhave come forward as the preacher of 600otheism.The Arabic year had four sacred 600ths, one in spring andthree in autumn. During these wars were forbidden, fairs wereheld, and finally the great pilgrimage took place. The mostimportantof the fairs was that held at Ukaz, in the neighbourhood of Mecca. People came there from all parts of the peninsula. There was buying and selling, declamation of verses bythe most celebrated poets, sowing of strife and mending ofquarrels, public proclamationsthat interestedall the Arabs, likethe regulation of the calendar for the ensuing year. If the fairrecalled to the Arabs their com600 nationality, the pilgrimage,that followed it, reminded them that they had a com600 religion.On the seventh of .Dhu-l-Hijja, pilgrimage-600th, the pilgrims, who had to be dressed in the ihram, a simple white robe,and to remain unshaved, unwashed, unsheltered, during theirpilgrimage, assembled at Arafa, a high hill about.twenty kilometres due east of Mecca. At the approach of sunset, to theglare of lighted torches, and with loud cries of labbaika, at thyservice, they began the race on foot or on camels to Muzdalifa,six or seven kilometres distant in the Meccan direction. Thence,after a sleepless night, they proceeded at sunrise to Mina, midway between Muzdalifa and Mecca, casting pebbles on threeheaps of stones they passed on the way. At Mina, beasts were

I Cf.U, B. Macdonald,rticleAllah n Encyclopaediaf Islam,V,, 302.



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t913.1 The Prehistory of Islam.sacrificed, their flesh consumed, or given to the poor, or preserved for future use, while pilgrims cut their hair and nails, asign that the festival was ended. Though the pilgrimage, whichseems to have combined what was originally a form of solar worship with other devotional elements, had at first nothing todo with Mecca, yet to it, without doubt, that city largely owed'its commercial and religious significance. Meccans presidedover the cere600ies as soon as the pilgrims entered their sacredterritory. They showed considerable, but by no means disinterested, hospitality towards the poorer pilgrims, and invitedall to visit their, city for the annual fair which followed, Nowonder, then, that the cult of the Meccan sanctuary, the racebetween Safa and Marwa, the procession round the Kaaba, thekissing of the black stone, became associated with the pilgrimage, and form an essential part of it in Islam.. The repulseof the Abyssinian Viceroy, Abraha, whose invasion of the Hijazabout SaoA.D. was ascribed to religious motives, gave the paganArabs a more exalted idea of the sanctity of their city and thepower of its god. And we find even Adi b. Zaid, the Christianpoet of distant Hira, swearing by the Lord of Mecca and theCross.Whatever may be said in general of the fervour or lukewarmness of Arabs in religious matters, it is quite certain that theheathens of 'Mohammed's time were little attached to the lowtype of religion they professed. To suppose, says Noldeke,that the Arabs fought against the Prophet on behalf of theirreligion would be a mistake. A600g his opponents no trace ofheathen fanaticismappears. What vexed the Meccans from asentimental point of view was the attack on their ancestorsMohammed's teaching implied. Clan-feeling took the place ofreligious sentiment a600g the pagan Arabs, and it was with this,as well as with the all-powerfulconsiderationof self-interest, thatMohammed had to reckon.The following passage of Wellhausen is very instructive inthis respect :I How little the Arabs took their cult to heart maybe seen especially from the downfall of heathenism after theconversion of the masses to Islam. This downfall has nowherethe note of tragedy, but frequently that of scurrility. The passage to Islam is far more matter of politics than of religion. Thechiefs come in the year 9 A.H. to -Medina, negotiate withMohammed, and come to terms in the name of their followers.

I NesteArabischeneidentums,. 220-221.



