Seerah 003 – Pre Islamic Society Pt 1

Abdul Nasir Jangda

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You're listening to lm Institute podcast, visit us on the web at vollum institute.org. And join us on [email protected] slash column Institute.

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Hello salatu salam ala rasulillah.

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As Marie

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Shiller we're going to be continuing with our series on the Syrah the prophetic biography, the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

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inshallah, today's session, the last two sessions have been dedicated, have been committed to an introduction to the CLR. And the primary focus of those sessions was, Why study the CLR. And subsequently, what are the benefits of studying the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in intricate detail, today's session, again will not be what's typically expected within a Sierra lecture, just simply because we have to have the complete picture, if we are to really understand if we are to study the Sierra if we're to understand and extract

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practical benefits and lesson from the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, then one very important detail is understanding the circumstances at his time understanding the situation that existed at that time, because unless and until you don't understand the circumstances, the situations that were present at that time, then you don't have a full appreciation for who the Prophet sallallahu Sallam was, what he was able to accomplish, and the lasting legacy that he left behind. You know, the There's a famous couplet, I believe in Persian, I don't know what an actual Persian off the top of my head, but it roughly translates to the fact that you can only appreciate

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the beauty of roses when it's present amongst thorns, that the the rose truly shows its beauty when it sits amongst thorns. And so the life of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam is such a such a miracle in and of itself, his life, the way he lived his life and the change that he was able to cause and enact. And that can only truly be understood and appreciated once you fully comprehend the circumstances and situations that were present at the time of his life. So today's session will solely be dedicated to understanding Arabia, pre Islamic Arabia, what was that situation? So we'll start off with a very basic detail. And this is from the tradition again, of scholarship that this

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is the way that traditional scholarship, classical scholarship goes about discussing these topics, that first of all, we know that that land, those people that even even to a certain extent, that time that culture is referred to as auto, or a that is a word for the people that is a word for the place. And that is the word of the name of the culture. So what does the auto itself mean? So there's a lot of different opinions when you look within the lexicon, but something very interesting. And this also is part of the reason why the prophets, Allah Lavalle cinema was sent amongst these people. Understanding who these people were, what their situation was, and what they

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were capable of. both good and bad, also answers the question the philosophical question, why was Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam sent amongst these people? Why was the Quran revealed in this language? Why was the poor unrevealed amongst these people? So the word out of itself when you get down to the etymology of the word and the root of the word, again, there's a difference of opinion. There's a variety of opinions. But one of the most basic understandings of this word in its absolute root is that it refers to something that flows, something that runs and something that flows. And based on that, there were different basic usages of this word within the Arabic language, to speak clearly,

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clarity and speech. The word would refer to clarity in speech, and that's part of why the Arab called themselves Arab, because they believe that they spoke clearly. And typically, we know what did what do the Arabs call non Arabs? What do they call them?

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They call them a German. Typically, we understand that the meaning of the word iGEM is somebody who doesn't speak somebody who's mute, not to not correct. The meaning of the word awesome is somebody sure they have the fist, it doesn't mean mute. Like they don't have the physical ability to speak. It means somebody who definitely has a physical ability to speak, but when that person speaks, they babble.

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They talk nonsense, they talk gibberish. So Arjun literally means someone who babble somebody who speaks gibberish. And I don't mean somebody who speaks clearly. So again, it's extracted from that because they believe that their speech was superior because it flowed and it ran, like no but no other language or no other form of speech. So that's why their language was called that and based on that they would say, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi Salaam in a Hadith, the word Arab itself is never used within the forum.

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The word Arab itself is never used within the Quran in that form. Different forms of the word are used, like out I'll be out I'll be using for honest described as Arabic. All right, so the word out or be is used, which is an extraction of that word out, which means something that is Arab. So the Quran is something that is Arab, meaning it's in the Arabic language. All right, so but the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he uses this word in this meaning of flowing speech or to be to be very clear in one speech to clearly articulate where the prophets Allah hottie sent him says a thank you, boo. You're honorable. I'm Holly Sano Ha. When talking about the technicalities, the fifth of

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marriage, we all know that in the fifth of marriage in the guy, that when a an unmarried, a single woman, a woman who's never been married before, when she is getting married, then at that time, she requires the permission and representation of her wedding, her male Guardian, but the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam says

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that a woman that has been married previously now she is either a widow or a divorce a, the prophets allottee some says you are obliged

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that her own tongue will speak on her behalf, meaning she is now allowed to represent herself in our own marriage ceremony and in the marriage proceedings. So the profitsystem is using this word your Yeah, your abou which comes from the word out have to be very clear to clearly articulate. Similarly the Arabs would use the word Arab. Also, before I go forward, the Arabs had an expression they would call somebody. autobahn, eu lisanne autobahn Eagle Nissan would mean somebody who speaks very clearly, similarly the second meaning that the word in which the Arabs would use the word a hot tub is

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for happiness or for something to be emotionally fulfilling. This is using the Quran and Sunnah to LA, where las panatela calls the companions of Paradise, the companions of genda Allah refers to them as for Jana hoonah, Abba karran. For Jana hoonah, Abba Karen rudall, Ben at Robin odoban. So, a lot refers to the companions of Paradise, the companions of danez, or old, or old literally means somebody who's very loyal, somebody who's very loving, a passionate lover, is called ODL. That's a plural.

