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The Makkan Scene at the Start of Prophethood

IT HAS BEEN explained how the tribe of the Quraysh came to gain ascendancy in Arabia as they won supremacy in Makkah. It was Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, an ancestor of the Prophet, who established their rule in Makkah and many of the institutions of government which were still in operation when the Prophet began to receive his message. By the standards of the time, that was quite an advanced standard of government which helped Makkah to undergo a significant transition from a semi-Bedouin town to a civilized city. The system of government provided for a balanced distribution of responsibilities and functions, as well as government by consensus, which is normally achieved after an open consultation. In his scholarly work on the life of the Prophet, Shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ḥasanī Nadwī devotes a full chapter to setting the scene at Makkah in the period immediately preceding the start of the Islamic message.¹ He mentions that the ascendancy of the Quraysh in Makkah attracted a number of smaller Arabian tribes to move to Makkah, where they could live in the neighbourhood of the Kaʿbah and the Sacred Mosque. That led to a flourishing building industry and the expansion of Makkah in all directions. At first, the Makkans avoided building their houses in a square shape in order to keep them different from the Kaʿbah. Gradually, however, they relaxed that restriction but continued not to raise their buildings higher than the Kaʿbah.

As mentioned earlier, the Quraysh organized two commercial trips every year: to Syria in summer and to the Yemen in winter. These two trips provided the backbone of the city’s economy. In addition to that, Professor Nadwī points out, a number of seasonal bazaars and markets were organized in Makkah, as well as specialized markets which were in business throughout the year. Makkan merchants travelled to many parts of Africa and Asia. This encouraged a highly active foreign trade. That flourishing trade ensured for many people in Makkah a life of affluence. With wealth normally come several aspects of luxurious life. The wealthy Makkans had their gatherings close to the Kaʿbah; poets attended and read their poems. Poetry was the most respected form of literature, considering that the overwhelming majority of Arabs at that time could not read or write. However, poetry was a highly valued national and individual talent. In a tribal society, it is highly important for every individual to know his tribe and where he belongs because the tribe affords protection to every individual member. An individual would suffer a great deal if he could not enjoy such protection. Hence, everyone was keen to know his ancestry. This importance of lineage and ancestry continued in Makkah, and there were people who monitored the ancestry and lineage of every tribe. Most prominent among these was Abū Bakr, the closest companion of the Prophet.

Many elements of civilization were recognizable in Makkah and several aspects of science began to develop, such as astronomy and elementary medicine. People valued their horses highly and were able to learn a great deal about them. Few industries, however, developed in Makkah because its inhabitants did not like to work with their hands. Only such crafts as were absolutely necessary managed to develop, such as the manufacture of swords and spears which were needed for fighting, and the construction industry for housing. Most building workers, however, were either Persians or Byzantines.

From the military point of view, the Quraysh could muster a force strong enough to repel any would-be attacker. For this they did not rely merely on their own numbers, but forged alliances with many of the Arabian tribes which lived close to Makkah. In addition, the Quraysh had a large number of slaves and individuals who were allied to the various clans, branching out of the Quraysh. They were expected to side with the Quraysh in any battle it found itself fighting. The army raised by the Quraysh and its allies in the Battle of the Moat was 10,000 strong, the largest military force ever known in the Arabian Peninsula. The Quraysh, however, tended to prefer a settled, peaceful life. It was always prepared to live peacefully with its neighbours, provided that there was no challenge to its position or religious beliefs. When it encountered a challenge, it was always ready to take it up, relying on its superior strength.

Makkah enjoyed its position as the largest city in Arabia, serving as a religious and economic capital, eclipsing other cities, such as Ṣanʿā’ in the Yemen and northern centres which were subject to Byzantine or Persian rule.