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2I2 Studies. LSEPt.,The tribes follow in a body without more ado; everything goeson quite smoothly, even where difficultiesare feared, as in Taif.The falling away after Mohammed's death has purely politicalmotives; it is not a relapse into heathenism, to their old gods therebels desire in no sense to return. Heathenism is superstition in the proper sense of the Latin word. Any strength itstill has lies in the pietas, that is, the feeling of fellowship whichunites the members of the clan not only with one another, butwith their ancestors. People fear to abandon the customaryusage of the countryheld holy by their sires, and are scandalisedat blasphemies against the ancient and com600 faith. Individuals do not willingly become converts even when convinced byIslam; the clan must accompany them. Mohammed's followingconsists in great part of persons without home or kin, nay, evenof outlaws and deserters. On the other hand, when an individual goes over alone to the new religion, we see his clan, thathas remained heathen, taking sides with him when lie isassailed, and according a higher position, a holier regard to theconsideration of fellowship in blood than to that of differenceinreligion.The clan-feeling did much to pervert the moral sense of theArabs.' For am not I but one of Ghaziyah? says a poet, andif they err I err with my house; and if Ghaziyah go right so I.Ex300t fidelity to strangers who had made contracts with them,or sought their protection and these were under Allah's carethe Bedouins recognised no obligation towards those outsidetheir clan, but robbed and murdered as opportunity offered. Itis to the sense of fellowship with the departed members of theclan that the desire of vengeance, so typical of the Arabs, seemschiefly due, There was an ancient belief that the souls of thoseslain unavenged flew about the grave at night in the form ofowls crying, Give me to drink. Only when the blood ofvengeance was shed was the thirst of the owl quenched, and didhe cease to cry. Arabs are reproached by a poet becausemalice with loving kindness they requite. The avowed prac.tice was to regardboth good and evil as a loan, to return evil forevil and good for good, nay, even to forestall the aggressor.Mohammed's great achievement was to substitute religious community for clan, the fear of Allah for devotion to one's kinsmen. But, from the point of view of moral obligation, he made

I Cl.especiallyoldziher, uamredanischetudien. 1-39. Lyall,Ance,ziArabic oetry.Nicholson, Literary istoryf theArabs, ondon,907, p.1-179.



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1913.1 The Prehistory of Islam. 2IIslam little different from an enlarged clan. It bore the samerelation to outsiders as the clan did. Their lives and propertieswere not safe, nor their own, until and ex300t in so far as theywere guaranteed by contract and protection. And even withinIslam, if forgiveness of injuries was counselled, the lex talioniswas retained.Thehe tribalconstitution was essentially democratic,authoritybeing ,vested in a council of elders, whose pre-eminence wasfreely admitted by their fellows, and who were generally theheads of the most famous houses, the most wealthy men, andthe most renowned warrors. Instead of this, Mohammed wasto institute a theocracy with one supreme ruler, who, as God'svicegerent, had absolute authority, and who collected tributefrom all his subjects. This restraint on their liberty was whatgalled the Bedouins most, and was the real cause of their revoltafter Mohammed's death. They especially objected to payingtribute.

Religion for the Arabs could not be dissociated from materialgain. It was the socialistic tendency of Mohammed's religiousteaching that excited the opposition of the .Meccan merchantsfearing for their wealth. Only when Islam became the religionof the successful party they withdrew their opposition and ralliedto it. How very materialistic the self-interest of the Arabs waswe may learn from the poet Tarafa, who expressed the sentimentof the mass of his fellows when he said, Save only for threethings in which noble youth take delight, I care not how soonrises o'er me the coronach loud. These three things, whichalone made life worth living, were war, wine, and woman. Eventhe very virtues of the Arabs were not disinterested. Their proverbial hospitality seems to have flown more froma desire ofrenown than from any natural tenderness. Myy father, saidthe daughter of Hatim at-Tavy to Mohammed, was wont tofree the captive, and protect those near and dear to him, andentertain the guest, and satisfy the hun300, and console theafflicted, and give food and greeting to all; and never did heturn away any who sought a boon. The true believer,replied Mohammed, is such as thou hast described. Had thyfather been an Islamite, verily we should have said, 'God havemercy upon him.' Hatim and other great men were extravagantly hospitable to poets for the avowed purpose of obtainingpanegyrics that would make them famous all over Arabia.

Lyall,.c.p.37.



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214 Studies. [SEPT.,The virtues most highly prized by the Arabs, and in thepossession of which their poets were wont to glory, were braveryin battle, patience in misfortune, persistence in revenge, protec

tion of the weak, and defiance of the strong. The followingverses from the inuallaqa of Amr b. Kulthum, at once spiritedand extravagant, are a good expression of Arabic ideals.Wot not, when our tents rise along the valleys,The men of every clanThat we give death to those who durst attempt us,To friends what food we can,That staunchly we maintain a cause we cherish,Camp where we choose to ride,Nor will we aught of peace when we are angeredTill we are satisfied,We keep our vassals safe and sound, but rebelsWe soon bring to their knees,And if we reach a well we drink pure water,Others the muddy lees,Ours is the earth and all thereon; when we strikeThere needs no second blow.Kings lay before the new-weanedboy of TaghlibTheir heads in homage low.We are called oppressors being none, but shortlyA true name shall it beWe have so filled the earth 'tis narrow for usAnd with our ships the sea.'