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So that's the word for somebody who is very passionate in their love for someone. So again, very emotionally fulfilling that this person's emotions, they run in the flow like the river flows, so much so that even when a river would overflow, they would use the word out of out of a narrow, narrow baton, this river is overflowing, be thrown out of Baton, a well, that is overflowing. And so much so that and this is very interesting, when something would become chaotic, when something would become problematic, when something would lose order, that word auto would also be used for that. So the Arabs would say, robots mean, if somebody had an upset stomach, somebody had indigestion, they

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would say Otto Buckman added to that he has indigestion they would use the word auto. Why? Because like when the river flows, when the stream runs, when a river flows, that water while it's flowing in, it's beautiful. But at the same time you it's not organized, is it, it's very chaotic. It's water, it flows in all different directions. And it goes around the rocks in the middle of the stream, and all types of stuff is going on there. So it's a very beautiful controlled chaos, if you will. And that's the root meaning of the word out of itself. And something now very interesting about that is that to a great extent describes these people. That's why these people were called the

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out of all of these qualities and characteristics describe what these people were like. They were very clear in their speech, they were very articulate in their speech in their language. In fact, it could even be argued that they were the most articulate people when it came to speech and language. Secondly, they were very passionate people. Something that I'll be talking about as long as time permits a little bit later in today's lesson

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is talking about some of the good qualities that the Arabs have because too often when we talk about pre Islamic Arabia, we talk about all the bad that was rampant. But we don't talk about the good that was prevalent. And something that's very interesting is that the Arabs had a great admiration for the qualities that we call hidden, hey, forbearance, to be very, to have composure, to be very, to be very calm and peaceful. To be very serene. They had great admiration for these qualities. Part of the reason was these qualities were very rare amongst the herbs, because they were so passionate. They were such a passionate people that oftentimes they had trouble containing their own emotions.

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So again, that quality

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passion was found amongst these people. And lastly, the chaos, that these were also people that were largely chaotic. There was not a, an established form of governance, there was not a systematic form of economics, there was not even a

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centralized form of religion for these people. So some of the primary factors that unite people that organize people, whether it's government or its economics, alright, financial interest, or its religion, these are often the things that organize people, none of these things were organized amongst the Arabs. And that led to a lot of the chaos that we find there in pre Islamic Arabia. And it was first the religion, which brought about a system of governance, which established an economic system, which all came after Islam, that this, these were the contributions of Islam to these people, which contributed to the organization of these people, and how these people became the

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exemplary civilization of their time. So that's a very interesting contrast, which we'll discuss later on. Now to talk about the history of the Arabs, and this is something I'm not going to spend a lot of time on. There's a lot of detail in this. Even Kathy Rahim Allah talks about this for maybe about 100 plus pages in classical Arabic, he delves into the history of the Arabs, while there's a lot of very interesting things that we can find there. But like I said, part of the focus of these sessions will be to make the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam to basically have to engage in a very practical, relevant study of the life of the prophets along the Sunnah. And so obviously,

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delving into very, very deep details of the history of the Arabs, the genealogy of the Arabs, is something that might not be proven to the common average Muslim, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on it. I would like However, for you to just simply understand that jianna

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genealogists, they divide the history of the Arabs, they divide the Arab race into two primary categories. So first of all, this is a sub ethnic category, and then it's divided into two major categories. First, are the

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ancient Arabs, or the perished Arabs, if you will? Those were the Arabs of Ivan samode. And those were the Arabs who largely Paris, not a lot was remains of them. And not a lot is known of them outside of again, the religious tradition that we have. All right. So that's the first category. The second category are the Arabs who remained the Arabs who remained. And

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these are also known as the migrated Arabs, some of them also some genealogists also referred to them as the migrated Arabs. The reason why these are called so called the migrated Arabs is because we find them primarily or at the time of the Prophet ceylonese. him It seems like the epicenter was the Arabian Peninsula, when in reality, these people that we see as Arabs at that time, were not originally from that area they had migrated to that area from other regions. So these were the Arabs who remained the Arabs who remained Alright, that's the second category. Amongst the Arabs who remained there were two categories as well, there were two sub categories. First, we're referred to

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as the pure Arabs, the pure Arabs, the pure Arabs were primarily what I will refer to and even classical times that region was called the same name, Yemen, what we know as current day, modern day Yemen, and even in ancient times, in classical times, that region of the world was still referred to as Yemen. Right. They were basically the Yemeni Arabs, that they had come to the Arabian Peninsula ages, specifically within the Arabian Peninsula. They had migrated there from the area of Yemen. And there's even a history to that doctrine makes, makes reference to say that,

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all right, that there was a great flood in the area of Yemen. and due to that great flood, there's actually a little bit of detail there, some Arabs had actually migrated to a jazz even before the flood. Even before the flood due to economic hardship. There were basically two major tribes, one of them had taken control of the economy of the area, the second tribe due to falling behind, economically, they decided to pack their bags and move to a new place to try to find a better future for themselves and their children. And these were the first group of immigrants and then the second group followed after the flood. Alright, so these were the pure Arabs.

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The second group, the second sub category are the Arab eyes out of all right, almost out of boom, the Arab eyes, Arabs, the ones who became Arab, and the primary of these categories where is my Allah Alayhi Salam himself, he falls amongst this category that somebody who was not an Arab ethnically, but be was Arab, it became Arab, alright. And this constituted for a large population in the world as we see it today, what we know as the Arab world today

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The vast majority of it falls under this category of, of the Arab eyes errs because as Islam spread, the Arabic language and the Arab culture also spread along with it. And so much of what we know as the Arab world today is actually the, the the Arab world. All right. So this is the history of the of these people who are known as the Arabs, amongst whom the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam was born. And so why is this of such crude in detail? Because the Prophet till allamani salaam comes from the progeny of the Arab eyes to Arabs, the prophets, a lot of them comes from the progeny of the Arab eyes to Arabs. And that's very important to remember. All right. Now, the geography and

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again, the purpose of of these lessons is not to teach you geography, but to give you an understanding of why the circumstances existed that did. All right. the Arabian Peninsula is a very interesting place. If you just try to take a take a quick image, if you can try to draw a quick map in your head, then you can look take a look at it clockwise, if you will, that the Arabian Peninsula is almost from the northeast, all the way around to the

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mid to northwestern region is completely surrounded by water is corrected. That's why it's called a peninsula. All right, so it's starts off at the Northeast with the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea, which is an extension of the Indian Ocean on the south and the southeast. The Gulf of Aden continues on to the south. And then finally, you have the Bab el mandeb, strait on the southwest and the Red Sea up to the western regions of the Arabian Peninsula. So you literally have it completely surrounded by water. All right now the northern region of the Arabian Peninsula borders the classically what was known as bladders sham.

