What Was Arabian Paganism Actually Like? | Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad
Summary
TLDRIn this discussion, the focus shifts to the book on the religion and rituals of pre-Islamic nomadic pagans in Arabia. The authors delve into the religious landscape before monotheism, highlighting how Islamic works often portray pre-Islamic beliefs as isolated and misunderstood. They argue that inscriptions offer a richer, interconnected view of these ancient beliefs, showing divine relationships and mythologies. The book reveals a complex religious system where gods influence life but not the afterlife, and death is an inevitable force. This insight challenges previous misconceptions and underscores the need to reinterpret pre-Islamic Arabian religion through archaeological records.
Takeaways
- 📚 Discussion shifts to the book on pre-Islamic nomadic pagan rituals in Arabia.
- 🔍 Importance of understanding pre-Islamic Arabian society and the context of 'Jahiliyyah' or the age of ignorance.
- 📜 Islamic sources often lack a mythological framework for pre-Islamic deities.
- ⚖️ The term 'Jahiliyyah' reflects our ignorance about the period rather than the ignorance of the people at the time.
- 🗿 Epigraphic evidence often contradicts Islamic folklore about pre-Islamic Arabian gods.
- 🌌 Deities in pre-Islamic Arabia had both celestial and terrestrial manifestations.
- ⛓️ Pre-Islamic Arabians had a system of divine relationships and mythological narratives connecting different gods.
- 🌧️ Rituals and sacrifices were performed to gain favor and intervention from gods.
- 💀 Death was a force that gods could not overcome, illustrating the limitations of divine power.
- ⏳ Fate (Manaya) and time (Dahr) were seen as inevitable forces leading to death, resonating with concepts in the Quran.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the discussed book?
-The book focuses on the religion and rituals of the nomads of pre-Islamic Arabia, providing a global analysis of the inscriptions left by these nomadic groups.
How do the authors approach the study of pre-Islamic inscriptions?
-The authors suggest letting inscriptions explain other inscriptions, similar to the Islamic tradition of letting the Quran explain the Quran. This approach helps to better understand the context and meaning behind the inscriptions.
What is the term 'Jahiliyyah' and how is it interpreted in the book?
-Jahiliyyah refers to the 'age of ignorance' before Islam. The book suggests that this term reflects our ignorance about that period rather than the ignorance of the people themselves.
What discrepancies do the authors find between Islamic folklore and archaeological records?
-The authors find that many stories in Islamic folklore about pre-Islamic deities do not match the archaeological and epigraphic evidence. For example, the god 'Wadd' mentioned in folklore is absent in the archaeological record of North Arabia.
How do the inscriptions challenge the portrayal of pre-Islamic Arabian religion in Islamic works?
-The inscriptions reveal a more complex mythological framework with relationships among deities and detailed rituals, contrasting with Islamic works that often depict pre-Islamic gods as isolated idols without a coherent narrative.
What role do personal names play in preserving the memory of pre-Islamic deities?
-Personal names containing theophoric elements (names of deities) were preserved into the Islamic period, helping scholars identify which deities were worshipped in pre-Islamic times.
What is the significance of the poem about the storm god and death?
-The poem highlights the mythological battle between the storm god and the deified force of death, illustrating the pre-Islamic belief in divine forces controlling natural phenomena and life cycles.
How do the authors use inscriptions to understand pre-Islamic religious practices?
-Inscriptions provide direct evidence of religious practices, such as sacrifices, pilgrimages, and appeals to gods for intervention in daily life. These practices reflect the belief in reciprocal relationships between humans and deities.
What do the inscriptions reveal about the pre-Islamic belief in an afterlife?
-The inscriptions suggest that while there was a belief in some form of afterlife, the gods were not thought to influence it. Curses and appeals to deities in inscriptions mainly concern this life rather than the afterlife.
How do pre-Islamic beliefs about fate and death compare to Islamic teachings?
-Pre-Islamic beliefs viewed fate as an inevitable force that eventually overcomes everyone, a concept echoed in the Quranic discussions about fate and the denial of resurrection by some opponents of the Prophet Muhammad.
