The Arabs were polytheists. The pattern of their religion was simple: the Arabs did not, for example, provide their gods with expensive housing such as was standard in the Fertile Crescent, and so far as we know they developed little in the way of a religious mithology. But simple as it was, such indications as we have suggested that it had been remarkably stable over a long period; is already attested by Herodotous in the fifth century BC. In the centuries preceding the life of Muhammad, however, external influences were beginning to disturb this ancient polytheism. Predominantly, this influence was monotheist; despite the Persian hegemony, the impact of Zoroastrianism seems to have been slight outside the north-east. As might be expected, the Arabs were affected by the rise of Christianity, and more particularly by the sects which came to preddominate among their settled neighbours. In Syria, the prevailing doctrine from the fifth century was that of the Monophysites: this sect achieved a considerable following among the Arab tribes of northern desert. In the Persian Empire the Christian population was mainly Nestorian, and a lesser extent this sect held an analogous position among the neighbouring Arabs. It was also active along the Arab side of what in political terms was very much the persian Gulf. In the Yemen we hear most of Monophysites, matching as it happended the form of Christianity which prevaliled in Ethiopia. There were also a considerable, and probably much older, Jewish presence in western Arabia. The Islamic tradition describes substantial Jewish populations in several of the western oases, in the region known as the Hijaz, and this has some confirmation from archaeology. In the Yemen a Jewish presence is likewise attested. There is evidence that it was in contact with the Jewish of Palestine, and it seems to have achieved some local influence; in the early sixth century a Yemeni king martyred Christians in the name of Judaism. Despite the Christian and Jeish penetration, Arabian society was still predominantly pagan; but the awareness of monotheism in one or other of its forms must have been widespread. If we imagine ourselves in sixth-century Arabia, we see the Arabs had never in the past been a serious military threat to outside world and they were unlikely to become one now. The escalating rivalry between the leading foreign powers (and superpowers), the Roman (Byzantium) and the Persians, would lead if anything to a tightening for their grip on whatever was worth of controlling in Arabia. And third, that despite the persistence of paganism and the presence of Judaism, it was only a matter of time before Arabia became mor or less Christian. In the event, the triumph of monotheism in Arabia took a form which rendered each of these palusible expectation false.
Casalino Pierluigi, on May 24th 2014
Casalino Pierluigi, on May 24th 2014