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They ain't ancient regions of Syria, the ancient areas of Shang Alright, and even till today, the Syrian desert is what borders the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula. And this is how it's structured geographically. Now, what do we what can we learn based from that, what we can learn from that is there were two very interesting features to the geographical location of the Arabian Peninsula. Number one, it was very, if you will, internal, it was very internal from from a land perspective, it was very internal. So you only have one entrance to the land land where you only have one entrance into the Arabian Peninsula and that was through the Syrian desert, which, as your

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as you can probably understand was not exactly a walk in the park, you would literally have to travel through you know, hundreds of 1000s of miles

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excuse me hundreds of miles if not 1000s of miles of desert region, severe desert alright. So, due to that, it was no walk in the park. So, it had a very internal setting which left it very isolated from many outside influences, in terms of language, language, in terms of culture, and even religion and many different factors, which meant that it was a very insulated experience. The experience of being from the Arabian Peninsula from being from Hejaz was a very insulated experience, you were cushion, you were insulated from many external factors and influences. So that meant it was a it was a hotbed of deep cultural tradition. All right, and it was a treasure of linguistic nuances,

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literary nuances. So, it had a very deep culture, very deep language and that was the experience there.

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The second thing, the second part of it was that it was also at the same time a very external region, it was a very exposed region of the world. Now, what do I mean by it being very exposed, that it was very exposed in terms of sea and ocean. So it served as a primary port to many key trade routes and travel, traveling routes to very strategic parts of the world. What that basically again means is that at the same time, it became an epicenter of trade and business.

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It became an epicenter of trade and business that it was a very key strategic location in terms of trade and business. So you have these very tool, interesting dynamics to this to the Arabian Peninsula to Hejaz. Wherever deep culture very deep language was not influenced

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by outside by foreign influences, and there was no, there was not a lot of government interest either. And in fact, implanting a government or running your own government, for its from externally would be a very difficult endeavor would be nearly impossible because you'd be completely cut off from this arm of your government that extended within this region. And that's why you did not have a lot of foreign invasions. All right. But at the same time, in terms of trade and business, it was a very key strategic region, which gave these people again, a very

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strategic positioning. All right, these people were in a very, very interesting place in terms of business and trade and, and finance and economics. Now the political situation, what was it? What were the political circumstances revolving around this area of the world, this region

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at the time of the Prophet system, again, there's a lot of history here. But we're gonna focus on at the time of the birth of the Prophet salallahu alaihe, salam, or even you can call it at the advent of Islam at the revelation of the Quran Prophethood, the initiation of prophethood. What were the political circumstances that existed around this region. So you have a few regions, a few parts of the world that bordered the Arabian Peninsula? Hey, guys, first of all, is the primary amongst them is, of course, Yemen. Now, Yemen, very interestingly, had been a battling ground had been a war zone between the Jews and the Christians for a very long time. Yemen was one of those very few places

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amongst the ancient Arab world where Judaism had taken root. Judaism had founder had found a home within Yemen. And for a very long time, for hundreds of years, Judaism and Christianity had been at war within Yemen, Judaism itself was rooted within Yemen, and you had the nearby neighboring region of Abyssinia, Ethiopia, Eastern Africa, which was predominantly Christian, which had a Christian Empire. All right. And these two religions have been at war within Yemen for a very long time. And they had fought over diluted the leadership, the rulership, the kingship of Yemen for a very, very long time. And we know that the Christian kingdom, in fact, in Abyssinia, had played a foreign

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influence they had back to Christians within Yemen for a very long time in terms of that war, close to the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi. Salam, the Abu simeons had literally come in and taken over, they had just come in and straight up taken over the area of Yemen. And from there you have the incident of the elephants, or the invasion of the elephants and abraha you have that entire situation, which we'll talk about in coming sessions inshallah. So you have that dynamic going on there. However, closer to the time of prophethood. So during the early years of the prophets, a lot a send them somewhere during that time.

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There was an uprising, there was an uprising, there was a Persian influence that came into Yemen, and that backed some of the Jews and some of the local Arab tribes of Yemen, the polytheist, the idolatrous tribes of Yemen, the mushy Kuhn of Yemen, they back them from the Persian Empire, and they were able to overthrow the Christian Abyssinian kingdom, rulership that was present in Yemen. And because of that,

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the Persian bit, a rule basically came into power and the locals, the local tribes were the ones that were put into power, but it was attributed back to the Persian Empire. So for all intensive purposes, it was considered as an extension of the Persian Empire. However,

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the one of the the last of the Persian rulers, but Han, he himself accepted Islam. during the lifetime of the Prophet salallahu alaihe, Salam and Yemen basically entered into Islam and the prophets a lot of himself, he sent a leave in Abu Talib, and more, I've been learning a lot more and humor to the area of Yemen, to go there and to teach and to spread Islam amongst the people of Yemen. And so while Yemen had a very interesting history, during the lifetime of the prophets, a lot of them during the Prophet hood, during his lifetime, Yemen actually entered into Islam. So this was the primary region. The second region which bordered or was near enough to be an influence on

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ancient Arabia, was heat up was the was the ancient classical region of hero. Now here is what we know as current day modern day Iraq, basically parts of Iraq. All right, the southern parts of a dock was what was classically referred to as hero. Now, in that area, again, there was always primarily a Persian influence, and the Persian influence remained there throughout the life of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, only after the time of the process of setting during the life of Ramadan cadabra, the longer I knew, where the locals and when I refer to by the locals is the local Arab tribes. So for a very long time, it was a Persian influence only into the life of Fatah where

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the local Arab tribes able to take over power and regain their region for themselves. But literally, they were in power for 90 of an entire year, until Hollywood elite at the helm of a Muslim army came in and overtook that region and that region came under the rule of Islam as well. Another neighboring region for the Muslim for excuse me for the ancient Arabs at that time, the Arabian Peninsula. At that time from the north was, of course what we refer to as Syria but it's the classical ancient region of Bella Duchamp.