Outlines
📖 Introduction to the Book Discussion
The speaker begins by transitioning from the current topic to discussing the book. They mention the importance of understanding the religious revolution that introduced monotheism to Arabia and propose a step back to explore the world of nomadic pagans before this shift. The book provides a global analysis of pre-Islamic Arabian nomads' religion and rituals, emphasizing the importance of interpreting inscriptions within their historical context.
🗿 Examining Pre-Islamic Pagan Society
The speaker discusses how pre-Islamic pagan society, often labeled as the 'Age of Ignorance,' is misunderstood. Scholars rely on Islamic texts that describe pre-Islamic rituals and beliefs, but these accounts lack a mythological framework. The gods are depicted as isolated idols without interconnected narratives, focusing more on rituals than their meanings. This portrayal serves to contrast the pre-Islamic period with Islam.
🔍 Analysis of Historical Records and Discrepancies
The speaker explains how later Islamic writers created folklore to fill gaps in historical knowledge. They discuss the inconsistencies found when comparing these Islamic texts with archaeological and epigraphic evidence. For example, the god Wadd, mentioned in both Islamic texts and the Quran, lacks archaeological evidence of worship in certain regions, highlighting the constructed nature of these historical accounts.
🏛️ Understanding the Epigraphic Evidence
The speaker delves into the role of personal names and how they preserved the names of pre-Islamic deities. These names survived into the Islamic period, helping to reconstruct historical religious practices. The speaker gives examples of deities like Rudaw and explains how folklore around these gods developed, often conflicting with epigraphic evidence.
📜 The Divine Relationships in Pre-Islamic Mythology
The speaker discusses the relationships between different deities in pre-Islamic mythology, as depicted in Safaitic inscriptions. They explain the dual manifestations of gods, such as Al-Lat, who was both a heavenly and earthly deity. The inscriptions reveal a divine family with gods like Allah, Al-Lat, and Al-Uzza, showing interconnected divine relationships absent in later Islamic texts.
🌧️ Divine Forces and Their Roles
The speaker describes the role of gods like Baalshamin, the storm god, in pre-Islamic religion. A poem illustrates the battle between the storm god and Death, symbolizing the seasonal cycle of rain and drought. These mythological elements, which are missing in Islamic texts, provide a richer understanding of pre-Islamic religious beliefs and practices.
👥 Human Emotions in Inscriptions
The speaker highlights how inscriptions reveal personal emotions and daily concerns of ancient people. Examples include inscriptions expressing longing for family members and prayers for divine intervention. These records show the gods' perceived ability to influence everyday life, offering a glimpse into the intimate relationship between people and their deities.
⚖️ The Limits of Divine Power
The speaker presents an inscription illustrating the limitations of divine power. While gods could protect and prolong life, they could not prevent death, which was seen as inevitable. The absence of afterlife curses in inscriptions suggests that pre-Islamic Arabs believed in some form of afterlife, but it was not influenced by the gods.
⌛ The Role of Fate and Time
The speaker explains the concept of fate in pre-Islamic religion, which was seen as an unstoppable force. Inscriptions show that people believed fate, or 'Manaya,' stalked the living and ultimately led to death. This belief is reflected in the Quranic discourse where opponents of the Prophet deny resurrection, emphasizing the temporal nature of life.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Pre-Islamic Arabia
💡Jahiliyyah
💡Nomadic Pagans
💡Inscriptions
💡Epigraphic Record
💡Folklore
💡Deities
💡Archaeological Evidence
💡Religious Rituals
💡Mythology
💡Islamic Tradition
Highlights
Discussion about the religious revolution that brought monotheism to Arabia and its importance.
Introduction to the study of the religion and rituals of nomadic pagans in pre-Islamic Arabia.
Explanation of how scholars use Islamic works to describe pre-Islamic pagan Arabian society and its limitations.
The absence of a mythological framework in Islamic descriptions of pre-Islamic pagan practices.
The term 'Jahiliyyah' reflects modern ignorance about the pre-Islamic period.
Islamic folklore about pre-Islamic gods often conflicts with archaeological and epigraphic records.
