– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

The Arab World is mostly identified with Islam.  And for a good reason. Islam was a catalyst of the  

biggest expansion of the Arabic people in history.  It paved the way for the establishment of arguably  

the most powerful empire of its time, the Islamic  Caliphate, which at its zenith ranged from Spain  

and North Africa in the West to Central Asia and  the Indian Subcontinent in the East. The Caliphate  

managed to be one of the most dominant political,  military, scientific, and cultural centers of the  

world for several centuries, while the religion  of Islam remains one of the most important  

political and societal forces globally. But what  was there before Islam? How did Arab people live,  

rule themselves, what did they believe in?  Welcome to our video on Arabia before Islam.

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Pre-Islamic Arabia was mostly a nomadic society  inhabited by constantly moving tribal units.  

These Bedouin tribes, some of which maintain  their traditional nomadic lifestyle to this day,  

had been the most significant  political unit of the Arabian peninsula  

with constantly shifting alliances, never-ending  warfare, and rare occurrences of organized  

and centralized statehood. These tribes placed  heavy emphasis on kin-related groups, families  

and would roam through the deserts with  their livestock mainly comprising of sheep,  

goats, and camels, living in tents  with their immediate family members.  

The tribal leaders enforced unwritten  rules of the Bedouin society in the  

tribe. Bedouin tribes were patriarchal as the  inheritance passed on to the male offsprings,  

and women could not inherit property and were  virtually rightless, as they could be seized in  

tribal conflicts as a war spoil and the Bedouin  laws allowed the men to marry their captives. The  

number of women a man could marry was not fixed.  When a man died, his son “inherited” all his wives  

except his own mother. Women in tribal Arabia had  little say in their marriages, as they would often  

be arranged between a man and his future wife’s  family and the family would receive property like  

camels or horses in exchange for the bride. There  were also cases of killing of female infants,  

as the Muslim holy book Quran mentions  that the Arabs of the period of ignorance  

called Jahiliyyah would bury their daughters  alive. The Bedouin men often considered women  

an economic burden and a potential source  of embarrassment, as the capture of women  

of the tribe by hostile tribes was considered  humiliating in the conservative Bedouin society. 

Under the circumstances of lack of centralized  states with rare exceptions, there were no  

written laws, courts, or law enforcement of  any kind to protect the population, thus,  

the principal purpose of a Bedouin tribe was to  protect its members. Vengeance was sought for the  

killing of a tribe member by another tribe, which  led to virtually constant warfare and conflict.  

Protecting your tribe and avenging your kin was  a high honour. Harsh living conditions of the  

Arabian peninsula further enhanced the tribal  system and sense of identity within a tribe,  

as often their protection and economic cooperation  was the difference between death and survival.  

French historian Maxime Rodinson states that “the  free Arabs were bound by no written code of law,  

and no state existed to enforce its  statutes with the backing of a police force.  

The only protection for a man's life  was the certainty established by custom,  

that it would be dearly bought. Blood for  blood and a life for a life. The vendetta,  

tha'r in Arabic, is one of the  pillars of Bedouin society.” 

Austrian historian Gustave E. von Grunebaum  reiterated this and described the state of affairs  

in Arabia in the century before the rise of Islam  as “tribal guerrilla fighting, all against all.”  

Tribes would fight against each other, attack  and plunder caravans and sedentary settlements,  

as lawlessness was the law of the  land in most of Arabia. Caravans and  

sedentary settlements would pay tributes to the  raiding Bedouin tribes to avoid their attacks. 

While most of the tribes in Arabia went on with  their nomadic lifestyle, some managed to gain  

influence over certain territories and switch to  sedentary life. Mecca was practically ruled by the  

skilled merchants of the Quraysh tribe that took  control of the city sometime in the 5th century,  

while Yathrib, which was later named Medina, was  dominated by the Arab tribes of Aus and Khazraj,  

and the Jewish tribes Nadheer, Qaynuqaa,  and Qurayza. While the nomadic Bedouins  

viewed the sedentary life with contempt and  thought of the town-dwellers as a “nation  

of shopkeepers”, the emergence of cities like  Mecca was the primary cause of the dawn of the  

common Arab identity in the pre-Islamic period. The most important cities of the Arabian peninsula  

Mecca and Yathrib are situated in Hijaz, a region  with sufficient water supply, which made it a  

logical choice for a sedentary lifestyle in the  otherwise punishing climate and terrain of Arabia.  