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Syria primarily was a Christian influence region, down from Rome, there was a very heavily Christian influence within Syria. And that also affected the northern regions of even the Arabian Peninsula, which were also primarily Christian at that time. And, of course, this Christian influence within that northern region of Syria lasted until the khilafah of Ramadan Katara de la Manu, until that region also came into Islam. Now,

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these are the political influences Now I know that I keep making a lot of reference to the religion of the area. That's only for the reason that we're we're talking about a time where there was a synchronization between religion and government governance and rulership that these kings were not just kings of their they were not just ethnic kings, they were not just kings of a region, but they were Christian or Jewish, or, you know,

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or Muslim, juicy kings, Zoroastrian kings of their time. So there was a heavily religious religious influence and a lot of the government of that time in that region. Now, when talking about the governance within the Arabian Peninsula itself, Pan Arabia, the the the the Arabian Peninsula itself, then at that time, it's very important to understand there was no centralized form of government. There were certain influences that were leaking into the Arabian Peninsula from the north, from the west, from the south. But primarily, this region, entire region was ruled by tribal law. The tribes were the were the law of the land. And what that meant, and again, these tribes were

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not centralized by any means there were certain inter tribal communications, but even inter tribal relations were strained. Because of all the inter tribal warfare that would exist, they were constantly at war with each other personal conflicts would often become tribal conflicts, which would contribute to a lack of governance within the region in the area. And so tribal law was the law of the land. Now, tribal law was while it was different than kingship, but it had certain similarities, because the the leaders of the tribe, the tribal leaders, the chieftains, were many times dictatorial type leaders. their their their rulings would be accepted would be enforced as a

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kings rulings as a monarchs rulings, as a dictators, rulings, they could not be questioned, they were not questioned. And they were accepted regardless of anything else. And oftentimes, this type of tribal leadership would pass down through the family, like occurred, like it occurs in monarchy. So it was it had certain similarities that had board to kingship or monarchy, but nevertheless, it was tribalism. And this was the law of the land. And this is how things existed at that time in that situation. And because of this type of a corrupt

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form of governance, one thing that I think we'll we'll talk about more in terms of the

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culture of the land, or the the culture of that time in that place in that region. But nevertheless, I'll go ahead and make mention of here because still legal enforcement, and preservations of people's rights are still related back to the politics of the region, oftentimes, because of political influences can many times dictate the, to the the type of enforcement or preservation you have of civil liberties, civil rights and those types of things, as we know very well here today. So similarly, because it was tribal law in the region, there was not a great preservation of people's rights, if you were wealthy, rich, influential related to the tribal leaders. So if you had it in

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with tribal leaders, if you had some type of a connection, or you had something to offer to the tribal leaders, then definitely you'd be alright, you'd be okay. But if you belong to any type of a demographic, any type of a class of society that was out of favor, or was irrelevant or not of concern to the tribal leaders of that time, then again, you would greatly suffer, you did not enjoy a lot of rights or even liberties at that time. And that was the way society was structured.

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Similarly to talk specifically about the, the culture in terms of the rights that people enjoyed in that, at that time in that area. At the same time, there's some there's a very interesting dynamic. While we can say that Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, the area where the prophets a lot of Islam was born and raised, that area was chaotic. It had no governance, it had no king it had no rulers, it had no government. But there was another interesting dynamic.

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The Arabs who lived in regions that bordered the great kingdoms of those times, like I talked about Syria and Yemen in these different areas. They were oftentimes seen as inferior to the citizens of those kingdoms that they bordered. So while

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The kingdoms had an arm that extended within those regions, and they were the primary governance within their region. The inhabitants of those regions were seen as inferior.

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They did not enjoy the same rights as the actual citizens. So the people that bordered the Syrian region, the great Syrian kingdom, Christian kingdom,

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right, those Arabs, while they lived under that rule, they were seen as inferior, they were second class third class citizens, they did not enjoy the rights that those actual Christians would enjoy.

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And the same thing goes for the Arabs that lived bordering other regions as well. But when you came into more of the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, the the region of Hejaz, where the Prophet salami son was born and raised, that area could be seen as chaotic, could be seen, as, you know, barbaric. They had no form of government. But at the same time, they were the envy of the other Arabs. They were the envy of the other Arabs. Why? Because they enjoyed complete autonomy, they lived on their own, they had no foreign influences, nobody treated them a second or third class citizen, they enjoyed a lot of dignity and a lot of respect. So while it was a bit chaotic, and things could get

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kind of dicey, there sometimes when tried to go at war with each other, or when you know, if you're if your cousin or your neighbor or your friend, you know, got into a fight with the tribe, the tribal leader, son, then he probably would die. All right. While there were incidents in situations of that nature. At the same time, this much had to be said that there was a great honor of being from amongst these people that you enjoyed complete freedom you did not live under a foreign rule was designated you as a second third or fourth class citizen. And that was something very interesting that existed within ages and the rulers of ages. This is another thing that was very

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interesting, which you can see, again, could be designated as a contributing factor to why the Quran was revealed amongst these people. Why the prophets, Allah, Allah, Allah was born amongst these people, was because the people of Hijaz had a different culture as well. They held their rulers in a great esteem. They didn't just see them as cultural, tribal, political, economic leaders, but they also saw them as religious leaders.

