Talk:Pre-Islamic Arabia
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How on earth have the "Ghaznavids" survived in this article this long?! Slackerlawstudent 17:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Per discussions in other venues, I set this article up as a stub. I'll fill in what I can, later, but would much appreciate help from other editors. Zora 02:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] This is the end, my only friend, the end...
Any idea when Pre-Islamic Arabia ends? Might be helpful before we start filling in the sections. As far as I can tell, there are several possible dates:
- 610 - Muhammad receives his first revelations of the Quran. There is an Islam now.
- 622 - The Hijra. This is the date most Muslims would give and is the epoch of the Muslim calendar.
- 630 - Muhammad conquers the Hejaz, crushing the armies of Mecca and Ta'if.
- 632 - Muhammad dies, having unified the Arabian peninsula. (Although in many places he was only a nominal ruler)
- 633 - Abu Bakr re-unifies the Arabian peninsula. :)
- 661 - The end of the Fitnah and the beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate. Henceforth, the Muslim capitals will be in Damascus and Baghdad, not Mecca and Medina.
Palm_Dogg 03:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
- Darn good question. I'd say that the pre-Islamic era ended with the Ridda wars, since that is universally accepted as having unified all of Arabia under Islam. We can see the "Islamic era" as a widening circle, one that started with Muhammad's household and ended when all of Arabia was nominally Muslim.
- But I could be argued out of it.
- It would also be interesting to discuss the reversion of Arabia to a backwater (all the action moved to the areas around the steppes) and possibly a reversion to pre-Islamic ways of life. But perhaps that's another article :) Zora 07:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bedouin culture
We cannot describe Bedouin culture by talking about later Muslim classifications of marriage forms. I removed the irrelevant material. There are useful discussions of Bedouin society in Watt (Muhammad at Mecca, Muhammad at Medina) and Donner (Early Islamic Conquests), probably in other books as well -- I just don't have them to hand.
I've just found a fascinating book, Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam, Robert G. Hoyland; Routledge, 2001. It is based on the latest in archaeological research and it seems to be quite good. I'm reading it through my Questia account. So far, I'd enthusiasticly recommend it.
The Hawting book, overall, isn't that good. But the bibliography was useful. Zora 11:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Recommended book for article editors
I would like to recommend to those editing articles about Islam and pre-Islamic history to check out a book titled "The Quran" commentary by yusuf ali
