The Arabian Peninsula in the centuries
before Muhammad's birth was a patchwork
of tribes, oases, trade cities, Bedouin,
Jewish settlements, Christian monks at work.
Two great lineages are traced by tradition.
Qahtan, the southern Arabs, the Yemen tribes,
descended from Joktan son of Eber,
speakers of ancient South Arabian scribes.
And Adnan, the northern Arabs, the
desert tribes of the Hejaz and Najd,
descended from Ishmael son of Abraham
through a line of thirty generations laid.
Adnan had twelve sons, like the twelve
tribes of Israel from Jacob's line.
The Quraysh tribe traced to him through
Nizar, Mudar, Ilyas, a noble sign.
Muhammad would come from Adnan's descent,
from the Quraysh of Mecca, specifically
from the clan of Hashim, which gave
the name Hashemite to the family.
The pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped many gods.
Allah was the high god, creator, most high,
but rarely worshipped directly — his daughters
al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat drew the eye.
The Kaaba at Mecca housed 360 idols,
one for every day of the lunar year,
tribal gods, astral deities, household idols,
Hubal the chief among them held dear.
But the Arabs also had the concept of
hanif, a pure monotheist in the line
of Abraham, who worshipped the one God
without joining Jewish or Christian shrine.
Muhammad's great-great-grandfather Qusay
had consolidated the Quraysh in Mecca,
establishing them as guardians of the Kaaba
and the pilgrimage trade's great bank-checker.
The Quraysh controlled the sacred months
when fighting was forbidden throughout Arabia
to allow caravans and pilgrimages to flow.
This gave them wealth through Mecca's bizarria.
Yemen to the south had the Himyarite Kingdom,
which converted to Judaism in the fourth century,
then was invaded by Christian Aksum, then
by Sassanid Persia, politically drifting free.
The Ghassanids on the northwestern frontier
were Christian Arab vassals of Byzantium.
The Lakhmids in the east were Christian
Arab vassals of the Sassanids, serving them.
Jewish tribes lived in Medina (Yathrib):
the Banu Qurayza, Banu Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa,
who had fled there after Roman wars
and established themselves as the economic driver.
Christian monks wandered the Hejaz
as hermits in caves along trade routes,
where caravans would stop for water
and hear the teaching at lonely outposts.
This was the context: a peninsula with
multiple religions already present,
where monotheism was known but not
universal, where pagan worship was prevalent.
Trade connected Arabia to the world.
Frankincense and myrrh went north to Rome.
Silk and spices came from India and China
through the Arabian ports of Yemen's home.
The century before Muhammad saw
the great Byzantine-Sassanid wars,
which weakened both empires, disrupted trade,
and left Arabia watching both contenders' scores.
The Year of the Elephant, 570 CE,
saw Abraha, the Christian Ethiopian ruler
of Yemen, march on Mecca with elephants
to destroy the Kaaba, sacred center ruler.
His expedition was miraculously defeated
(tradition says birds dropped stones on them,
a plague struck them, they retreated).
Muhammad was born that year, some remember.
He was born an orphan, his father dead
before his birth, his mother dying young.
Raised by his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib,
then his uncle Abu Talib with lung.
He worked as a merchant, earned the nickname
al-Amin, the trustworthy one.
He married the wealthy widow Khadija
fifteen years his senior, a deal well done.
He would go to the cave of Hira to meditate
on the Mount of Light outside Mecca.
At forty, in the year 610,
the archangel Gabriel would visit him, a wrecker
of his old life and opener of the new.
"Recite!" the angel said. "In the name of your Lord
who created, created man from a clot."
The Quran began. A new religion was born.
Stand.