Mecca was an important trade center in the region,  

a place through which the caravans would  flow, as well as the location of the Kaaba,  

the sacred place in Islam, which was  also sacred in the polytheistic Arabia,  

where the statues of idols and gods of different  Arabic tribes were placed. The Greek historian  

Diodorus Siculus, who lived between 60 and 30  BC, wrote about the isolated region of Arabia in  

his work Bibliotheca Historica, describing Kaaba  as a “very holy” temple, which was “exceedingly  

revered by all Arabians”. For example, the chief  deity of the Quraysh tribe and Mecca was Hubal. 

The usual trading routes through the Red Sea and  the Tigris and Euphrates were disrupted by piracy  

and the Roman-Persian conflict, and caravans and  traders switched to the trade route going through  

Mecca. Goods from beyond the Red Sea and of the  local Bedouin tribes would be brought to Mecca,  

from where the camel caravans would transport  them to the Levant. Meccans signed treaties  

with the Byzantine Empire and Bedouin tribes  for safe passage of their trading caravans.  

As the home of the Kaaba, Mecca also carried a  religious significance for the polytheistic Arabs,  

as once a year Arabs from all over Arabia would  make a pilgrimage to Kaaba and drink from the  

sacred Zamzam Well. At this time of the year the  conflict would stop, a truce would be declared,  

disputes and debts would be resolved and  trade happened between different tribes. Thus,  

Mecca became a center of a loose confederation of  tribes around this city, as guests were obliged to  

follow the rules in Mecca. The trading potential  of Mecca and its religious significance for the  

Arabs turned it into a factor bringing Arabs  together and forming their national identity. 

Another important city of Arabia was Yathrib  - Medina. It was an agricultural center  

also situated in a fertile region of Hejaz,  which allowed the city to become an important  

transit point for trade caravans traveling along  the Red Sea. Initially, Yathrib was dominated  

by Jewish tribes, but gradually several Arabic  tribes moved to Yathrib and gained political and  

economic influence in the city too. While  Arabs were mainly engaged in agriculture,  

Jews would also be active as businessmen. The  rise of cities was inevitably going to lead to  

the rise of commerce too, and the Rise of commerce  was inevitably going to lead to usury, a practice,  

which was used both by the Arabs and Jews. This  practice would be later prohibited by Islam. 

We already saw that even in pre-Islamic Arabia  religion played an important role in shaping  

the common Arab identity. What religion did  the Arabs practice before the rise of Islam?  

Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was a mix of  polytheism, Christianity, Judaism, and Iranian  

religions. Arab polytheism or paganism was the  most popular belief system. Each tribe, city, and  

region could have its own god or idol, which was  in a way a patron of that particular community.  

Arabs also believed in supernatural beings like  djinns. Statues of gods and goddesses would be  

placed in Kaaba, and some scholars argue that  Allah, the deity of Islam, and other Abrahamic  

religions also had a statue in Kaaba. There are  hadiths, the authenticity of which is disputed,  

claiming that Kaaba also had an image of the  Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus with Abraham looking  

over them. Overall, it is estimated that Kaaba  contained up to 360 such statues and images. 

Trading and political relations with  the Byzantine Empire, Ethiopia, Persia,  

and other neighbouring forces had a role in  shaping the religious landscape of Arabia too.  

As early as the first century AD Arab traders  brought Christianity to Arabia. Others were  

evangelized by Paul’s ministry in Arabia and by  St Thomas, followed by a strong influence from the  

Byzantine Empire. For example, the Ghassanids, a  vassal kingdom of Rome, converted to Christianity.  

In the South of the country, a strong  Christian community emerged in Najran  

as a result of the influence of the Ethiopian  Christian kingdom of Aksum. Nestorian Christianity  

was strong in parts of the country, but the  most popular denomination was Monophysitism. 

Judaism was also a significant part  of the religious landscape of Arabia.  