If such, then, be the characteristicsof the Arabs, as Goldziher has described them to us in his MuhamredanischcStudien, irreligious spirit, blind attachment to clan and tradition, blunted moral sense, love of liberty, self-interest,materialism, pagan ideals, we are faced with the problem as tohow Arabia ever came to produce or to ac300t so earnest andexacting a religion as Islam. It is true that the great mass ofthe Arabs who became Moslems were never more than superficially converted, but it is an exaggeration to affirm that Islamonly became really religious when non-Arabs embraced it. Asolution is to be found partly in the fact that the picture drawnrepresents primarily the nomad rather than the settled Arab,partly in the influence already exerted by the Jewish and Christian religions in Arabia. In this respect Hartmann's corrective

1Nicholson,,.c.,. i io.



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1913.j The Prehistory of Islam. 2Tof Goldziher and Caetani deserves attention.' The nonobservation, he tells us, of these gradations, that is, halfnomads, half-settlers, etc., nay, even of the fundamentalopposition between wanderersand settlers, leads to a generalising suchas we find in Goldziher's article, 'Muruwwa and Din' (M.S.Y-39),so rich in individual indications of interest. It is potpermissible to define Mohammed's position without consideringthe variety of the social groups that confronted him. If Goldziher has proved that the Bedouin con300tion of life stood in therudest opposition to the new religion (which, indeed, so far as Iknow, nobody has ever doubted), it has been in no wise de600stratedthat the same holds good for the Meccans. The contraryis proved by facts: Mohammed would never have found a600gBedouins the following which made it possible for him toachieve his purpose; only by people, who had given up part ofthe Bedouin character,could he have been understood. In otherwords, Meccans and Bedouins are two sorts of persons, of whichboth may be called Arabs, but only one displays the qualitieswhich Goldziher represents-.as Arabic in general. Caetani'sdeclaration (I. 182), that in these pages of Goldziher the arguments against Sprenger's 'errors' (L.L.M. I. x3-134 are puttogether in masterly fashion, is a complete misunderstanding ofthe investigations of both scholars; these are in no sense connected, for Goldziher contributes materials exclusively intendedto illustrate heathen con300tions, Sprenger treats of the conditions which Mohammed'steaching found alreadyexisting a600gthose inhabitants of Arabia, who, in contrast to the Bedouins,occupied themselves with religious matters. That such therewere Sprenger has brilliantly proved. Whether lie is right inall details, especially in his construction of Christian sects andtheir influenceat Mecca, is another matter. It must be granted,at all events, that, a600g the half-settled occupants of thenumerous larger and smaller oases of North Arabia, includingArabia Provincia, therewas a great numberof Christians, and itwould be strange had not these, so out of contact with the stricterecclesiastical discipline of the Roman Empire, followed the inclination towards a particular development with regard todogma and visionary contemplation. Settled Arabs, then, aremore far-seeing in their views, more disposed to combine underindividual leadership, more inclined towardsreligion than nomadArabs. Similarly at the present time, ivdldeke tells us,

DieArabischerage,p. 53,note.



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216 Studies. [SEPT.,Bedawin, who are lukewarm about religion, no sooner adopt asettled mode of life than they become transformed into bigotedMohammedans. 1 Thus from the point of view of Arabic