Example of the god Wadd, mentioned in the Quran and Islamic literature, but not found in the archaeological record of North Arabia.
The role of personal names in preserving the names of pre-Islamic deities.
Explanation of the two primary divine forces in pre-Islamic nomadic belief: the gods in the heavens and earthly centers.
Discussion of divine relationships among pre-Islamic gods and their roles.
The interaction between storm gods and death in pre-Islamic mythology, symbolizing the dry and rainy seasons.
The limitations of divine power, where gods cannot deliver individuals from death.
Pre-Islamic belief in gods' intervention in daily life and rituals performed to gain favor.
Inscriptions reflecting personal emotions, such as longing and appeals for help.
Curses in pre-Islamic inscriptions concern this life rather than the afterlife.
Transcripts
is it okay if we move on to your book um
yes yes of course uh so I mean we could
spend the whole episode speaking about
this and uh I think it's of tremendous
importance but I want to make sure that
that we speak also about um this
question of okay so uh even if there was
this religious Revolution Let's go back
one step and speak about the world of
the pagans and in particular the nomadic
pagans um uh before this religious
Revolution that brought monotheism to
Arabia uh and in this book the religion
and rituals of the nomads of pre-islamic
Arabia you both have a sort of global
analysis um of how we should approach
the study of these uh these inscriptions
by the nads you speak of uh letting the
inscriptions uh explain other
inscriptions which is sort of a play on
a word for letting the Quran explain the
Quran in Islamic tradition um so uh and
so I want to start with a quotation that
from the book where you introduce how uh
very often Scholars look at this period
of time before Islam in the Arabian
Peninsula which is generally referred to
as
Al meaning the period or realm of
ignorance um and uh I imagine that the
uh pre-islamic Nomads themselves
wouldn't refer to uh their society as
Jah but um that's part of the point of
the book actually I think because uh
very often Scholars um may be feeling
like they have nowhere else to turn they
go to the few Islamic Works which give
descriptions of the rituals and
practices and beliefs of these
pre-islamic Arabs or J Arabs most
famously the
book
of and then you you write that uh the
following about works like Asam so these
Islamic Works which try to look back at
pre-islamic Pagan Arabian society so you
write quote what is noticeably absent
from such works is any sense of a
mythological framework the gods are
isolated Idols Stones statues and
carvings each one revered by a different
social group with no narrative
connection between them or their role in
the cosmos the narratives are filled
with description of rituals but their
purpose and meaning seem lost of course
none of these details were important for
the goals of the genre of folklore
namely to present a Jah antithetical to
Islam so yeah could you sort of take it
from there how would you explain that
further yes well I think uh the way I
view the term Jah is that it reflects
our ignorance about that period right so
it's the age of ignorance but it's our
ignorance right and uh the I think that
by the time you get to the 9th century
there's sort of a an economy of antiqu
aquarians people are interested in the
distant past and that interest itself
generates folklore generates
storytelling which then individuals go
and collect and they end up uh you know
for example gives you a nice what
appears to be global view of Arabian
religion based on the Poore that was
available to him but when we
take uh what he says and and and look at
it against the archaeological record the
epigraphic record
uh we find a lot of discrepancies and we
can see that he's simply working with
folklore in fact so for example one of
the gods that
uh describes is W right uh W is
mentioned in the Quran as one of the
idols that was worshiped by the people
of Noah so the Quran already sets that
Idol distant pass right it's not an idol
that continues to be worshiped by
contemporaries because the entire world
of Noah was destroyed by the blood
now later writers later Islamic period
writers resolve this by saying that even
though these Idols were destroyed by the
flood they were then dug up again and
their worship resumed right so they they
noticed as well the problem of these
Idols existing before the flood and yet
having them attributed to different
tribes uh at the time of in in um tribes
contemporary with the mission of
Muhammad now even Al tells us that W was
worshiped in North
Arabia uh and that uh uh you know that
people and he gives some kind of stories
around him but when we look at the uh
let's say epigraphic record of religion
in North Arabia what is not to be at all
and it's not because there are gaps in
fact you have continuous attestations of
uh of of the worship of what of the
worship of different deities from places
like tabuk andum to jenda you have a