As a result of Roman persecution, the  migration of Jewish people to Arabia  

started as early as the 1st century AD. Many  Jews found homes in Hijaz and towns like Yathrib,  

Khayber, Fadak, and Umm-ul-Qura.  Many Arabs also converted to Judaism,  

as often it was a condition of settling  in Jewish-dominated towns of Hijaz.  

The Yemeni Himyarite Kingdom converted to Judaism  in the 4th century, and some of the Kindah,  

a tribe in central Arabia who were the Himyarites’  vassals, were also converted by the 5th century. 

Sources also inform about a monotheistic religion  centered around the worship of a single god of the  

Abrahamic religions, but apparently, it was  not affiliated with Christianity or Judaism,  

and was probably centered around the prophethood  of Abraham. Followers of this religion were  

called Hanifi people, and they rejected the  idolatry and paganism of the majority of Arabs,  

sharing some of the features of other Abrahamic  religions like the prohibition of pork. The  

scope of expansion of the Hanifi people is  unclear, but according to some Islamic sources,  

the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad,  and some of his future companions  

belonged to this religion. Arabia also  had a small minority following Iran-based  

religions like Zoroastrianism, Mazdakism, and  others spreading under the Persian influence. 

Earlier we mentioned how in the pre-Islamic period  the Arab statehood was relatively rare, as Arabia  

constantly moved from tribal anarchy to loose  state organizations and back again. But there  

have been a number of notable states in Arabia in  the pre-Islamic period mentioned in Greek, Roman,  

Mesopotamian, and Persian sources, oral Arab  traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars.  

According to the Arab classical writers,  Arabs divided themselves into the Yamanites,  

the South Arabs descended from Qahtan  and the North Arabs descended from Adnan.  

It is interesting that these two groups had  certain distinctions and the existence of  

statehood and political systems were among them.  South Arabia, Yemen had more established states  

and all of them were ruled as monarchies.  In the North loose tribal confederations  

or de facto city-states like Mecca were a more  prevalent form of statehood. Such states were  

ruled as oligarchies and aristocracies.  The South was considered more advanced,  

as it was the key route of trade in Arabia, prior  to the emergence of Mecca as an alternative, and  

a higher degree of contacts with outsiders such  as Ethiopians. From the fourth century onwards a  

reverse process started, as many Southern tribes  migrated to the North and underwent the Northern  

influence. The South Arabian script vanished  and the North Arabian proliferated in Arabia. 

The Thamud tribe or tribal union was one  of the first recorded states in Arabia,  

which was a prominent force in Northwestern  Arabia, according to the Assyrian sources  

related to the 8th century BC and were later used  as auxiliary forces by the Roman Empire according  

to the Roman sources. In the 3rd century BC, the  Greek scholar Eratosthenes mentioned Minaeans,  

Sabaeans, Qatabanians, and Hadramites as the  main peoples inhabiting the Arabian peninsula.  

Historians mention the independent Sabaean Kingdom  situated in present-day Yemen, which was later  

conquered by the Himyarite Kingdom around 280 AD. The Himyarite Kingdom was one of the most  

prominent pre-Islamic states of the Arabian  peninsula. It was ruled by a monarch,  

but in practice, the power in the state  was shared with the regional governors,  

which had a high degree of autonomy, a system  akin to the medieval era European kingdoms. By the  

early 4th century AD the Himyarite Kingdom ruled  over Southern Arabia and expanded North to Najran.  

Originally polytheistic Himyarites became  monotheistic sometime in the 4th century  

with a belief in the Abrahamic God. At the end  of the fifth century the Himyarite king Abu  

Kariba adopted Judaism as his faith. His son and  successor Yusuf Dhu Nuwas was even more zealous,  

as he started persecuting Christians living in  the Kingdom. This proved to be the undoing of the  

Himyarite dynasty as Dhu Nuwas was either killed  or committed suicide after being defeated by the  

Christian coalition of the Ethiopian Kingdom of  Aksum, the Byzantine Empire and South Arabian  

Christians in 524. Christian Ethiopians then took  control of South Arabia, built a church in Sana  

in an attempt to attract pilgrims, and hence trade  to Sana in place of Mecca. This caused a conflict  

between Abraha, the Ethiopian viceroy in Yemen,  and Mecca mentioned in the Quran. Apparently,  

Abraha used war elephants against Mecca, but was  unsuccessful and had to turn back. The second  

part of the 6th century was notable for the  power struggle between Ethiopians and Sasanid  

for control over the remainder of the Himyarite  Kingdom, in which the Persian empire succeeded. 