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They did not separate these concepts from each other. They saw them as religious leaders. And that's why the leader of the tribe of grace, for instance, been okay Nana, all right, the leader of the tribe himself, who would be the one making rulings whose decision would be final in terms of where the trade caravan should go, and who would basically dictate the law of the land. He was also seen as a servant, as a caretaker, as a custodian

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of the Sacred House of Aqaba.

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As the as a custodian and the janitor of the home, he was seen as such, and he would find it. And this was something that tribes actually fought over. Again, I don't want to get into this detailed history. But within the greater, you know,

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the greater tribe that the profits all of a sudden comes from, there was actually a war in between different groups, different families, if you will, within the greater tribe that the profit zone came from. And they fought over who would get to take care of the Kaaba, and who would get to serve water to the Hajaj to the people that would visit the sacred house. So you could see, while that same tribal leader that would sit there and give decisions and make rulings for the people, and would dictate ruling to the people, he was the same tribal leader that you would see out there, walking around serving water, giving water to the people who are coming from far away to visit the

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sacred house. So there was a very interesting dynamic and disregarding from there, you can see a lot of the cultural roots, if you will,

00:34:05--> 00:34:16

of the Islamic mode of conduct and behavior. You can see some of those cultural roots, cultural seeds, if not even roots, you can see the seeds of it there within pre Islamic Arabia.

00:34:17--> 00:34:22

Now to talk about the social life of the Arabs, what was the social life of the Arabs like?

00:34:23--> 00:34:25

Arabian society was

00:34:26--> 00:34:34

a very interesting mix of different social constructs that coexisted at one time.

00:34:35--> 00:34:45

I'll talk about the negatives and then I'll talk about the positives. Some of the negatives that existed at that time was again, you had a lack of,

00:34:46--> 00:34:58

you know, fair, equal treatment of all segments of society. Slavery was prevalent at that time, and not just any type of slavery but slavery that treated their slaves in lesser

00:34:59--> 00:35:00

in that treated

00:35:00--> 00:35:21

They're slaves, a lesser than their animals, a camel, a horse would enjoy better treatment than a slave would. Alright, so there was no equal treatment of people, the dynamic of women within her pre Islamic Arabian society was something that was very interesting. Again, everything was a mixed bag,

00:35:22--> 00:35:30

you had two very, very different experiences of women within pre Sonic Arabian society, you had one on one side, women,

00:35:31--> 00:35:50

in certain social circles, would be treated again. Unfortunately, very Unfortunately, they would be treated subhuman, less than human, they were literally a commodity that would be passed on, from man to man, from family to family. All right, I'm not even going to delve in and talk about the

00:35:52--> 00:36:31

moral constructs of that society, there'll be different topics. Oftentimes men talk about women, we also even talk about the structural exploitation of women that existed at that time, I'm going to talk about that separately, because I feel that that is a separate dynamic altogether of that society, that how they even approached modesty, and morals and ethics within their society. But I'm simply talking about how women were treated, just generally. So there was when there was a segment of society, there were certain social circles where they were mistreated horribly. But there was also a segment of society, the more elite, the more elite within society. Like within the families

00:36:31--> 00:37:17

of the tribal leaders, women held great esteem. Women hold great esteem that the women within these more elite families of Arabian society, they not only own land, they own great wealth and great money Howdy, Cobra de la, the first wife of the prophets, Allah Islam is a perfect example of that a great businesswoman, and extremely wealthy woman. But they even played a critical role many times within the politics of the region. their opinions were very crucial and critical to a lot of policies that would be enacted to major decisions that would be made at that time. hindon, the wife of Abu Sufyan the daughter of Aruba is a great example of this, that she dictated a lot of the she

00:37:17--> 00:37:28

she, you could sing or you could you could designate her as one of the key contributors to the band, lava hood. She was she was one of the key instigators of the entire battle of

00:37:29--> 00:37:36

all right, she was the primary opposition to Abu soufiane, even at the time of Fatoumata

00:37:37--> 00:38:18

until she later accepted Islam. So women had a very interesting position, it almost depended on where this woman existed within Arabian society. So you have two opposite extremes at that time. So slaves enjoy, slaves suffered through a very horrible treatment, women either enjoyed a great social status. And it's safe to say that they enjoy much more freedom than women did in other parts of the world. But at the same time, similarly, unfortunately, they also suffered through some very horrible treatment at that time. So this, these were a few elements of the Arabian Society of the time,

00:38:20--> 00:39:02

as I talked about, leadership would be passed on within family, and money. At the same time, while money dictated to how well you would be treated, the money itself would be passed on through family as well. So it was definitely one of those dynamics that we still see today, in third world countries in third world society in parts of the world, where a person has a very little chance of even trying to better their situation, if you're born into a bad situation, there's a very little chance of you even trying to better your situation, because so many social objects exist, that don't allow you so many obstacles exists, that they don't allow you to even move past her try to attain

00:39:02--> 00:39:09

the situation better than your current one. Now to talk about the moral, ethical, you know,

00:39:10--> 00:39:36

culture that existed at that time. So we're literally talking about the culture of the Arabs. So in terms of modesty, in terms of the moral ethical culture that exists that as I've talked about, if you committed wrong to someone who was of higher social status than you, you will probably killed whether your crime warranted that or not. And if you committed wrong to somebody of a lesser social status than you, then you were probably going to get away with it.

00:39:38--> 00:40:00

That's just how it worked at that time. And similarly, in terms of modesty, and in this is not just simply a discussion of modesty, but even the situation of family because this this would affect the the family circumstances that existed at that time. So it was a family situation. Again, you had opposite extremes within the more elite of society.

00:40:01--> 00:40:02

Family held great esteem.