continuous station from the middle of
the first millennium BCE until the
monotheistic period And W is absence you
have uh the closest you get is the
worship of w at dadan ancient dadan
which is in the northern hij byan Colony
there because what was in fact the
national deity of the manans which were
a South Arabian people so the name so
what this suggests to me is that the
name of what survived they they they
they had the name of this Idol uh and
then they generated sworns in
to try to fill in the backgr and those
and we can see that those stories were
generated in this later period because
they disagree with the archaeological
and epigraphic evidence okay and at the
same time they show us that in fact it
seems that only the names of God
survived until their period but not much
else about when you say that period you
mean the period of
IB that's right yeah so you had the
names of various deities the Quran uh
the Quran of course played a role in
preservation of these names because it
it names uh let's say five and five
idols and three more in Nim but also one
of the things that preserved uh uh
deities names but let's say divorced
from their mythological context of their
worship are personal names personal
names are traditional right you get
named after an ancestor yes those
ancestors may have had Pagan names and
in fact you know most monotheistic
tradition really didn't have a problem
with continuing the use of pagan names
yes uh you can find a Christian today
named Dennis uh doesn't mean he's a
follower of dianis and um uh and in in
fact it was it seems to have been
uh the the religious movement of
Muhammad that had a real problem with
personal names that took issue with the
etmy of personal names and started
changing personal names so it's a sort
of puritanical movement in that sense
you want to erase any remnant of
polytheism but it's clear that personal
theophoric names containing uh foreign
or uh Idols containing the names of
Idols or pre-islamic deities survived
into the Islamic period and that was one
of the ways that people
like knew what was worshiped in the
distant past okay so one one another
example on that point is he has the
name right and he puzzled over that name
a bit he says I don't know exactly what
is I suspect it's a deity because it's
in the name AB but I don't know if it's
a temple or whatever then he shares like
a a Fantastical story about little doll
being a temple in in in southern Arabia
that was destroyed by a uh a a a 300y
old Zealot called the M right so it's a
legend now the fact is is BU is a deity
or was a deity that was worshiped across
Arabia in the n and in the stic
inscriptions as well but didn't know
anything about this deity except for its
name and just having those names you can
you can imagine a situation where you go
and ask older people or people that you
think have some kind of antiquarian
knowledge tell me about rudol and at
that point that I think it's that kind
of interaction that ends up generating
this folklore around these deities so
what we have inab is a book of in my
opinion folklore uh trying to piece
together whatever what what they seem to
what they think are memories of these
ancient deities trying to piece them
together and reconstruct what
pre-islamic Arabian religion looked like
but we can't use that as a source of toe
Islamic Arabian religion we always have
to read it in light of the inscriptions
right right
yeah as you put it I
think the explanation of the
inscriptions by other inscriptions yeah
yeah so but in that in that quotation I
don't know if it's a good good one and
really representative of the principal
argument you want to advance in the book
but you you do allude to the portrait of
pre-islamic Arabia given by works like
Islamic works like as um uh lacking a
framework that would connect the various
societies and cultures and beliefs of
pre-islamic Arabia so do the
inscriptions fill that in do they show
us how uh things in the north south
central are connected or how different
devotions or different uh are
connected so we have some uh when we
look at the satic inscriptions and read
them alongside naan inscriptions we can
sort of we can build a very low
resolution image of right and so what
what's uh what's clear is uh the satic
writers these Nomads believed in two
primary Divine
forces on the one hand you had the god
and the gods from their inscription
resided in the heavens but they also had
Earthly uh uh uh let's say centers as
well so for example Alat is called the
one from a place called Oman now it's
not Oman at theend the other side of the
peninsula it seems to be a lost top and
somewhere probably in Jordan in this
area but she's a lot of Oman right okay
uh and uh but she's also of course a lot
who resids in heaven so they have kind
of two manifestations and the gods are
uh have Rel have relationships among
each other as well so for example in
stic who we who when we read the Quran
all it's claimed that the pagans
consider all to be a daughter of
