The dry, mountainous landscape of the Hijaz is not an environment that gives much life. Situated in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula, this land can be described with two words: dry and hot. In the summer, temperatures regularly rise to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with little precipitation. Further east, endless sand dunes mark a landscape devoid of greenery or permanent settlements. Yet it was from this harsh landscape that, in the early 600s, a new movement emerged; one that would change the course of history in the Arabian Peninsula and beyond. Geography The Arabian Peninsula covers an area of over 2 million square kilometers in the southwestern corner of Asia. Situated between Asia, Africa and Europe, the land is unique in its connection with all three continents of the Old World. Despite its position, it has been mostly ignored by outsiders. The Ancient Egyptians chose to expand into the Fertile Crescent and Nubia rather than venture into Arabia’s deserts. Alexander the Great passed by it in the 300s BCE on his way to Persia and India. The great Roman Empire attempted to invade the peninsula through Yemen in the 20s BCE, but could not adapt to the harsh landscape and thus failed to annex the region. One could hardly blame outsiders for ignoring the Arabian Peninsula. Its dry climate is barely hospitable, even for the nomads who live there. Monsoon winds bring seasonal rains to the southern coast of the peninsula in the autumn, but these are stifled by the quickly rising landscape and never make it deep into Arabia’s deserts. Similarly, rains from the Mediterranean Sea barely touch upon the northern extremities of the Arabian Desert. The result is that the vast majority of the peninsula remains dry year-round. Parched riverbeds known as wadis run throughout the land, yet they are barely recognizable as rivers. When clouds gather and rains fall, they become gushing and powerful waterways, essential for the growth of the seasonal flora that manages to bloom in this dry land. Once the wet season is over, however, the wadis return to their usual, dry state, useless as sources of water. More reliable are the oases—small fertile spots surrounded by the vast expanse of the desert. They were capable of serving host to small communities, or as waypoints for travelers, but were hardly enough to sustain an advanced and large society. The Arabs Civilizations tend to be greatly shaped by the environments in which they develop, and the Arabs are no exception. Everything about the life of the Arab was based around the harsh environment in which he lived. Due to the desert’s inability to support settled civilization, the Arabs were constantly on the move in search of fertile land for their flocks. One theory of the etymology of the label “Arab” even posits that the word itself comes from a Semitic root meaning “wandering” or “nomadic”. The Arabs would spend the summer months around whatever oases or wells they could rely on year after year, trying to make supplies and water last by living on the bare minimum. After months of enduring the summer heat, they would migrate to the south, near Yemen, where rain fell in the autumn and fertile land appeared for their herds. The rain-fed pastures gave their flocks of sheep, goats and camels enough food to live off through the winter months as they pitched their tents and temporarily settled. By the time the rains stopped and the dry season began again in the spring, the Arabs returned to their oases and wells to wait out another summer. This harsh cycle had been the norm for the nomadic Arabs since time immemorial, and it remains in place for the Bedouin Arabs who still live in Arabia’s deserts. In pre-Islamic Arabia, hospitality was of such importance that a guest at the home of an Arab was guaranteed at least three days of total security and protection before he would even be questioned about why he was there. This tradition was further reinforced by the Prophet, who stated that a guest has the right to be hosted for three days. The desert was not a place to be alone. With so many threats to the survival of the Arabs, community cooperation was essential. Reliance on relatives was the first line of defense against famine and the heat that constantly threatened survival. Families were expected to share resources and shelter, and the concept of pure individualism was strongly frowned upon. As such, the family (and by extension, the tribe) served as the most important unit within Arab society. Groups of families travelled together and were considered a qabilah, or clan. Several clans would constitute a tribe, led by a tribal leader called a shaikh. Tribal identity and belonging were vital in the pre-Islamic world. Belonging to a tribe brought protection, support and economic opportunities. Tribes would go to battle to defend one of their own, and tribal warfare was unnervingly common before the arrival of Islam. Competition over grazing lands and flocks regularly brought tribes into devastating wars which could last years and extract a heavy human toll on the participants. For the Arabs, struggle was a constant, against both man and nature. In a tribal, nomadic society like this, artistic expression becomes difficult. The resources and time necessary to complete great sculptures and paintings like the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece were almost non-existent. Yet the natural human desire to search for beauty could not be extinguished by the desert sands. Instead it took on a new form: language. Perhaps more than any other language in the world, Arabic itself is a form of artistic expression. Word and sentence structure is fluid, creating many different ways for a person to express the same idea. Poetry thus naturally became the de facto art of Arabia; long, epic poems glorifying tribes and heroism in war were their greatest works of art. The finest poets were revered celebrities in every way. Their words were memorized by the masses and repeated for generations. The seven most magnificent pre-Islamic poems were known as the mu’allaqat, meaning “the hanging ones”. They were so called because they were hung on the walls of the Ka’ba in Mecca, or alternatively because they were hung in the hearts of all Arabs due to their reverence for the poetic medium. Despite being an advanced literary society, writing was rare in the Arabian Peninsula. While a written form of the language did exist by the 500s, it was rarely learned. Memorization was enough for the Arabs, who were capable of learning poems that were thousands of lines long by heart so they could repeat them to future generations. Memorization would prove to be a vital skill once Islam arrived in the peninsula in the 600s. When it came to religion, the pre-Islamic Arabs were almost exclusively polytheistic. Islamic tradition holds that the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son, Isma‘il (Ismael), built the Ka‘ba in the valley of Mecca in ancient times as a house of worship for one God. The Ka‘ba was built as a plain rectangular building on a foundation set by the first man—Adam. From this shrine, Isma‘il was able to preach the monotheistic message to the Arabs, who adopted him as one of their own. Over the centuries, however, the progeny of Isma‘il distorted his monotheistic teachings. Stone and wood idols were carved to represent the attributes of God. Later, they would go on to represent separate gods entirely. By the time of the Prophet Muhammad, there were 360 gods in the Ka‘ba. The message of Ibrahim and Isma‘il was not entirely lost on the Arabs, however. The two prophets were still revered figures in the minds of the Arabs and even some of their basic teachings still held weight in this society. They certainly believed in the God of Ibrahim and Isma‘il, called Allah in Arabic. But they believed he was one among many different gods, represented by the idols. This belief system was far removed from the strict monotheism those two prophets had preached, and reflected influence from Sumerian religions to the north. Isolated Christian and Jewish communities existed within the Arabian Peninsula and also revered the prophets, but that was where their similarities ended. The sparse monotheists of Arabia tended to avoid complete assimilation with the polytheistic Arabs, instead creating their own insular communities.