00:40:04--> 00:40:13

family was integral to the Arab experience, pre islamically. All right. And marriage was something that was treated as something very sacred.

00:40:15--> 00:40:20

A man would propose to a woman, and they would be married and he would give a marriage gift.

00:40:21--> 00:40:29

And he would take care of her and you would treat her with a great amount of respect. He would respect her as his wife as his partner in life as a mother of his children.

00:40:30--> 00:40:34

But there was also a segment of society, unfortunately, where it was the complete opposite.

00:40:35--> 00:40:58

There's a hadith in the Sunnah Nava Buddhahood, where he shut the alarm on Hungarians from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi Salaam, that four kinds of marriage existed in pre Islamic Arabia. The first was similar to present day marriage, meaning marriage within Islam was very similar to that it was comparable to that. The second was, which I just described, the second was that

00:41:00--> 00:41:10

a man that that sometimes a wife that basically to summarize it into because we are in a machine, and I like to try to keep it as clean as possible that

00:41:12--> 00:41:15

the there was not a lot of

00:41:17--> 00:41:21

I'm trying to think of the correct word. It's right there in my head and it's escaping me.

00:41:23--> 00:42:07

But basically, people did not treat marriage, very sacredly, people would cheat on their spouses. There was a lack of somebody can think of the word fidelity, infidelity was rampant within Arab society. So there was a segment of society where infidelity was a very common trend. And infidelity was almost expected, it was assumed, and spouses would many times know of each other's infidelity, and I have no problem with it. So unfortunately, that situation exists as well. The second, the third type of marriage, that it shall be a long marriage from the Prophet salallahu alaihe. Salam that existed before Islam was that you had rampant fornication, rampant fornication, that there was

00:42:07--> 00:42:16

no marriage. In the second time, there was at least a marriage even though it was a sham of a marriage. But then infidelity was present in the third kind, that was just ramping fornication.

00:42:17--> 00:42:51

And a woman would almost fornicate with a set group of men. And then whenever she would become pregnant, she would designate that child to be the child of one of those men, he would take that child as his own, and he would raise a child of his own. And so it was almost this very unfortunate type of communal fornication. That was going on the fourth type of marriage, which is not even the type of marriage but that that detail comes at the end of the Hadith was that there was a straight up what we know today as a form of prostitution.

00:42:52--> 00:43:34

There was there was rampant promiscuity, to the extent of it being borderline prostitution. And that existed at that time, where houses would be marked residences would be marked, where this is where you would go to engage in fornication, adultery, and this is where you could come to attain the services of a prostitute. And now and children that would be born of these women would live a life of disgrace because they will not be claimed by anyone. They would just rent they would be literally labeled as children of a Xena, Willa, do Xena Ola to Xena and they would live a life of misery and they would live a life of shame. And so and the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam says that the latter

00:43:34--> 00:43:45

three forms of marriage if you will, the word marriage has been used because the word marriage within the Arabic language is the guy, which in its literal roots can literally mean to simply

00:43:46--> 00:44:28

enjoy physical relations with a member of the opposite gender. All right, so the prophets a lot of time at the end of the Hadith says these latter three forms of kneecap were abolished by Islam have been forbidden by Islam do not exist or not not recognized after Islam, and only the first form of it remains and has been polished and made pristine by Islam has been revered by Islam, and has been decreed as, you know, a divine divine institution of marriage through Islam. So this gives you a little bit of an idea of the situation, the circumstances the family, and modesty and morals and ethics that existed pre islamically within Arabia

00:44:30--> 00:44:31

to

00:44:38--> 00:44:42

to continue on talking about the culture of the Arabs.

00:44:43--> 00:45:00

And this is the last thing that I'll talk about here is there was a very deep emotional attachment to family relations, which again is something that we know as an Islamic concept salata rockin keeping the bonds of kinship, if anybody understands what that means, basically

00:45:00--> 00:45:30

Keep in good with your family and your folks, right being good to your family and your relatives. This insomma concept, this was something that was found amongst pre Islamic Arabs. And again, the farther you went away from city life, the deeper you went into tribal life Nomad life, who are known who are referred to even in the Quran, as Rob, the more you found this dynamic, the greater you found this, this experience, that family and tribe and relatives and relationships are very sacred.

00:45:31--> 00:45:34

And they were maintained and they were kept, and they were treated as sacred.

00:45:36--> 00:45:41

Now talking about the economic situation, I've referred briefly about the economic situation.

00:45:42--> 00:46:23

One thing that needs to be understood about the economic situation within the within pre Islamic Arabia is that trade and business was the primary form of making a living, there was some farming that existed within some of the more central areas, regions of Arabia. But nevertheless, that was still a minority. That was still a rarity, the primary form of economics, the primary form of making a living, making a living, the entire economic structure of the pre Islamic Arabs, depended upon trade in business, and trade and business with outside regions, they didn't have a lot of natural resources, they did not enjoy many natural resources. So they would primarily focus on trading, and

00:46:23--> 00:46:44

doing business with outside regions, taking goods from one part of one one border over to the other border. And this is basically how they made a living. And this is their entire economic system was based upon this. And again, because of the tribal instability, because of the political instability, their economics would often suffer.

00:46:45--> 00:47:14

So the economic situation within pre Islamic Arabia, Saudi Arabia was not stable at all. And it's kind of like a vicious circle, their political instability would be there and make their economic situation very unstable. All right. And because of the economic situation being unstable, that would feed right back into political instability. So it was a very vicious circle. So basically, these are people who would be involved in a lot of warfare, there was a lot of fight fighting, constantly that was going on.