Allah um but in the saic inscriptions in
their let's say religious view Al was
the daughter of and R was the let's say
his name literally means satisfaction H
it seems to be the yeah Divine
manifestation of pleasure or
satisfaction and his daughter was anat
naan inscription in the naan inscription
Alat is called the mother of the Lord of
of our King of the god of our King right
and so the king is uh this is the king
of natia the
natian national deity withar so it seems
we have three generations of a Divine
family here right little ho whose
daughter's Al whose son
is right okay so they had relationships
with each other on the other side of
things we have for
example and B is the god of storm
responsible for weather make sacrifices
to him to try to you know influence uh
weather conditions make sure the rains
come on time and there's a beautiful
poem about ban and sometimes shorten
just B it's uh it reads like
[Music]
this so it's a three line poem rhyming
rhyming in am and it translates to Mo
death has held a peace indeed the
scorner
eats established is the alternation of
is nights and days right and so that's a
phrase that you also get in the
Quran and L B
sleeps he sleeps but he is not
dead right and that right there you can
you can you can see you can connect that
kind of phrase
with which I would say right so sleep
has overtaken but he's not dead with but
God Allah on the other hand neither of
these fores so we
can yes we can see connection between
this kind of pre-islamic liturgy and
later on in the Quran now so we so this
is the kind of Mythology that we get
from these inscriptions right we get
this idea of uh uh we we we get a a
short poem giving you a a a
uh an outline a summary of the
mythological battle between the storm
God the god of rain and M death right
deified death and death of course is the
dry
season death is what is is when The
Rains of course the half the year there
are no rains and then the Earth dies
right and that's symbolized by this
force of death and so we see their
battle in this this is the kind of
material that's absent in works
like right what we get is people being
devoted to these individual deities
sacrificing to them of course they're
always portrayed as false gods they were
false gods to Their audience but we know
nothing about their mythology we know
nothing about the way uh these ancient
Arabians saw their role in the cosmos
what they were responsible for the
stories they told about them so friends
one of the remarkable features of this
book the religion and rituals of the
nomads of pre-islamic Arabia is uh at
least in my opinion one of its many uh
exceptional features is that it um you
present a sort of
um uh categorized uh description of the
sorts of inscriptions that are found in
safik I think um which basically is from
this region as you mentioned I think
it's called the Hara that stretch
stretches from Southern what is now
Southern Syria to Northern Saudi Arabia
um but uh it it brings to life a whole
people a whole culture um and some of
the inscriptions are explicitly
religious as you mentioned and we'll be
I'd like to mention one of them before
we're done um but then others are um
just I mean imagine uh encountering the
emotions of a person who's gone 2,000 or
more years ago um you know has has been
gone for this long and you ReDiscover it
through this inscription that has been
found somewhere in this region of the
desert for example there's a whole
section that you you report inscriptions
on longing uh and there's a phrase you
give there for it I forget what it is
but um longing for either the family
member when they're away from family or
even for the Habib I
think yeah uh so um I mean I don't know
if you want to comment on on those sorts
of inscriptions there's others on a
appeals like I think there's a number of
inscriptions you report where someone is
asking for a sheep yeah yeah yeah or
something for his sister I think there's
one give me something and something for
my sister I forget it was yes A Feast
for me and a sheep for my sister yeah
yes so that's so bringing it back to and
connecting that with the role of the
Gods we see that the stic authors saw
the gods as being able to intervene in
their life and it seemed that there was
this exchange this relationship where
you perform the rituals required of you
sacrifices pilgrimages things of this
sort and in return the gods will reunite
you with loved ones right they will
deliver you from Misfortune they will
deliver you from dirst and allow the
rains to come and the way that you try
to uh entice the gods and say to give
you favor is by correctly performing
rituals associated with them and there's
this one lovely inscription where a man
records his uh friend being
ill and he and he says and he calls and
he and and they take him to the holy
water of B Sam storm God to his holy
water and he said so heal him so that
his family will say that you are
just or S right but using the we don't
know how to vocalizing it vocalize it
using the S right so that you are just