However, morally speaking, life in Makkah left much to be desired. The affluence of the Makkan people tempted them to indulge in all sorts of vice. Gambling and drinking parties and other sorts of organized entertainment, where all inhibitions were thrown to the wind, were common practice. Coupled with that, the Makkan people were not very scrupulous in their dealings with others. Cruelty, unjust practices and depriving others of their rights by force went unpunished. This inevitably led to tension, which was bound to undermine the fabric of the Makkan society.

The wealth which Makkah enjoyed and the fact that this wealth came mainly from foreign trade gave its people a pattern of life which allowed them ample spare time. As mentioned above, few of the people of Makkah were engaged in any type of work other than trade, much of which was done through organizing trade caravans and missions on which only those who had valuable experience in the conduct of such trade travelled, together with an adequate number of assistants, porters and camel drivers. Perhaps the largest trade caravan the Makkans dispatched was the one which the Muslims in Madinah tried to intercept, shortly after the Prophet had settled there. It was that attempted interception which led to the Battle of Badr, in which the Muslims achieved a great victory. That caravan consisted of something like 1,000 camel loads, while all in all only 300 people travelled on that mission. Many of the Makkan notables travelled on these caravans when they were young, because such trips gave them a great deal of experience. When they had had enough, they entrusted the task to their children or some of their assistants who had distinguished themselves in business. An example of such able people acting for Makkan notables on their trade was Ṣuhayb, who travelled on behalf of ʿAbdullāh ibn Judʿān, one of the wealthiest people in Makkah. Ṣuhayb, a former slave, acquired considerable wealth from commission, which he later began to use as capital of his own.

With such a relaxed and easy life in Makkah, it was inevitable that social vices would spread and become commonplace. Much time was devoted to the pursuit of pleasure in different ways and forms. Religious concepts and moral values were at a low ebb. Deviation from the pure faith of Abraham and Ishmael started long before the birth of the Prophet. With time, that deviation ensured that the religious beliefs of the Arabs bore very little resemblance to the faith preached by prophets. The Arabs borrowed idolatrous worship from other nations and forgot about their monotheistic faith, taught to them by Ishmael and Abraham. Idols were everywhere and in every tribe. Certain idols were revered by all the Arabs, while others were considered as special gods for special tribes. Certain families had idols of their own, and sometimes when a person travelled he took his idol with him to grant him its blessings. Although those idols were no more than inarticulate objects, the Arabs would worship them, offer sacrifice to them, consult them in their affairs and assign to them a portion of their cattle and agricultural produce. They assigned certain tasks to certain idols: some of them specialized in bringing rain or blowing wind, some in giving parents their offspring, curing illnesses, sparing the community from famine or other social evils, and so on. In order to overcome the obvious fact that those idols were no more than objects of their own making, the Arabs allocated their idols a middle position between them and God. The idols acted as intermediaries, appealing to God on their behalf, so that He did not punish them severely for their sins.

There were 360 idols in and around the Kaʿbah. Most prominent of all were Hubal, al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, which were considered the chiefs of all Arabian idols. Hubal was made of red carnelian, in the shape of a man. When the Quraysh gained supremacy in Makkah, Hubal was found to have one arm broken. The Quraysh replaced it with an arm of gold. It was the supreme idol. Al-Lāt was in Ṭā’if, while al-ʿUzzā had a place of its own near ʿArafāt.

When the Arabs wanted to embark on any important venture, they went to the Kaʿbah and offered a certain man who drew lots an amount of money and a camel to draw lots with the assistance of Hubal. They would accept the outcome as final. If a crime was committed and they could not determine who the criminal was, they drew lots. If the result accused a certain person, he was believed to be the criminal and there was no way he could prove his innocence.

One of their most absurd beliefs was their claim that God had married the jinn and begot angels as His daughters through that marriage. They therefore worshipped the angels, whom they considered God’s daughters, and the jinn, whom they claimed to be related to God by marriage. They feared the jinn a great deal, because they considered them to be evil spirits whose main object was to cause harm. They tried to spare themselves that harm by wearing charms and appealing to the masters of the jinn for protection. To them, madness and mental diseases were caused by the jinn, and each fortune-teller had a jinni companion who gave him news from the world beyond. According to them, every poet had a jinni who inspired him with poetry.