character alone, Mohammed's early successes at Mecca andMedina are not wholly inexplicable.But what most of all prepared the Arabs for Islam was thediffusion of Jewish and Christian ideas all over the peninsula.2The Jews were only to be found in groups and a600g the settledArabs. They were chiefly manufacturers, traders, 600eylenders. Considerablylooked down on by the Arabs, they madeno converts ex300t in South Arabia. The Christians were morescattered. They had, as we have seen, their large centres incities like Hira and Nejran, but were also to be found isolated, asat Mecca and Medina and a600g the Bedouin tribes. That atribe should be entirely Christian was the ex300tion rather thanthe rule. Half of the Banu-l-Harith of 'Nejran were pagansand other tribes, like Tamim, had a much smaller sprinkling ofChristians. If Christian ideals were very widely diffused, Christianity itself was not very solidly established, and must oftenhave assumed a rather debased form. Bearing in mind the dis-tinction already laid down between Bedouins and settled Arabs,we should expect to find the best Christians a600g the Nestorians of Hira and the 600ophysites of Nejran, and the lattercertainly proved their worth by the supreme test of martyrdom.The very zeal evinced by the Ghassanides for 600ophysismshows at least that they took their areligion to heart. TheChristian teaching on marriage must have been found particularly difficult. There are isolated cases of Christian Arabsdivorcing their wives. Nucman III., the Lachmide 600arch,-convertedonly a few years before his death, was a polygamist.The same is probably true of at least one of the Ghassanideprinces. The sanctity of the matri600ial state had to bespecially insisted on in Nejran.But, in truth, we know little about Arabian Christianity.When Christian poets seem to uphold pagan ideals,of war andvengeance, it is not always safe to conclude that they are ex.pressing their personal convictions, owing to the artificialityandstereotyped characterof Arabian poetry. The taunting allusionof a pagan poet to Christian spears not stained with bloodshows that Christianity made for peace. Nor should we believe

'Article,Ancient rabsnHasting's.R.E. 1.659.'Cf. the worksof Weilhausen,oideke,Hartmann, yall,Rothstein,Nicholson, irschfeld,tc.,alreadyited.



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1913. The Prehistory of Islam. 2iythe exaggerated and biassed declarationsof Moslems, when theytell us, for instance, that the Christianity of the Taghlibites consisted solely in wine-drinking.' Though there was, indeed, acertain connection between Christianity and wine. To the Arabswho sought their wares, the Christian wine merchants of Hiraand elsewhere imparted also their religious ideas, and many aChristian tale and legend was related in the taverns.The feature of Christianity that most influenced the Arabswas its other-worldliness. Hermits like St. Hilarion of Gazain the fourth century, St. Euthymius of Pharan and St. SimeonStylites of Northern Syria in the fifth, produced by their holyand self-denying lives a wonderful effect on the children of thedesert, and wrought many conversions. Pre-Islamic poets oftenrefer to the lamps that lighted in the night the prayerful vigilsof the solitaries. We are told that Qais, son of Zuhair, chief ofthe tribeof Abs, at the end of the famous forty years' war wagedbetween Abs and Dhubyan, became a Christian 600k in Oman.Adi b. Zaid, the king-maker of CHira,secretary and interpreterof Arabic affairs at the Persian court, shows the characterof hisChristianity in his verses when he sings, of the races that havepassed away, and declares that his own turn and that of hishearers will soon arrive. The verses of Quss b. Saida, Bishopof,Nejran, have a similar refrain. And this serious note invitingto reflection manifests itself at times in verses so pronouncedlypagan as those of Imru-I-Qaisand Amr b. Kulthum.2But Christian influence went still further. It is remarkable, says Sir Charles Lyall,3 that in the works of four of themost prominent Arabian poets of the Prae-islamic timean-Nabigah, Zuhair, al-Aesha, and Labid-we find expressionswhich show that they, at least, if not the wild wanderers of thedesert, knew very well what a spiritual religion meant. Ofthese, an-Nabigah, who frequented the courts of the Lachmides and Ghassanides, says of the latter, their land is a sacredland, their religion is upright, and they hope only the life tocome. Al-Ae-shawas very intimate with the Christian chiefsof Nejran and with Haudhah, son of Ali, Christian chief of theBanu Hanifah, the most powerful man of his day in Central

Cf.H. Lammensn JournalAszatique,894, uillet-Aout,. 107 q. onTaghlibite hristianity.2Amrays n hisMuallaka,Many cupat BaalbekndDamascusndQasirin 'vedrained.Howbeitwe, ordainedo death, hall oneday meetdeatho us ordained Nicholson),.e.p. 110.aOp.cit. p. 93.



