Give a brief account of economic life of the people of Arabia prior to the rise of islam(8 marks)?

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The conditions prevailing in Arabia before the advent of Islam we can avail ourselves of the following sources:

1. The Old Testament (notwithstanding all the alterations that have been made in it),

2. Writings of the Greeks and the Romans during the Middle Ages.

3. Islamic history as recorded by Muslim scholars, and

4. Ancient relics, which have been obtained through excavations conducted by the orientalists, which reveal facts to some extent.

Notwithstanding the above-mentioned sources, numerous matters relating to the history of Arabia have not yet become fully clear and continue to remain an insoluble enigma. However, as the study of the conditions of Arabia before the advent of Islam constitutes a preamble to our discourse; but our real aim is the analysis of the life of the Holy Prophet of Islam, therefore we give below a condensed account of some particular and well known aspects of the life of pre-lslamic Arabs.

It is an admitted fact that since times immemorial the Arabian Peninsula has been inhabited by many tribes, some of which have become extinct in the course of time. However, in the history of this land, the following three tribes, which were later sub-divided into different clans, have attained greater fame than others:

1. The Ba'idah: Ba'idah means extinct and these people are so named, because, owing to their continuous disobedience, they were obliterated from the face of the earth, as a consequence of celestial and terrestrial calamities. Possibly these were the very tribes of 'Ad and Thamud which have been mentioned time and again in the Holy Qur'an.

2. The Qehtaniyans: They are the descendants of Ya'rab bin Qehtan. They inhabited Yemen and other parts of southern Arabia and are called the full-blooded Arabs. The Yemenites of today and the tribes of Aus and Khazraj, which constituted two big tribes of Madina in the early days of Islam, are of Qehtaniyan descent. The Qehtaniyans possessed many states. They made strenuous efforts for the development of Yemen and have left a number of civilisations as their memorial.

Their inscriptions are being studied now, according to scientific methods, the Qehtaniyan history has thus been revealed to some extent. Whatever is said about pre-lslamic culture and civilisation of Arabia is totally related to this group of the Arabs and is confined to the region of Yemen.

3. The Adnaniyans: They are the descendants of Isma'il, son of the Prophet Ibrahim. A detailed account of the genealogy of this tribe will be given at a later stage, but, briefly speaking, the position is this: Prophet Ibrahim was ordained by Allah to settle his son Isma'il and his mother Hajar in the land of Makkah.

He, therefore, moved them from Palestine to a deep valley (Makkah) which was absolutely barren. Almighty Allah was kind to them and favoured them with the spring of Zamzam. Isma'il married in a tribe named Jarham, who had pitched their tents at a place near Makkah. His offspring were numerous. One of them was Adnan, who was removed a few generations from Ismai'l

The descendants of Adnan were sub-divided into many tribes. The tribe which acquired fame from amongst them was that of Quraysh, and Bani Hashim formed a part of it.

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