They further believed in all sorts of superstition, for example, that when a person was murdered, his spirit would be embodied in a certain type of bird, named al-Hāmah, which flew round his grave, calling to people to give it a drink, until his murder was avenged.

Women were treated as far inferior to men. They were not allowed any share of inheritance. Indeed, they were treated as part of the inheritance of the deceased. The heir disposed of the wife of the deceased as he pleased. He married her without even consulting her, if he so wished. Alternatively, he gave her in marriage to anyone he liked, without even asking her whether she wanted to marry or not. A man could marry any number of women, divorcing them at will and even placing them, at times, in a state of no marriage and no divorce. The birth of a girl was received with a feeling of gloom. A father considered the birth of a daughter to him as nothing less than outright disaster. This was because women did not fight in tribal wars and could not earn their living. Some of them would even hide away for a number of days because of their shame at begetting daughters. Young girls were buried alive by their parents because they were a financial burden. Indeed, such burial was occasionally agreed upon at the time the marriage contract was made.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the pleasures of this world counted for everything with the Arabs at that time. They viewed death as bringing the absolute end of life. Resurrection was considered absolutely impossible. For anyone to suggest that people come back to life after death was interpreted as outright madness.

Yet the Arabs were not without virtues. They rated bravery, faithfulness, truthfulness and hospitality very highly. These virtues, however, were not consolidated well enough to create a noble social order. Indeed, they were overshadowed by the petty concerns and the pursuit of pleasure which were characteristic of that society.²

The absurd religious beliefs led to confusion and innovations in different aspects of worship. It is known, for example, that pilgrimage to the Kaʿbah continued to be observed ever since Abraham made his declaration to mankind, on orders he received from God, that pilgrimage to the Kaʿbah was a duty incumbent on them all. Although other nations might have been totally oblivious to this duty, it continued to be observed in Arabia, despite the change that crept into their religious beliefs which made them polytheists after they had been believers in God’s oneness. Nevertheless, the Quraysh introduced certain innovations in the duty of pilgrimage. Although we cannot determine the exact date these innovations were introduced, it must have been approximately half a century before the start of Qur’ānic revelations.

It is well known that certain duties of pilgrimage are done outside the boundaries of the Ḥaram area, which extends in a circle of about a 20-kilometre radius around Makkah. Attendance at ʿArafāt, which is the main duty of pilgrimage, is one of these, since ʿArafāt lies outside the Ḥaram area. It is common knowledge that no pilgrimage is valid unless the pilgrim is present at ʿArafāt on the 9th of Dhul-Ḥijjah, the last month of the lunar year. The Quraysh, however, declared that they themselves were exempt from such attendance at ʿArafāt. To justify their claim, they argued that the Kaʿbah was the most sacred spot on earth. The Ḥaram area, which surrounds the Kaʿbah, derived its sanctity from the fact that the Kaʿbah was its centre point. It was not logical, they argued, for people living in the most sacred area in the world to go to an area which is less sacred in order to offer their worship, when other people covered hundreds of miles to come to the Ḥaram area for no purpose other than offering worship. They therefore decided not to attend at ʿArafāt when they did their pilgrimage, although they acknowledged that such attendance at ʿArafāt was part of pilgrimage for all other people. They called themselves the Ḥums, which meant, linguistically, ‘puritanical’, and included under that title the people of the Ḥaram area and their offspring, whether they lived inside or outside its boundaries. That meant a classification of pilgrims into two groups, giving unwarranted privileges to the people of Makkah, for no reason except the fact that they lived in the neighbourhood of the Kaʿbah. This is contrary to the very essence of Divine Faith as preached by Abraham, Ishmael and all Prophets, ending with Muhammad (peace be upon them all). Divine faith makes all people equal and they can achieve distinction only through their deeds, not through any coincidental factor such as birth, nationality or race.