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218 Studies. [SEPT.,Arabia. The poet praises Haudhah for his generosity in -redeeming from death a hundredcaptives of Taniim, as an Easteroffering before God, in the following versesAnd there he loosed from their bonds a hundredout of their pain,from all on that happy dawn he flung their fetters away.These were his offering meet that Easter morning, with theselie came before God in hope to win the meed of His love.We find Zuhair attacking war in general, blaming bloodvengeance, praising peace-makersand appealing to the judgmentafter death.It boots not to hide,from God aught evil within your breasts:it will not be hid. What man would hold back from God HeknowsIt may be its meed cones late: in the Book is the wrong setdownfor the Reckoning Day; it may be that vengeance is swiftand stern.Labid was, however, the most religiously minded of the four, asthe following verses testifyYes, the righteous shall keep the way of the righteousand to God turn the steps of all that abideth :But to God ye return, ye too; with Him onlyrest the issues of things and all that they gather.All that is in His Book of Knowledge is reckoned,and before Him revealed lies all that is hidden :Both the day when His gifts of goodness on those whomHe exalts are as palms full-freighted with sweetness,Young and burdened with fruit, their heads bowed with clusters,swelled to bursting, the tallest e'en as the lesser;And the day when avails the sin-spotted onlyprayer for pardon and grace to lead him to mercy,And the good deed he wrought to witness before him,and the pity of Him who is compassion.Yea, a place in the shade the best to abide inand a heart still and stead-fast, right-walking, honest.;

Far more significant, however, for the propagation of Jewishand Christian ideas is, the religious poetry of Umayya b.' Thisrenderingf Labid'serses ndtheprecedingnesof those f AliAcshaandZuhair reby Sir C. J. Lyall.



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I913. The Prehistory of Islam. 219Abi-s-Salt, and far more importantas a preparationof Islam theHanif movement, in which he played a prominent part.While Mohammed was called a Sabian by his adversaries,he himself assumed the name of Hanif. The Sabians are not tobe confounded with the Sabaeans or natives of Saba in SouthArabia,' nor with the worshippers of the heavenly bodies atHarran, who, two centuries later, cleverly avoided persecutionby declaring themselves adherents of the Sabian religion per-mitted by the Koran. They are generally, and we think correctly, identified with the still extant Mandmans,2a gnostic sectpossessing sacred books, and professing a syncretistic form ofworship, in which some Jewish and Christian elements combinewith Magianism and Chaldean paganism. This sect, now confined to Southern Mesopotamia, was probably more widelydiffused in Mohammed's time and its similarity with Islam consisted chiefly, no doubt, in the ritual ablutions so characteristicof both religions, and from which the Sabians (Baptists gottheir name.3

According to the Arabic biographers of Mohammed, thereappeared at Mecca, Medina, and Taff, shortly before thepreaching of the Koran began, certain individuals represented as seekers after the true religion, and called Hanifs.Some of the so-called Hanifs are otherwise known to beChristians, most of them subsequently became Christians,one or two became Moslems, and two of the most important, Zaid b. Amr of Mecca, and Umayya b. Abi-sSalt of Taif, lived and died Hanifs. We may take the twolast as specimens. Ibn Ishaq tells us that Zaid withdrewfromthe worship of idols, abstained from eating that which had diedof itself, from blood and from things sacrificed to idols, forbadethe burying alive of female infants, and proclaimedthat he worshipped the Lord of Abraham. 4 Umayya, according to theKitab-al-Aghani, had inspected and read the scriptures, woresack-cloth as a mark of devotion, held wine to be unlawful, wasinclined to disbelieve in idols, and earnestly sought the true religion. An important feature of the Hanifs' protest against

Grimmepholdshisview,op. cit., pp, 49-53,buthis argumentsrenotconvincing.2 Brandt, lchasai, eipzig, 912, . 144,s against completedentificationandgiveswell theargumentsorandagainst.3 Cf. Brandt,Die Manddsscheeligion,Leipzig, r88g,and Ressler'sarticleMandaeansn the Encyclopaediaritannicaand Herzog-Haupt'sRealencyclopiLdieoran accountf the Mandaeans.*Saraof ThuHishamArabicext),p. 344



