RELIGIOUS UNREST

[1Sidenote: [520-580 A.D.]]

2Christianity, successfully preached in several parts of Arabia, was professed by the Ghassanides in the year 330, and by various Arab tribes of Irak, Mesopotamia, Bahrein, the desert of Faran, and Damut-Jandal. The combined efforts of the negus of Abyssinia and of the emperor of Constantinople had contributed to spread the Gospel in Yemen. The Christian colony of Nejran had been honoured by persecution under Dhu-Nowas towards 523; fifty years later, Abraha sought to make of the church of Sana the goal of Arab pilgrimages. Lastly several kings of Hira had been favourable to the religion of Christ.

3In the midst of the new ideas which preaching had spread throughout the peninsula, idolatry nevertheless remained the dominant religion. The intermediary divinities which certain tribes adored bore no resemblance to those creations of the Greeks and Romans, who worshipped moral beings clothed in bodily forms; they were, as with the ancient Egyptians, animals and plants, the gazelle, the horse, the camel, palm trees, vegetables, or inorganic bodies, rocks, stones, etc. All the Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, Allah; but some of them worshipped under the figure of their idols, the angels Benat-allah (the daughters of God); others, the planets or stars such as Aldebaran, Sirius, Canope, etc.

4They believed in genii, _Jinn_, in ogres, _Ghol_, in witchcraft, _Shir_, in divination, _Kehana_, in sacrifices, in oracles; fate was consulted by means of arrows without points, _kidah_ or _azlam_, and the most blamable superstitious rites were still almost universally practised. A great number of tribes had their special idols, Hobal, Lat, etc., who were honoured by rich offerings, and in whose honour victims were slain; however, no temple had the fame of the Kaaba, whose pre-eminence was universally admitted.

5This temple, which Abraha al-Ashram had wished to destroy, had been throughout the ages the object of the greatest veneration; it was looked on as a present made by Jehovah to the Arab race to bear witness to its condition privileged beyond all others. It was the oratory of Abraham and of Ishmael, the house of Allah; on receiving the 360 idols, subordinate powers accepted by the Arabs, it included all their divinities and became the Pantheon of the nation; the traditions connected with it were dear to all. They made the Kaaba a place of pilgrimage. They laboured to adorn it, to beautify it; they would have liked it to surpass in riches all the monuments of the universe; they hung the _Moallakat_ in it, as if to connect with it every form of illustration.

6The Sabians, the fire-worshippers, sent their offerings to it; even the Jews showed a deep respect for this revered spot. The guardians of the temple, the Koreish clan, had a sort of religious authority which was willingly recognised by all; for instance, they had the right to name the sacred months during which, after the pilgrimage, a suspension of arms should reign throughout Arabia. So those who could attend the fair of Okad placed their weapons in the hands of the Koreish chiefs before entering the meeting, which, without this wise precaution, would often have degenerated into bloody fights. It was therefore necessary to have influence at Mecca and with the Koreish chiefs if one wished to found a uniform and national religion in Arabia, and Mohammed saw this perfectly.

7Abdul-Muttalib, the son of Hashim, born in 497, exercised supreme authority in Mecca, from 520 to 579; he had the glory of delivering his country from the invasion of the Abyssinians, and he saw a Himyarite prince drive the foreigners from Yemen with the help of the king of Persia. Father of eighteen children, he believed himself bound by a rash vow to sacrifice one of his sons, in 569, before the idols of the Kaaba; fate fixed on one he loved the most, Abdallah, about twenty-four years of age. At the moment of the sacrifice, some of the Koreish chiefs rose against so barbarous an action and so fatal an example; by their advice a witch, _arrafa_, was consulted, who declared that Abdallah’s life might be purchased by means of the _dia_ (price of human blood), and by drawing lots. The _dia_ consisting of ten camels, the number ten was inscribed on a pointless arrow, and on another the name of Abdallah; nine times the name of Abdallah appeared, and it was only the tenth time that the camels were condemned. So a hundred were killed instead of Abdallah, and this number became thenceforth among the Koreish chiefs the price of the _dia_.

8A few days later Abdallah married Amina, daughter of Wahb, chief of the family of the Zohri, and from this marriage was born Mohammed, “the glorified,” about the month of August, 570.[b]