MikhailSpeaks

These are my notes from The Sealed Nectar by Sheikh Safiur Rahman al Mubakpuri:

-Most of the arabs complied with the call of Ismael AS

-professed the religion of his father Ibrahim

-worshipped Allah, professed His Oneness, and followed His religion

Idolatry:

-until the chief of Khuza’ah, Amr bin Luhai, came back from a trip to syria

-in Syria, he saw people worshipping idols and brought back with I’m an idol (Tubal) which he placed in the middle of the Ka’bah and summoned people to worship it

-then idolatry spread all over Makkah then Hijaz

-an idol called Manat was worshipped at Al Mushallal near Qudayd on the Red Sea

-Al Lat in Taif

-Al Uzza in the valley of Nakhlah

-Amr bin Luhai, with the help of a Jinn companion, dug out the idols of Noah’s people (Add, Suwa’, Yaguth, Ya’uq, Nasr) in Jeddah and brought them to Tihamah

Some features of their idol worship:

1. Devoting themselves to idols, seeking refuge with them, uttering oaths in their names, calling for their help in hardship, and supplication to them for fulfillment of wishes, believing idols could intercede before Allah
2. Performing pilgrimage, doing tawaf around them, even prostrating themselves before them
3. Sacrificed in their name (Quran 5:3 and 6:121)
4. Allocating certain portions of food, drink, cattle, crops to idols (Quran 6:136)
5. Offered them crops and cattle (Quran (6:138)
6. Dedicated certain animals to idols (sparing them from work for the sake of these pagan gods) (Quran 5:103)

Such superstitions were first invented by Amr bin Luhai

-Another tradition was casting of Azlam, featherless arrows which were of 3 kinds: yes, no, and a blank one

-They would draw these to decide serious matters

-Belief in omens for foretelling future events was common among the Arabs

-also believed that the soul of a murdered person would fly in the wilderness and would never be at rest until revenge was taken

-still, they retained some of the Abrahamic traditions such as devotion to the Ka’bah, tawaf, observance of hajj, the stay at Arafat, and offering sacrifices

-used to ordered pilgrims coming from outside Makkah to do tawaf in clothes provided by the Quraish, if not able to afford then men were to do tawaf naked

-used to enter houses through holes they used to dig in the back walls when in Ihram (prohibited in Quran 2:189)

Jews:

-moved from Palestine to Arabia because of two events:

1. persecuted by King Bukhtanassar of Babylon after he destroyed their temple (left in 587 BC)
2. migrated to Hijaz and Athrib because of the Roman occupation of Palestine in 70 CE

-spread to Yemen from Asad Abi Karb

-embraced Judaism in Yathrib then took two rabbis from Bani Quraizah to instruct people of Yemen in this new religion

-his son, Yusuf Dhu Nawas rose to power and attacked the community of Christians in Najran (incident of the people of the ditch)

-estimated 20-40k Christians were killed

-occurred in 523 CE

Christianity:

-entered from the Abyssinian and Roman colonists. 

-from 340 CE to 378 CE

-entered Yemen when a Christian missionary called Fimion, entered into Najran

Magianism was also popular among the Arabs living in the region of Persia, Iraq, Bahrain, Al Ahsa

Sabianism was popular amongst the Kaldanian people, the Syrians, and the Yemenis