Tradition

Pre-Islamic Arabia

Overview

The era of pre-Islamic Arabia encompasses human history in parts of the Arabian Peninsula and the Southern Levant before the spread of Islam beginning in 610 CE. During the prehistoric period, humans first migrated and settled into the peninsula. In the early first millennium BC, writing and recorded history are introduced into the Peninsula, along with the rise of the first kingdoms in the south. Arabia in late antiquity saw the growth of monotheistic religions, the rise and spread of the Arabic script, increased commercial integration into the wider Near Eastern and Mediterranean world, and the rise of imperial proxy warfare involving the Byzantine and Sasanian empires.

In the early seventh century, the pre-Islamic period quickly came to a close, from the beginning of Muhammad's preachings of Islam, to his establishment of the first Islamic state in 622 in Medina, and the subsequent conquest and political unification of the peninsula shortly after Muhammad's death, in the 630s. Some strands of Islamic tradition interpret the pre-Islamic period as a barbaric, morally un-enlightened period known as the "Jahiliyyah" (Arabic: جَاهِلِيَّة), but historians have not adopted this convention.

Pre-Islamic Arabia's demographics included both nomadic and settled populations, the latter of which eventually developed into distinctive civilizations. Eastern Arabia was home to the region's earliest civilizations, such as Dilmun, which is attested as a prominent trade partner of Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age; and its later pre-Islamic history is marked by the reign of consecutive Iranian empires, including those of the Parthians and the Sasanians. From the early 1st millennium BCE onward, South Arabia became home to a number of kingdoms, such as Sheba and Ma'in; while part of North Arabia became home to the Nabataean Kingdom, which was conquered and annexed by the Roman Empire in 106, becoming the province of Roman Arabia, and starting a period of Roman influence.

Arabian tribes and the southern kingdoms structured much of pre-Islamic society, and memory of these societies is filtered today through Islamic literature and pre-Islamic poetry. Pre-Islamic tribes engaged in warfare and formed alliances, and for most of history, practiced Arabian religions. Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was diverse. Polytheism was prevalent for most of the region's history, with beliefs and practices having a common origin in ancient Semitic religion. Christianity, Judaism, and monotheism became common in the region in the fourth century, a trend driven by Christian proselytization from the Eastern Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Aksum, as well as the conversion to monotheism and Judaism by the elite of the Himyarite Kingdom.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Therefore not only among the Egyptian and Syrians but Greeks too, to abstain from fish was a piece of sanctity, they avoiding (as I think), a superfluous curiosity in diet, as well as being just. To this Nestor subjoining said: But sir, of my citizens as of the Megarians in the proverb, you make no account; although you have heard me often say that our priests of Neptune (whom we call Hieromnemons) never eat fish…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
States what Pre-Islamic Arabia is; the author is tied to Pre-Islamic Arabia in the knowledge graph.
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This which has been related is the more credible of the accounts given, but the less credible must also be related, since it is a current account. There is a great river in Arabia called Corys, and this runs out into the Sea which is called Erythraian. From this river then it is said that the king of the Arabians, having got a conduit pipe made by sewing together raw ox-hides and other skins, of such a length as to…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
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Now there is in the land of Arabia, not far from Egypt, a gulf of the sea running in from that which is called the Erythraian Sea, very long and narrow, as I am about to tell.
Herodotus, An Account of Egypt
States what Pre-Islamic Arabia is.
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Pre-Islamic Arabia

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