The presentation give brief idea on social and religious life of Arabia during the pre islamic period and also touches the expansion of Islam as a world religion.

1. Welcome

2. Religion of pre – Islamic Arabs
MANOJ .R
Assistant Professor,Islamic History
Maharaja’s college,Ernakulam

3. Introduction
• Pre Islamic period –Jahilliyah-age of
Ignorance
• Sources of Arab history-genealogical
traditions-Tribalism
• Poetry the vehicle of history
• Work of Hisham Al Khalbi(819-920),Kitab
Al Asnam( The book of Idols)

4. Chapter I
practice of worship among Arabs
• What Quran Says?
• And if you ask them ,who created
the heavens and the earth and
constrained the sun and the
moon(to their appointed task) they
would say:Allah.How, then,are they
turned away?
(29:61)

5. Tribalism
• Inter tribal conflicts-petty reasons
Pastering fields,camel,etc
• Batttle of basus-Banu bakr X Banu
Thaghlib-she camel-40yrs
• Might is right –political as well as
social theory
• Tribal spirit-blue blood

6. Chapter II
Idol worship in Ka’aba
• 365 above idols in ka’aba-the centre
• There was a conept of Monothism
• Daughters of Allah
• Al Manah
• Al Lat
• Al Uzza

7. Chapter III
worship of heavenly bodies
• The dead heroes of the tribe
• The trees
• The sun
• The moon

8. The other religions and Islam
• The Jews
• Migrated to Arabia-the Roman attacks
• Large number inhabited by them
• No religious supremacy

9. The Christianity
• Made a little progress among the Arabs
• Tribes Embraced christanity
• Himyar
• Ghassan
• Rabia
• Tagha’ab
• Bahra
• Tunukh
• Tay
• Khuda
• Inhabitants of Najran and Hira

10. Muslims
• Area of expansion

11. Spread of Islam
• Islam flourished in Arabia by the preaching
and teaching of the Prophet Muhammed
• He was victorious as a religious
head,statesman,deplomat,Politician,leader,
supreme commander of the army,Judge
and above all a man with great love
• Established Islamic state and Expanded

12. A glimpse of present scenario
• Today there are nearly 65 states or countries with significant or
majority populations who are Muslim.
• They include some of the largest nations in the world in terms
of population, such as Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Others
are small countries like Qatar and Djibouti.
• Many are secular republics such as Indonesia, or
• Monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, or
• so-called “Islamic states” such as Iran.
• Some are democracies, such as Malaysia.
• No majority Muslim state exists in Europe or the Americas.
• Almost all of these Muslim states are also developing nations
that have only recently emerged from European colonialism.

13. A bird’s eye vision

14. Conclusion
• Pre Islamic Arabs are monotheistic
• The Arabs were undoubtedly indifferent
towards religion, but that should not
lead any one to conclude that they had
no notion of religion whatsoever. They
had had an idea of an All-Supreme
power controlling the Universe, His
Wrath and Favour, the life after death
and the angels. But all these ideas had
been adulterated with idolatry