2. Before Islam

7/27/2019 2. Before Islam

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The Middle East before IslamEmpires and monotheisms


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Main points Political landscape of the Fertile Crescentbefore Islam: other Empires

Other Monotheisms Arabia before Islam Concept ofjahaliyya in Islamic thought:

importance of the past More continuity than rupture? The

importance of origin stories in religious

history


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Empire and the Fertile Crescent: the

Achaemenids (6th-4th century BCE)


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Alexanders short-lived

Empire (4th

century BCE)


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The Roman Attempt (2nd century CE)


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Sasanid Iran (3-7th century

CE)


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Byzantium in the 6th

century


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Pre-Islamic

Arabia: on

the marginsof the

Byzantine-

Sasanidstruggle,

controlled

through

buffer states


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Monotheism (or who else believed in

only one God when Islam arose?)

Judaism (scattered throughout ancient world)

Christianity (affiliated with Byzantine Empire, splitdue to Christological debates)

Zoroastrianism (state religion of Sasanians)

Sabians of Harran ( in northern Iraq) (cleverpolytheists who cite Quran in their favor)

Hanifs (pre-Islamic Monotheists)


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The Jews in Exile

(Babylonian)


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The Jews in Exile (II):

Diaspora


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The spread of Christianity


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Zoroastrianism/Manicheanis

m


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Religious trends in the centuries

before Islam hardening of the communal boundaries between Jews

and Christians -> rise of Christianity precipitatesincreased tensions

increased definition of what it means to be a Jew anda Christian (rabbis acquire authority, Christologicaldebates)

doctrinal and therefore social/political splintering of

the Christian world (Council of Chalcedon in 451) religious identity increasingly determining social and

political identity

decline of paganism/influence on Monotheistic

traditions -> belief in magic, other world, Hellenism


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The Presence of Judaism

and Christianity in Arabia Jewish presence in Arabia attested to at least

from the 2nd century onwards; conversion of Dhu

Nuwas, Himyarite king from South Arabia toJudaism in 6th century and his subsequent

persecution of Christians in Najran -> he died at

the hands of Ethiopian Christians

Both the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids NorthArabian kingdoms were Christian (albeit

Monophysite)

Zoroastrianism also present in Arabia, though

not as much


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The monotheists of Arabia Our source: Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), author of

Sirat al-Nabi, the earliest comprehensive

biography of the Prophet

Some current scholars argues for this group

being the result of Jewish influence Ibn Ishaq depicts them as reaching this state

independently


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Four men who broke with polytheism . . .

One day when the Quraysh had assembled on a feast

day to venerate and circumambulate the idol to which

they offered, this being a feast which they heldannually, four men drew apart secretly . . . They

agreed that the people had corrupted the religion of

their father Abraham, and that the stone they went

round was of no account . . . So they went their

several ways in the lands, seeking the Hanifiya, the

religion of Abraham. (98-9)


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One of whom, Zayd, was told of the

coming of a prophet . . .

. . . he went through the whole of Syria until hecame to a monk in the high ground of Balqa . . .

He asked him about the Hanifiya, the religion ofAbraham, and the monk replied, You are seekinga religion to which no one today can guide you,but the time of a prophet who will come forth

from you country which you have just left hasdrawn near. He will be sent with the Hanifiya, thereligion of Abraham, so stick to it, for he is toabout to be sent now and this is his time. (103)


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The time of ignorance and the role

of Abraham Jahiliyya: an ignorance of God, depending

on context, a willful ignorance

Abraham believed by Muslims to have built

the Kaba with his son Ishmael

thus, Islam will be seen not as somethingnew so much as re-establishing of a truth

already revealed

Documents

2. Before Islam