so this idea that look we do the rituals
and so what you owe us is intervention
right to uh to Del to Deliver Us from
sickness from Misfortune and all of this
and then like I I began the uh uh the
discussion with saying there were two
forces in the in their world two Divine
forces we talked about the gods and the
way you can get the gods to interfere on
your behalf and uh and and and you know
make sure that your life is not as
miserable as it would be otherwise but
there's this beautiful inscription that
illustrates limitations of divine power
so it says by a man he goes to water and
then he says well I'll just read it in
Arabic because it's so close to
classical Arabic I don't think viewers
who know Arabic will have hard time
understanding
it so he stopped and remembered the de
the
dead and then he
says so he
agreed
right so oh give long life to Your
Righteous
worshipper and protect
him but from Death there is no
deliverance and so the idea is that the
gods can prolong your life can give you
can give you momentary escapes from Bad
circumstances can protect you but they
cannot deliver you from
death does does this mean there there's
no conception of reward and Punishment
after death so this is this is the yeah
this is where it leads to I I think
what's fascinating is the thousands and
thousands of soptic inscriptions we have
many of these authors protect their
inscriptions with curses and these
curses can range from May the person who
puts up or faces this inscription go
blind go mad have M scab mange break a
leg I mean what you could think of right
all kinds of curses but there are no
curses that concern the
afteron so there I mean it you know just
looking at it from an antropological
perspective they must have believed in
some kind of afterlife but it seems that
the gods did not influence what happened
there all of the curses all of when they
call upon the gods to curse individuals
it all concerns this life interesting
right okay and so you have these two
these two forces you have the gods of an
assembly on one side and then you have
this Force death right and we I
recounted that poem where body samine
faces off against death and death is
rarely called Mor sometimes called Mor
and and by the way I should say this
before anyone accuses me of pronouncing
Arabic incorrectly I'm pronouncing satic
in the way we can reconstruct it based
on Greek transcriptions that are
contemporary with saftic so it's not
when I yeah just to spell it out I mean
yeah I didn't mean to make that fun but
uh I mean Greek in Greek writing it
represents the vowels and represents
languages including saftic writing
vowels are not represented so those are
really precious when you have the
bilingual inscriptions because you can
use the Greek to vocalize the Arabic
writing precisely so we know their
vowels we know the way words were
vocalized so when I so when I read satic
it sounds sort of like a funky Arabic
but it's based on that reconstruction
it's not classical Arabic although it's
very close to it now you have let's say
on one side of their Divine world the
gods you can appeal to to deliver you
from several things from to to bring the
rains to cure illness and on the other
side you have death and ultimate and
death is something is very rarely called
it's almost always called man which is
cognant with Manaya the fates that you
get in pre-islamic Arabic poetry and
manai stalks the living there are
inscriptions that where where an
individual
writes and so fate lay in weight
or you'll call upon some
deity so deliver him right to be
delivered from fate stalking them uh but
ultimately the gods may give you escape
But ultimately fate always catches me no
matter what the end of the day fate
overcomes and you meet your
death some ways yeah in some ways this
just fits fits well
with the discourse in the Quran where
the opponents of the Prophet are uh
denying the
resurrection um but that of course
complicates brings us back to the
question of uh so was there still were
there still these pagans Pagan deniers
of the Resurrection by the time to the
seventh century so you have that line
what is there but this life but but this
worldly life
yes we we I would translate it as we
sleep and we wake up and nothing Dooms
us but fate right and that's a the Quran
calls it is not attested in but con
conceptually it seems to be equivalent
to this man Force time time which is
linked with fate that consumes you and
absolutely absolutely and so when people
die when they put up funerary
inscriptions in stic the dead are
called struck down by
fa
تصفح المزيد من مقاطع الفيديو ذات الصلة
6.7 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
HUKUM ISLAM DAN HAM | PENDAHULUAN
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY - CUSTOMS OF THE TAGALOGS (BSN)
TERNYATA SUNDA WIWITAN TIDAK SESEDERHANA YANG KITA KIRA!! 🤯🤯 | KULTUR.AI
Do Muslims Worship the Same God as Christians and Jews?
السيرة النبوية الحلقة 1 الشيخ نبيل العوضي ( حال العرب في الجاهلية ) HD
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)