ARTS 017 Lecture 1/2 Notes 1

Methodology and History

Finding religion

 To recap from the last lecture, if culture is all human activity that is observable and
doable, then religion is a part of that activity.
 Of course, religion to many of us may not be the same as playing football or watching
Bollywood movies. We may argue that religion means something more- it has at its
core a metaphysical reality, intimations of a world beyond the material world. But
that has to do with the personal beliefs of an individual.
 Religion does not exist in society except in what we can observe in the performance
and production of rituals, traditions, art and architecture of a culture.
 So where can we find religion to observe and record? It’s all around us actually: think
customary Muslim prayer, eating at sunset to break the fast in Ramadan, a headscarf,
Qur’anic calligraphy, a free ‘Guide to Islam’ booklet you find in a mall, public ‘sadaqa’
(charity) boxes, photos of UAE rulers, ‘halal’ food products, Qur’an study circles and
so on.

Studying religion

There are two ways to study religion:

 By examining and evaluating the belief system of a religion, typically a subjective

exercise.
 By studying the physical/external manifestations of religion around us, as a detached
observer: observe, contextualize, attribute and communicate (in your cultural report
assignment for example). Don’t judge or qualify religious behavior. For the purposes
of cultural understanding and intercultural dialogue, this is how we wish to study
Islamic culture in this course.

Starting with history

 Religion is born in human history. What that means is that its prophets and texts
speak to a particular historical context, a society and a culture at a certain point in
time.
 In 7th century Arabia, the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’anic message that he
communicated to his fellow Arabs in the city of Mecca was highly relevant to Meccan
society and its values and needs at the time. Thus, in order to understand why Islam
as a religious and social identity took hold in the region, we must examine life in 7 th
century Arabia.

Pre-Islamic Arabia

 Geography The Arabian Peninsula lay between the great Byzantine and Sassanian
empires of the north and the kingdoms of the Red Sea (Yemen and Ethiopia). The
greater part of the peninsula was desert, with scant water resources and agriculture in
isolated oases.
 Occupations The inhabitants followed different ways of life. There were nomads (we
know them as bedouins) who pastured camels, sheep and goats in the desert,
cultivators of grain and date palms, merchants, traders and craftsmen in the cities.
 Social organisation Tribal. The tribesmen were known for their loyalty to family,
pride in ancestry, and ethos of courage and hospitality. Tribal leaders held power,
maintained close links with the merchants and organised trade through their
territories, an important source of revenue and influence.
 Religion Mainly polytheism and henotheism. There were also Jews and Christians in
Northern Arabia. In Mecca, there was the Ka‘ba, which had existed since the time of
Abraham. In 7th C Arabia, this Ka‘ba housed the 360 idols of the Arab tribes and was
the site of annual pilgrimage. While these deities were primary objects of worship,
there was also shared belief in a common God called “Allah” (henotheism). “Allah”
was the supreme high God but remote from the concerns and issues of everyday life
and thus not an object of cult or worship. Associated with Allah were three female
ARTS 017 Lecture 1/2 Notes 2
Methodology and History

deities whom the pre-Islamic Meccans took to be intermediaries/intercessors: al-Lat,

Manat and al-Uzza.
 Language Various dialects of Arabic. There also emerged a common poetic language
out of these dialects, more formal and refined. The poems, longer and most valued
one ones of which were the odes or qasidas, were composed to be recited in public
and transmitted orally.
 There was little leisure time or propensity among the Arab tribesmen to pursue
“civilization” or “high culture”, characteristic of settled societies that are typically
self-sufficient in agriculture. However the Arabian Peninsula was open to influences
from the kingdoms and states around it; the Chritsian centre Hira and the kingdom of
Yemen, and also the passage of traders along the trade routes.

Having read the above, imagine now the rise of a Prophet from among the Arabs who
proclaimed a new vision of life and what followed after death. Born in the powerful tribe
of Quraysh in Mecca, an influential centre of trade, pilgrimage and worship, Muhammad
(570-632 A.D.) brought a message that was at once religious and social. He condemned
the practices of female infanticide, slavery, usury, bloodshed, fornication, adultery and
theft that plagued Arab society at the time, preaching instead for example, the values of
social justice, honesty and kindness to women and orphans.

The questions about the meaning of life and how it should be lived that had characterized
settled societies of the great religions were suddenly being pondered in the deserts and
oases of Arabia, directed repeatedly at the Prophet by the (often incredulous) Meccans.
Most Meccans, certainly the wealthy ones, seem to have believed in a kind of materialism
and that it was simply the passage of Time (dahr) that ultimately brought death and
nothing came after. The Prophet introduced to them the idea of an afterlife and the
existence of a paradise (described in the metaphors of beautiful shaded gardens and rivers
as well as an abundance of food and wine) and a hell (described in the metaphors of fire
and heat), either of which an individual could end up in depending on his obedience to
the divine law as a guide to all spheres of his life. Can we say that the Arab spiritual
imagination at this time was just about ready to start embracing these ideas, albeit not
without strong resistance as we know from the early years of the Prophet’s preaching?

The Qur’an, as a text spoke to the Arabs in the language of their poetry with similar
cadence, rhythm and formality. Moreover, it spoke to them about their society. Imagine
the resonance and impact it must have had. While the Qur’an consciously placed itself
and Islam in the line of the Judeo-Christian tradition, it proclaimed itself to be the final
word of God and Muhammad to be the last messenger. Thus the emergence of an Arabian
Prophet and an Arabic Qur’an that was to provide a universal message were key moments
in the formulation of a strong Arab-Muslim identity that was at once political and
religious.