Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:59:56.214Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Pre-Islamic Arabia

from PART I - THE LATE ANTIQUE CONTEXT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2011

Chase F. Robinson
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
Get access

Summary

Tribal historiography

The literary sources in Arabic dealing with pre-Islamic Arabia are copious, but rarely give direct answers to questions which are of interest to modern research. Still, the following had to be based on these sources since Arabian archaeology is only emerging; one hopes that significant Arabian pre-Islamic sites incur no damage before they are excavated.

Arabian society was tribal and included nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled populations. The settled populations had genealogies similar to those of the nomads and semi-nomads, identifying them as either ‘northern’ or ‘southern’ through the identity of their presumed eponyms. Not only did genealogy define the individual tribe, it also recorded its links with other tribes within families of tribes or tribal federations, each including several or many tribes. Muḥammad’s tribe, Quraysh, for example, was part of the Kināna, and hence the other tribes of the Kināna were its closest relatives. The settled populations, which probably included more people than the nomadic and the semi-nomadic populations put together, do not receive a proportionate share in the literary sources because the limelights are typically on the nomads, more precisely on their military activities, no matter how insignificant. Tribal informants focused on the military activities since the performance of town dwellers in the realms of trade and agriculture were less spectacular, and hence less contributive to tribal solidarity.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ḥabīb, , Kitāb al-muḥabbar, ed. Lichtenstaedter, Ilse (Hyderabad, 1361 [1942]
Abdalla, Abdelgadir M., al-Sakkar, Samiand Mortel, Richard (eds.), Pre-Islamic Arabia: Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Studies in the History of Arabia, 1399/1979, Riyadh, 1984.
al-ʿAskarī, Hilāl, al-Awāʾil, ed. al-Miṣrī, Muḥammad and Qaṣṣāb, Walīd, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1975)
al-ʿAsqalānī, Ḥajar, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya bi-zawāʾid al-masānīd al-thamāniya, ed. al-Aʿẓamī, Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān, 4 vols. (Kuwait, 1973)
al-Ḥillī, Abū l-Baqāʾ Hibat Allāh, al-Manāqib al-mazyadiyya, ed. Darādika, Ṣāliḥ Mūsā and Muḥammad, ʿAbd al-Qādir Khrīsāt, 2 vols., Amman, 1404/1984.
Al-Balādhurī, , Futūḥ, ed. de Goeje, M. J. (Leiden, 1863 –6
al-Iṣfahānī, l-Faraj, Kitāb al-aghānī, 24 vols. (Cairo, 1927 –74)
al-Samhūdī, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Wafāʾ al-wafā, ed. Qāsim, al-Sāmarrāʾī, 5 vols., London and Jiddah, 1422/2001.
al-Sulamī, ʿArrām, Asmāʾ jibāl tihāma, in al-Salām Hārūn, ʿAbd (ed.), Nawādir al-makhṭūṭāt, 2nd edn, vol. II (Cairo, 1973) –2
ʿmir, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ed., Al-Waṣāyā by the same author, (Cairo, 1961) –2
al-Wāqidī, ʿUmar, Kitāb al-maghāzī, ed. Jones, Marsden, 3 vols. (London, 1966)
Caskel, Werner, and Gert, Strenziok, Ğamharat an-Nasab: Das genealogische Werk des Hišām ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī, 2 vols., Leiden, 1966.
Hoyland, Robert G., Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam, London and New York, 2001.
Ibn, al-Kalbī, al-Aṣnām, ed. Bāshā, Aḥmad Zakī, Cairo, 1343/1924.
Ibn, Saʿīd al-Andalusī, Nashwat al-ṭarab bi-taʾrīkh jāhiliyyat al-ʿarab, ed. Naṣrat, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 2 vols., Amman, 1982.
Kister, M. J., Studies in jāhiliyya and early Islam, London, 1980.
Kister, M. J., ‘Labbayka, allāhumma, Labbayka: On a monotheistic aspect of a Jāhiliyya practice’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 2 (1980) –57.Google Scholar
Kister, M. J., ‘Mecca and the tribes of Arabia’, in Sharon, M. (ed.), Studies in Islamic history and civilization in honour of David Ayalon, Jerusalem and Leiden, 1986 –57.Google Scholar
Kister, M. J., ‘al-Ḥīra: Some notes on its relations with Arabia’, Arabica, 15 (1968), p.Google Scholar
Kister, M. J., ‘On the wife of the goldsmith from Fadak and her progeny’, Le Muséon, 92 (1979) –30Google Scholar
Lecker, M., ‘A pre-Islamic endowment deed in Arabic regarding al-Waḥīda in the Ḥijāz’, in Lecker, M., People, tribes and society in Arabia around the time of Muḥammad (Aldershot, 2005)Google Scholar
Giorgio, Levi della Vida, ‘Pre-Islamic Arabia’, in Faris, Nabih Amin (ed.), The Arab heritage, Princeton, 1944 –57.Google Scholar
Maraqten, Mohammed, ‘Writing materials in pre-Islamic Arabia’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 43 (1998) –310.Google Scholar
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad ed., Mukhtalif al-qabāʾil wa-muʾtalifuhā, (Riyadh, 1980)
Peters, F. E. (ed.), The Arabs and Arabia on the eve of Islam, Aldershot, 1999.
Sallām, , Kitāb al-amwāl, ed. Harrās, Muḥammad Khalīl (Cairo, 1976)
Shabba, , Taʾrīkh al-madīna al-munawwara, ed. Shaltūt, Fahīm Muḥammad, 4 vols. (n.p. [1979]; repr. Beirut, 1990)
,The late Ḥamad al-Jāsir wrote a monograph entitled Bāhila al-qabīla l-muftarā ʿalayhā (Riyadh, 1410
Wilkinson, J. C., ‘Arab–Persian land relationships in late Sasānid Oman’, in >Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 3 (1973), 44–7Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×