From: Tyagi@HouseOfKaos.Abyss.com
Subject: Islam5:Mecca
Date: Fri,  7 Jan 94 15:34:53 PST

940107

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Assalam alaikum, my kin.

This is part 5 in a continuing series on Islam and Sufism.
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On Arabian conditions prior to Muhammad's birth, Moojan Moman writes:

"The emergence of Muhammad and the religion of Islam must be seen
against the background of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century AD.  
Whether nomads or settled in towns, the people of Arabia were divided into 
tribes and the individual's loyalty was first and foremost to the tribe or 
the clan within the tribe to which he belonged.  Honour, marriage, social 
status and friendship were all determiend by one's tribe and one's position 
in the tribe.  These tribes were frequently at war with one another and 
feuds could go on for generations with tribal honour demanding that 
blood revenge or blood money should be obtained for each death caused by 
the conflict.  Bearing arms and fighting for one's tribe were the greatest 
marks of honour for men.  If one did not belong to a powerful tribe, then it 
was necessary to obtain the protection of a powerful tribe, otherwise 
one's life was at risk.  Sometimes one tribe would ally itself with another 
against its enemies.

"The majority of inhabitants of the peninsula were engaged in pastoral
or agricultural pursuits, either as nomads or settled in one of a
small number of towns.  The other important economic factor was the
presence of a trade route along the western side of the peninsula linking
India with Syria and Byzantium.

"Most of the tribes had a prmitive form of worship and prayed to
deities in the form of idols made of stone and wood.  Both Christianity
and Judiasm had, however, made some inroads in the peninsula and a
number of Jewish tribes existed.

"Among the Arab tribes there were certain places that were regarded as
shrines and each had a sanctuary around it.  Within the sanctuary, usually
at a particular time of the year, the tribes would gather and put aside their
feuding for a time while they celebrated a festival related to that shrine.
These festivals were important occasions for trade, cultural activities
such as poetry reading and for the setlement of disputes and feuds.  The
custodians of these shrines thus became prominent persons and were
frequently used to settle blood feuds by acting as arbitrators.

"One such shrine in Arabia was the Ka'ba in Mecca.  The Ka'ba became
the repository for the idols of many of the tribes and a yearly festival 
was held at 'Ukaz nearby.  Muhammad himself came from the family of the
custodians of the Ka'ba.  His ancestor, Qusayy, was said to have seized
the Ka'ba from its previous custodians and established his tribe,
Quraysh, as the most important tribal group in Mecca and his family
as the most important family in Quraysh.  In his family was vested the
custodianship of the Ka'ba together with the responsibility for
providing with food and water the pilgrims who came to the shrines.

"The sons and grandsons of Qusayy extended and increased the
influence of their family and of Mecca.  They instituted two great trade
journeys, one in the winter to the Yemen in the south to trade with the
ships coming from India on the Monsoon winds and one in the summer
to the north to trade in Syria with the Byzantines.  In order to do this, they
had to establish a number of treaties and alliances with other tribes
through whose territory they needed to pass.  This process greatly
increased the importance of Mecca as the focal point of the trade routes.

"By the time of Muhammad's birth, Mecca was a very important
centre and the power of the Quraysh tribe paramount.  Muhammad's
own family line, although retaining some of its ancestral priveleges, had,
however, lost much of its power and influence to other clans within
the Quraysh such as the Umayya and Makhzum families."

_An Introduction to Shi'i Islam_, 1985, Yale University Press; pages 1-2.

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On the atmosphere of Muhammad's revelation, John Alden Williams writes:

"Muhammad's revelations began in the seventh century A.D. in the stony
valley of Mecca, a well-watered stage on the ancient spice-and-incense
road which connected South Arabia and the trade of the Indian Ocean
with the civilizations of the Mediterranean world.  It was a confused
and lawless time.  The ancient civilization of South Arabia had broken
down, and its daughter-culture, Abyssinia, now Christianized from
Egypt, had invaded South Arabia from across the Red Sea.  In the North,
the Christian Byzantine Empire was engaged in a centuries-old war with
the Zoroastrian Persian Empire which was to bleed them both white.  In
the Arabian peninsula, dependent on the diminishing caravan trade
between South and North, tribal wars, anarchy, economic decline and
increasing camel-nomadism were the rule.  Judaism, Manicheism, and
Christianity were penetrating slowly into the peninsula, and scattered
communities of Jews and Christians could be found there, but most of the
Arabians clung to the idols of their ancestors.

"In these lean times, one tribe, the Quraysh, held Mecca and exercised
a loose hegemony over the tribes of Western and Central Arabia.  They
controlled what was left of the trade of the incense road, as well as
one of the chief cultural centers of North Arabia - a little temple
called the Ka'ba, where all the gods were honored, but which was
especially sacred to the Creator, Allah (El), who was seen as the father
and king of the other gods."

_Islam_, J.A.Williams, pages 59-60.

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Part 5 in a continuing series.


Alaikum assalam, my kin.
Love is the law, love under will.

Haramullah (Allah's Woman)
Tyagi@HouseofKaos.Abyss.com