00:47:15--> 00:47:15

And

00:47:19--> 00:48:01

so poverty, hunger, these were very common trends found within pre Islamic Arabia. And that's why, just like we see in the third world today, and in fact, we even see this unfortunate trend growing here. But there literally was no middle class society. Within pre Islamic Arabia, you had the very, very elite. And then you had the predominantly poor, which also constituted the majority of the land, and the area. Now talking a little bit about some of the key vices, but also, we talked about a lot of the vices and a lot of the instability that existed at that time. What I'd like to focus on now is what were some of the ethics? What were some of the positive elements of pre Islamic Arabian

00:48:01--> 00:48:25

society and their culture. Hospitality was one of their key qualities. And that might not sound like a big deal, like, okay, when somebody comes to your house, and you're nice to them, right? Again, because of the culture that we live in today, hospitality is very minimal hospitality was it was a big part of the experience of pre modern society. Because the second you traveled, you were instantly a guest.

00:48:26--> 00:48:58

All right, any type of travel, any type of, you know, instability within your own personal life immediately led to you being a guest. So hospitality was a big part of any culture. All right, there were no hotels, there were no restaurants, there were no, you know, grocery stores, and a lot of these types of conveniences that we have set up into place today. These things didn't exist. So you were immediately dependent upon somebody's hospitality. All right, and somebody's goodwill towards humanity in general. And hospitality was definitely a strong suit of these people.

00:49:00--> 00:49:08

And it was almost some of the historians say something very interesting. They say hospitality was so much of a quality of theirs, that it was almost to a fault.

00:49:09--> 00:49:14

That in the spirit of hospitality, they would commit wrong to another person.

00:49:15--> 00:49:59

They would commit aggression towards people in the pursuit of hospitality, that they would oftentimes jeopardize the well being of their own family in the spirit of hospitality. All right, and so this was how strong the sense of hospitality was within these people. And also within the culture of hospitality, some very negative things. Some certain vices existed within the culture of hospitality, once again, because of rampant infidelity and promiscuity that oftentimes they would offer up even their own spouses in terms of in the spirit of hospitality. They would enlist the services of prostitutes in the spirit of hospitality, that wine alcohol drinking, unfortunately was

00:49:59--> 00:50:00

very rapid.

00:50:00--> 00:50:11

And again in the spirit of hospitality. All right, that's almost so that's the Arabs, the linguist, the entomologist, they note something very interesting, that Calm,

00:50:12--> 00:50:41

calm, which means to be normal to be dignified. And a good normal host would be referred to as Katyn. And calm is also where the word for grapes comes from, as well. A type of grapes also is extracted from there well enough is bunches of grapes. Alright, but Chronos even makes reference to grapes themselves. All right, because it was seeing kind of hand in hand, they're not just feeding of the grapes or wine extracted from grapes would be served to one's guests as well.

00:50:42--> 00:50:48

Another thing that was very that was that was a great quality of the pre Islamic Arabs was

00:50:49--> 00:50:51

the sanctity of a person's word.

00:50:53--> 00:50:55

When somebody gave you their word that was it.

00:50:56--> 00:51:32

They were people of their word. They hope their word to be very, very sacred. Because again, in a place where there was no law, where there was no court where there was no judge where there was no legal system, a person's word was everything was all that they had to offer. And especially because poverty being very rampant, sometimes when a person has nothing else to offer, when they can pride themselves on anything else. They say, I got one thing left. And that is my honor. And said that honor was very sacred. In terms of my word, I gave him my word. And again, if I gave somebody my word that they would give this to them, or I would provide to them I would kill I would murder, I

00:51:32--> 00:51:42

would steal in order to keep my word. So there was a very interesting contradiction. But nevertheless, at least that spirit of keeping the word was something that was present amongst them.

00:51:43--> 00:52:26

sense of honor and repudiation of injustice. So they had a great sense of honor. And they, at least philosophically or conceptually, idealistically, they were opposed to injustice, even though injustice was rampant. But they were at least they had this idea, they had this comp concept. And that's why you see that their pre islamically we see the healthful food, we see that, that that treaty, that that act, being put into place, that treaty and being enacted, that we will fight, we will strive, we will at least make sit here and put our support behind preserving people's rights and the profits a lot. He said, um, that's why he, he was a part of the headphone fool and the

00:52:26--> 00:52:40

prophets, a lot of them said that even after Islam, if this was brought to me again, I would agree to it, I would sign it, I would back it 100% I would put my full backing behind it. Alright, so this was a concept that existed, as I mentioned before forbearance, patience,

00:52:42--> 00:52:57

almost mildness within a person's personality, composure, serenity, these were things that were greatly admired. Why, because they were very hard to come by. These were very passionate people. All right, they were very easy to get riled up. And so they respected these things.

00:52:58--> 00:53:15

And simplicity was also a big part of their life, simplicity, you have extravagance, or lavishness that's that some elite of society would engage in. But there was still a great simplicity to these people, a leader would literally sacrifice his own animal.

00:53:16--> 00:53:24

And he would skin the animal himself, and he would cook the food himself, and he would serve food to his people himself. And he found dignity and honor that.

00:53:26--> 00:53:51

He found dignity and honor that a leader would sit amongst his people would walk amongst his people, when they would travel, the leader would literally sleep by the fire along with all the rest of the people. There were certain things that were very interesting about them, and they believed in certain Simplicity's, that made their culture a very interesting culture, and gave certain very notable

00:53:53--> 00:54:03

there were certain notable ethics that were a part of that culture, which contributed definitely to the revelation of the Quran, and the birth of the prophets a lot a sentiment amongst these people.

00:54:04--> 00:54:05

Now,

00:54:06--> 00:54:38

I'll end here today by talking about some of the and then we'll talk about the religion of the Arabs. In the next session. In the following week session, inshallah will talk about the religion of the Arabs, where their religion came from, there's a very interesting story. And there's a very interesting history to even where their religion came from, where it originated, from, where it came from, all the perversions that it went through, and how it ended up in the situation that we find that during the lifetime of the during the at the time of the birth of the prophets a lot of a sudden, and from there, of course, we'll delve into the actual birth of the prophets a lot easier.