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220 Studies. [SEPT.,idolatry was the refusal to honour the Black Stone in the MeccanKacba. It is hard to suppose that, if the Meccan Hanifs weremerely an invention of Moslems, who wished to find precursorsto Mohammed, they would be representedas opposing the veryform of idolatry which he sanctioned. Moreover, we have preislamic evidence for the existence of religious devotees calledHanifs, though some of the verses usually cited, from whichWellhausenl concluded that the word meant Christian ascetic,Grimme2 hat it meant pagan, have been shown by Margoliouth3to be probably post-Islamic, in which case Hanif would there bea synonym of Moslem. A certainly pre-islamic verse quoted byLyall4 clearly supposes the sense ascetic: And they (thecamels reached their destination in the latter part of the night;after that the devotee, who practises austerities,like a Hanif(al-mutahannifu had begun his prayers. That the devotee,however, is not Christian but pagan, seems to us assured by thestory of Bistam, Christianchief of the Banu Shaiban, who, whencapturedby the enemy, dissuades his brother from the folly oftrying to rescue him by crying out : If you return I shallbecome a Hanif. Now, from the fact that Bistam evidentlythreatens, as Orientalsare wont to do in extreme cases, to changehis religion, and that the neighbouring Arameans, from whomhis tribe got its Christianity, designated pagans by the wordhanpa, we should conclude that the word is borrowed from theSyriac, and, originally meaning pagan, was used to denote acertain class of pagan devotees. This is Naldeke's view as to theorigin and meaning of the word,5though others prefer to deriveit from the Hebrew bane , hypocrite, heretic, and others againfrom the Arabic root, hanaf, turn aside from the normal course,in the sense of one who turns aside from a false religion to seekthe true one. In any case, the Hanifs formed no sect, asSprenger imagined, but were merely isolated individuals, eclectic600otheists with ascetical tendencies, convinced of the worthlessness and falsehood of their heathen worship, but unwilling toac300t either Judaism or Christianity. in its entirety, and sotaking what pleased them from both. When we consider thatMohammed,himself, acted in a precisely similar manner,we cansee how appropriatelyhe assumed the name of Hanif. He was,

ResteArabischeneidentums,. 239.z Mohammed,., DasLaben,Minister,892, . 12sq.4J.R.A.S. or 1903,PP.481-2.'7.R.A.S.or2903, . 780.1NeueBeztrageurSemitischenbraehwissenschaft,eipzig, 910, . 30.



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I913. The Prehistory of Islam. zzihowever, the first notwithstanding Mohammedan tradition tothe contrary to call the Hanif religion the pure religion ofAbraham, great father of the Arabs as well as of all the faithful,and to stigmatise as an adulteration what he was pleased toreject of Judaism and Christianity. He is also said to have beenoriginal in trying to convert others, while the Hanifs only concerned themselves with their own salvation. That this assertion,popularised after Wellhausen, is not quite exact, at least withregard to the most remarkable of the Hanifs, Umayya b.Abi-s-Salt, we have proved elsewhere.' Umayya concludes oneof his, certainly authentic religious poems with the declaration:And as surely as clans will forget what I say, so surely willHe Who is not poor remember it.Pardon then a servant; it is drinking and gambling joinedwith vain amusements that have been the beginning of his sin.He thus expects*a reward from God for the religious teachingby which he strove to raise the minds of his pagan contem?poraries to higher things.The study of Umayya's poetry has led to a further and veryimportantconclusion.Certain resemblances between his authentic verses and 'theKoran are best explained by the hypothesis that he andMohammeddrew from a com600 source. This would be notimmediately the books of the Jews and Christians, but the Ahlad-dikr of the Koran, professional story-tellers who used Jewishand Christian materials, and probably especially delighted indescriptions of heaven and hell, and narrations of the chastisements inflicted on nations hardened in infidelity. If this theory,which has the support of M. Hartmann,2be true-and it must beadmitted to some extent by everybody it bears out well thesewords of Wellhausen about the Hanifs with which we may conclude our study. These seekers are no individual phenomenonconfined to Mecca, Taif or Medina, but betoken a frame of mindwhich, in the time before Mohammed, was spread over allArabia, and possessed many of the noblest spirits. The groundwas ready for Islam.

E. POWER, .J.Melangese la FaculteOrientateM.F.O.),., z98. It is regrettablethatProfessorchulthessn hisexcellentdition f thepoemsf Umayyamistranslateshis importanterse. SeeM.F.O.,V.2,p. 169, or a justificationof ourrendering.2 Orientalistischeiteratur-Zeitung,909, ,, p. 20, n z.ResteArabischenleidentums,. 234.

The Prehistory of Islam

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