Another prominent pre-Islamic state organization  in Arabia was the Kinda Kingdom, the first  

state in central Arabia recorded by history,  which came to existence after the Kinda tribe  

managed to unite all tribes in Najd around the  late 5th century. The Kinda Kingdom attempted a  

number of successful raids on the Byzantine  territories in North Arabia, but similar  

endeavors against the Sasanid Empire failed,  when in 529 the Lakhmid vassals of the Persians  

defeated and killed the Kindan king al-Harit bin  Amr, which caused the decline of this state. The  

aforementioned Lakhmid Kingdom was established  in East Arabia by the Banu Lakhm tribe around  

the 3rd-4th centuries. Initially, independent  Lakhmids were threatening the coastal cities  

of the Sassanid empire and in 325 the Sassanid  emperor Shapur II began a campaign against them.  

Soon the Lakhmid capital Hira was taken under  control of the Sasanids. Since then the Lakhmid  

kingdom became vassals of the Sasanid Empire until  it was annexed by them in the early 7th century. 

The Ghassanid Kingdom had a similar fate.  Some time in the 3rd century AD part of  

the Al-Azd tribe migrated from Yemen to the  Levant and established the Ghassanid Kingdom  

as a vassal of the Eastern Roman Empire with  a capital of Jabiyah in the Golan Heights.  

The Ghassanid Kingdom ceased its existence  in the period of early Islamic expansion. 

But none of these kingdoms were powerful and  centralized enough to unite Arabs in one state  

and protect the realm from foreign attacks.  Most of Arabia was governed by unwritten  

rules of the Bedouin society causing warfare and  despair amidst already harsh living conditions.  

The pre-Islamic Arabs might have shared similar  language and traditions, but they were divided by  

tribal identities, blood revenge, and religions.  But very soon Arabia and beyond would be  

transformed by a momentous process of emergence of  Islam and the creation of a unified Arabic state. 

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Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
expand /ɪkˈspænd/ B2	verb - to become or make larger or more extensive.
establish /ɪˈstæblɪʃ/ B2	verb - to set up on a firm or permanent basis
dominate /ˈdɒmɪneɪt/ B2	verb - to have a commanding influence on; exercise control over.
maintain /meɪnˈteɪn/ B2	verb - to cause to continue; carry on; keep in existence
groom /ɡruːm/ B2	verb - to clean and maintain the appearance of (someone or something).
replace /rɪˈpleɪs/ B1	verb - to take the place of
nomadic /nəʊˈmædɪk/ B2	adjective - living the life of a nomad; wandering.
tribe /traɪb/ B1	noun - a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.
inheritance /ɪnˈherɪtəns/ B2	noun - something that is inherited
conflict /ˈkɒnflɪkt/ B1	noun - a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one.
protect /prəˈtekt/ A2	verb - keep safe from harm or injury.
avenge /əˈvendʒ/ C1	verb - inflict harm in return for (an injury or wrong done to oneself or another).
settlement /ˈsetlmənt/ B1	noun - a place or region newly settled.
sacred /ˈseɪkrɪd/ B2	adjective - connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
pilgrimage /ˈpɪlɡrɪmɪdʒ/ B2	noun - a pilgrim's journey.
emerge /ɪˈmɜːdʒ/ B2	verb - become apparent, important, or prominent.
prohibit /prəˈhɪbɪt/ C1	verb - formally forbid (something) by law, rule, or other authority.
convert /kənˈvɜːt/ B2	verb - cause to change in form, character, or function.
monarchy /ˈmɒnəki/ C1	noun - a form of government with a monarch at the head.
unite /juːˈnaɪt/ B1	verb - come or bring together for a common purpose or action.