00:54:38--> 00:54:44

Now, I'll end by talking a lot about some of the cultural traditions that were a part of Arab life.

00:54:45--> 00:54:59

The pre Islamic Arabs in the area of hijas were predominantly illiterate, so much so that certain books of history say that the all the literate people within Makkah, when we're not even up to 20, there were not even 20

00:55:00--> 00:55:39

illiterate people who know how to read and write fluently within the entire city of Makkah, at the time of the birth of the prophets a lot. So illiteracy was that rampant. All right illiteracy was that ramp entering at the time of the birth of the prophets of Allah holidays and within Makkah, in spite of this, though, the Arab still placed a great premium on knowledge itself, knowledge itself, so knowledge was carried primarily through oral tradition. Now, again, you could see this almost kind of like a circular discussion. Part of the reason why they were illiterate was because these were people have great memory and great oral tradition. But again, because of their great oral

00:55:39--> 00:56:17

tradition and their reliance upon memory, they never developed a sense of urgency about learning how to read and write, they never felt any need to learn how to read and write. So again, it was kind of like a vicious circle that just kept feeding into itself. But nevertheless, this was the culture of that time. But they still placed a great premium on knowledge, when when certain people amongst them will travel out to other parts of the world, and would bring back information in terms of astrology, or a economy, or trade and business and agriculture and farming. When they when they would, or history or even information on different religions, when they would bring back this knowledge, they

00:56:17--> 00:56:22

would build circles, they would form circles around these individuals to get that knowledge directly from them.

00:56:23--> 00:56:44

At the same time, genealogy was an expertise of these Arabs. It was something they were very keen on. The history of lineages where people came from a child by the age of four, could literally recite his own genealogy, his own family tree, going 20 generations back by the age of 40.

00:56:45--> 00:57:25

And it was such an obsession amongst them genealogy. They even preserved the genealogy of horses. They even would preserve the genealogy of horses, and because they were not literate people, they would memorize them. They would memorize the genealogy of horses. So genealogy was an expertise that existed amongst them. And it was a big site, it was a science. It was a knowledge that they prided themselves on. And of course, we know about the the, the the rhetoric, the eloquence, the oratory skills, the poetic skills of the Arabs, and how they prided themselves on this. And this is a big part of their culture in their society, wars would be started. Like when I say wars, like battles

00:57:25--> 00:57:36

would begin through displays of poetry and eloquence. They wouldn't send warriors out to the middle to first fight it out, and then the battle would begin, they would send poets out to the middle,

00:57:37--> 00:57:58

to recite poetry to each other to each other, praising their own people and degrading the others. That poetry was not just, it began wars, it would end wars, tribes would one up each other, they would have pride over each other based on how many poets came from their tribe. He's from our tribal, he's from my tribal, he's from their tribe.

00:57:59--> 00:58:08

So tribes deprive each other based on their poet's All right, and so their entire culture was founded on this the true tradition of Hajj

00:58:09--> 00:58:42

that existed pre islamically. While it was it had certain abor certain similarities to the Muslim practice of Haji Islamic institution of marriage. But nevertheless, it was very different at the same time. And part of the difference was Hodge was a gathering when they would have poetry competitions, there was another occasion by the name of cars, when all war all battles, all differences would be put aside, and all the greatest poets of the land would gather in a place outside of Makkah, and there they would have poetry competitions, and the king of poetry for the year would be crowned at that time, the leader of poetry.

00:58:43--> 00:58:56

Mr. poet, man would be crowned at that time, and would be given his trophy until the following year at that time. So this was a big part of that culture and that tradition that existed at that time. And they prided themselves on this. poetry was the law of the land.

00:58:57--> 00:59:30

And this is a big reason for why the miracle that was the primary miracle of course, that was given to the Prophet system was on itself. And that's why the miracle was embedded within the guidance as a form of eloquence, because that was something that they definitely understood in the prophets. Allah Himself was an extremely eloquent man. He was not literate, which is something we'll talk about later. He was not a poet, but nevertheless, the prophets a lot of them was an extremely eloquent man. And I forgot to mention this. We were going to talk next week about the religion of the Arabs and we'll talk about the idols present within the huddle around the Kaaba placed in the

00:59:30--> 00:59:59

garbage around the Kaaba, something else. They held the Kaaba as a sacred place, and you know, what they would do with poetry, whatever poetry was crowned to be the best poetry of that time, or that that competition would have the distinction would have the honor of being hung from the Kaaba or hung near to the Kaaba, and they will be called the alma alacarte. the poetry of Emerald pays to Haiti, even Abu Salma they were hung there as the the richest of poetry, from the

01:00:00--> 01:00:23

tradition and they will be called the Alma cada hung poems, and they will literally be hung near or around the Kaaba. And so the these are some of the circumstances, both culled from all aspects, the geographical, the historical, the genealogical, the political, the economic, and even the cultural circumstances that were present at that time in the Arabian Peninsula.

01:00:24--> 01:01:01

Prior to the birth of the Prophet salallahu alaihe, Salam amongst these people, were nearing the time of Salatin Asia. Now inshallah so we're going to go ahead and stop for this week, next week, we will talk about the religion of the Arabs. And that's going to have some very, very interesting details, because that is a key and the root of everything. And then the following week, we'll talk about the birth of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, and how the prophets Allah SNM was able to change the time was able to counter all of these negative influences and was literally able to restore this society, these people to their original pristine of where they came from Ibrahim Alayhi

01:01:01--> 01:01:07

Salam and that rich tradition and how he was able to reverse the complete circumstances of these people.

01:01:08--> 01:01:18

May Allah subhanho wa Taala give us the understanding of everything that has been said and heard about him. So Subhan Allah who will be handy to define Colombia from Venezuela in terms of one or two