Usually, when the notion of a privileged class takes hold in a certain society, that class manages to add to its privileges as time passes. The Quraysh did exactly that, but imposed on themselves certain restrictions which might have been introduced by way of compensation for their unwarranted privileges. They claimed that they were not allowed to produce cooking fat from milk or butter when they were in the state of consecration, or iḥrām. Nor were they allowed to enter any dwelling made of animal hair during their iḥrām. They were allowed only to stay in dwellings or tents made of animal hide. No specific reason was advanced for these restrictions except to emphasize that the Ḥums were a class apart. More stringent restrictions were imposed by the Quraysh on pilgrims from outside the Ḥaram area. Pilgrims and other visitors to Makkah were not allowed to eat any food which they might have brought with them from outside the Ḥaram area. They could eat only what they were given by the people of Makkah or what they bought in the sacred city. Moreover, they were not allowed to do their ṭawāf when they arrived in Makkah unless they had garments made or bought in Makkah itself. If they could not find or buy any, they had to do their ṭawāf in the nude. Men could wear nothing, while women were allowed to have a single garment provided that it was cut in several places in order to make their private parts visible. The idea of nakedness when practising an act of worship in a sacred place seems extremely perverted. One wonders how the Quraysh could justify it and persuade the Arabs to accept it. One has only to remember that those people accepted that wooden figures and stone statues which they themselves made were their gods, to whom they prayed and from whom they sought help. Their justification for imposing nakedness on visitors to the Kaʿbah was that people were not allowed to do the ṭawāf in the clothes which they wore when they committed sins. Nobody was there to tell them that purification from sin applied to the individual, not his clothes.

If a person from outside Makkah could not buy garments made in Makkah for his first ṭawāf and he did not wish to do the ṭawāf in the nude, he was allowed to proceed with his ṭawāf in his ordinary clothes, provided that he took them off and threw them away as soon as he finished. Neither he nor anyone else could use those garments.

These absurdities continued until the Prophet abrogated them. He sent one of his companions to declare their abrogation in the pilgrimage season of the 9th year of the Islamic calendar. This will be discussed in detail in its appropriate place in this book.³

In such a society, it was only natural that there were people of sound mind who rejected such absurd beliefs and practices. It only takes a person to think rationally of what he is doing and what worship he is offering to know that idolatrous worship cannot be a satisfactory religion. There are at least four people we know who took such a conscious decision in the period before the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him). These were Waraqah ibn Nawfal, ʿUbaydillāh ibn Jaḥsh, ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḥuwayrith and Zayd ibn ʿAmr. There were others here and there in Arabia, but little is known of them. These four were better known because they were Makkans. Moreover, they knew of each other’s dissatisfaction with pagan worship. It seems that they met during a festival which the Quraysh held annually as a celebration dedicated to one of their idols. The Quraysh offered sacrifice to that idol and organized dances and other rituals. Those four were very unhappy about what they saw of their people’s practices. They said to one another: “Let us be frank about it. Our people do not follow any proper religion. They have distorted the faith of Abraham, their father. What is this stone which neither hears nor sees, and we are here celebrating its festival with offerings and dances? It certainly cannot cause us any benefit or harm.”

When each of them was sure that the others were not happy with idolatrous worship either, they began to think what they should do to ensure that they followed a proper religion. They eventually decided to travel separately to meet priests and other scholars in the hope of learning the original version of the faith of Abraham.⁴

Waraqah ibn Nawfal soon adopted Christianity and studied the Bible thoroughly. He became a fully-fledged Christian scholar. ʿUbaydillāh ibn Jaḥsh could not make up his mind to follow Christianity or any other religion. When the Prophet began to convey his message, he accepted Islam. He was later to travel with those Muslims who emigrated to Abyssinia. There, however, he became a Christian convert and lived as a Christian until he died. ʿUthmān ibn al-Ḥuwayrith was able to meet the Byzantine Emperor and became a Christian. He apparently enjoyed a good position with the Byzantine Emperor, who wanted to make him King of Makkah. The Quraysh would not stand for that. He was nicknamed ‘the Cardinal’. ʿAmr ibn Jafnah, King of Ghassān, the Arabian tribe which lived in Syria under the domination of the Byzantine Empire, apparently poisoned him. Zayd ibn ʿAmr, the last of the four, travelled widely in Syria and Iraq. He considered becoming a Jew or a Christian. An aged Christian priest, however, told him that the time was ripe for the appearance of a new Prophet in the land of the Arabs. Zayd therefore went back to Makkah to wait for this new Prophet. He took no part in idol worship and refused to partake of any animal which was slaughtered as an offering to idols. He tried to save every young girl who was about to be buried alive by her father, as the Arabs used to do. He told his people that he was the only one who followed the faith of Abraham. He used to address God, saying: “Had I known which way of worship is acceptable to You, I would have followed it. But I am ignorant of that.” He would then prostrate himself, putting his forehead over his palm in a gesture of submission to God.⁵

Zayd was perhaps the most outspoken of the four. He criticized idolatrous worship, urging his people to abandon it. That prompted some of his relatives, notably his uncle, al-Khaṭṭāb, to try to bring him back to the fold. Al-Khaṭṭāb counselled him repeatedly against abandoning the faith of his people. He also tried to prevent him going abroad in pursuit of religious learning. Al-Khaṭṭāb asked a woman in their household to keep an eye on Zayd, and to report to him Zayd’s intentions. Whenever she felt that Zayd was planning to travel abroad, she would tell al-Khaṭṭāb, who took measures to prevent him from leaving. When Zayd grew more outspoken in his criticism of idolatrous worship, al-Khaṭṭāb managed to banish him to an area outside Makkah in order that he should keep his ideas to himself. Al-Khaṭṭāb further assigned a number of young men from the Quraysh to report Zayd’s movements to him. If Zayd came into the city, which he always tried to do in secret, they would report that to al-Khaṭṭāb and he would make sure he was turned out again. Zayd was made to suffer very bad treatment in the process. What al-Khaṭṭāb feared was that Zayd might be able to win over other people to his way of thinking; this might lead to division within Arabian society.

Zayd, however, managed to travel in secret, and he went again to Syria. Apparently, it was on this trip, and after he had travelled extensively in Syria and Iraq, that he was told by a learned Christian priest of the imminent appearance in Arabia of a new Prophet. When he learned that, he immediately decided to go back to Makkah. Unfortunately, he was murdered on his way home.⁶

It was noteworthy that his son, Saʿīd, was one of the first people to accept the message of Islam when the Prophet started preaching it in secret. Al-Khaṭṭāb’s son, ʿUmar, was to become one of the strongest advocates of Islam, and the second ruler of the Muslim state after the Prophet. Saʿīd and ʿUmar once asked the Prophet whether it was permissible to pray God to grant mercy and forgiveness to Zayd. The Prophet answered in the affirmative and told them that on the Day of Resurrection, Zayd would be in a class of his own. What we understand from the Prophet’s statement is that Zayd had no equal as a person who genuinely and conscientiously sought the truth with the determination to follow it once he learnt it.⁷

It is noteworthy that Zayd was told by a learned Christian priest of the message of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and that it was imminent. Indeed, learned theologians of both Christianity and Judaism were aware of the fact.⁸ Salmān, the Prophet’s Persian companion, was also informed of the message of Islam by one such Christian theologian. His story will be reported in detail later in this book. On the other hand, the Jews in Madinah used to tell the polytheist Arabs there that a Prophet would soon be appearing in Arabia and that they would be the first to follow him. Every time trouble arose between the Jewish and Arab communities in Madinah, the Jews would make threatening noises to the effect that the new Prophet, whose appearance they asserted to be imminent, would not hesitate to fight and inflict heavy defeats on his opponents. Indeed, the Arabs of Madinah were quick to embrace Islam when they first learnt of it, because of those threats the Jews used to make. They did not want the Jews to be allied with the Prophet against them.⁹

A more detailed story is reported by Salāmah ibn Waqsh, a companion of the Prophet from the Anṣār, who attended the Battle of Badr with him:

We had a Jewish neighbour who one day came to speak to the men of our clan when I was still a young boy. He mentioned the Day of Resurrection and that all people would have to face the reckoning and that they would be taken either to heaven or to hell. Our people were polytheists who did not believe in resurrection or a second life. They asked him whether he genuinely believed that people would come to life again after they had died, and whether he genuinely believed in heaven and hell. He answered: “Yes indeed, I swear to the truth of that. I would even be prepared to barter my share of that hell with the largest furnace you have in your community. I am willing that you should light up that furnace and put me inside it and close it on me, if that would ensure that I would be spared the torment of hell in the life to come.” They asked him what evidence he had in support of his claim. He said: “There will come to you a prophet from those parts” (pointing with his hand towards Makkah and Yemen). They asked how long it would take before he actually appeared. He looked at me, as I was one of the youngest in the group, and said: “If this boy lives until he reaches old age, he will be sure to see him.”

It was not long before God sent His messenger, Muhammad (peace be upon him). The Jew was still alive among us. We believed in the Prophet and he denied the truth of his message. When we rebuked him for his attitude and reminded him of what he told us, he said: “What I told you is true, but your man is not the one I meant.”¹⁰

Another story involves the arrival of a Jewish scholar from Syria in Madinah a few years before the advent of Islam. This man, who was called Ibn al-Hayyabān, was a very devout person. When rain was scarce, the Jews would ask him to pray for rain. He would refuse unless they paid something for charity. They would join him in his prayer outside the town. He would hardly finish before the sky would be cloudy and rain would pour down. He did that many times.

Not long after his arrival, he fell ill and was certain to die. He spoke to his fellow Jews and started by asking them what they felt was his reason for emigrating from a land of prosperity to one of poverty and hardship. He then explained that he came to Madinah only because it was time for a new Prophet to appear and that Madinah would be the place to which he would emigrate. “I hoped”, he said, “that he would appear before I died so that I could follow him. His appearance is very imminent, so let no one follow him ahead of you. He will be given power to shed blood and take the women and children of his opponents prisoner, but that should not deter you from following him, fellow Jews.”

When the Prophet emigrated to Madinah and had his battle with the Jews of Qurayẓah (which will be described later) a few young men from that tribe reminded their people that Muhammad was the Prophet that Ibn al-Hayyabān had told them about. Their people disagreed with them, but those young men were determined that he was indeed the Prophet about whose appearance they had been informed. They therefore came out of the fort of Quraithah and declared their acceptance of Islam, thereby sparing themselves and their families the fate of the people of Qurayẓah. Among these were Thaʿlabah ibn Saʿyah, Usayd ibn Saʿyah and Asʿad ibn ʿUbayd.¹¹ That Christian and Jewish theologians should know in advance of the coming of the Prophet is not surprising, because both the Gospel and the Torah include references to Muhammad as the last of God’s messengers and Prophets.

NOTES

1. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ḥasanī Nadwī, Muhammad Rasulallah, (English translation by Muhiuddin Ahmad), Academy of Islamic Research and Publications, Lucknow, India, 1979, pp. 78-79.

2. Amīn Duwaydār, Ṣuwar Min Ḥayāt al-Rasūl, Dār al-Maʿārif, 4th Edition, Cairo, pp. 106-113.

3. Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, Dār al-Qalam, Beirut, Vol. 1, pp. 214-216.

4. Ibid., pp. 237-240.

5. Amīn Duwaydār, op.cit., pp. 106-115.

6. Ibn Hishām, op.cit., pp. 244-247.

7. Ibid., p. 240.

8. Ibid., pp. 246-247.

9. Ibid., p. 217.

10. Ibid., pp. 225-226.

11. Ibid., pp. 226-228.