Illicit
Sex
Arabs in the Age of Ignorance had no
custom of observing Hijâb (covering of women) and their women would come freely
before strange men. The lack of the necessities of life and other
time-consuming affairs, an irresponsible sense of freedom, over indulgence in
poetic composition, their assertion of pride and superiority, and the hot
climate of the country was enough to instigate this tendency. Anyone who never
fell in love with a strange woman was disrespected. Some tribes were renowned
for their love making. Banu Adhrah's love gained so much celebrity and renown
that it became proverbial:
أشق
من بني عذرة
That is, so-and-so is a lover
greater than Banu Adhrah. Someone asked a bedouin which tribe did he belong to?
He replied that he was from a tribe that when they fall in love they pass away.
A girl heard it and remarked: "By the Lord of Ka'bah, you are from Banu
Adhrah."
Poetry
During the Age of Ignorance in
Arabia everyone participated in the art of poetry. Men, women, children, old
and young, all were poets of higher or lower degree. They were born with poetry
and eloquence. Their poetic exercises generally were impromptu. They needed no
thinking or reflecting and never needed to search for topics. They were so
proud of their eloquence and command of language that they considered all the
non-Arabs as unable to speak. But the Quran shattered the arrogance of their
eloquence and rhetoric into pieces and they had to bow down before the glory of
the Book of Allâh.
The one whose ode of tribute was
acknowledged as the best in a poetic congregation on the occasion of fairs,
special functions and Hajj, was immediately accepted as the best among them in
position and stature. To them poets were equal to brave commanders and kings or
even greater than them in status. In fact, it was an easy job for the poets to
cause tribes to fight against one another, to make tribes extraordinarily
brave, to keep the fighting going on or to put an end to it. The best odes of
tribute were hung over the walls of the Ka'bah. Thus seven such odes of tribute
known as the Seven Golden Odes, which were written by Imra'-ul Qais bin Hijr
Kindi, Zuhair bin Abu Salma Muzani, Labid bin Rabi'ah, Amr bin Kulthum and
Antarah Absi.
Passion
for Hunting
During the Age of Ignorance, the
Arabs had a great enthusiasm for hunting and so there are a great number of
terms in Arabic for hunting activities. The game which moves from right to left
was called Sâneh, while the one going from left to right was called Bâreh. The
game coming from the front was called Nâteh and the one from behind was Qa'eed.
The hunter's ambush was named Qarrah. Zabiah was the name given to the ditch
dug for hunting a lion. They gave the name Talabbud to the state of the hunter
when he crawled on his stomach sticking close to the earth, and the state of
going out to hunt and coming back without hunting was called Ikhfâq. On hunting
an animal they ate its meat without any sense of its being permitted or
prohibited. Islam brought about the limitation of lawful and unlawful and
imposed certain restrictions on hunting.
Food
and Clothes
Arabia produces neither silk nor
cotton. Some regions produce them in such a meager quantity that is quite
insufficient for the needs of the people. Yemen has been noted for its cloth
from ancient times. The Arabs generally had very simple clothes to wear.
Wearing coarse clothes with leather patches was customary. Some people would
make a sheet by joining small leather patches held together by pins, and such a
sheet or mantle served the purpose of wrapping and spreading. Garments were
also woven from camel and sheep hair, and those pieces of cloth were also used
for making tents and for bedding and carpeting. Loose low hanging colorless
shirts, waist sheets and turbans or scarves on the head were standard dress.
They knew about aloeswood, ambergris, and incense. Their food was also very
simple and unceremonious. They could be content with unpalatable food with a
bad taste. Meat and flesh happened to be very tasty and valuable things to
them. Milk and meat were most common. Cheese, battered barley grain, dates,
olive oil, and Harirah were their common items. Sieving of flour was not a common
practice; they rather baked bread with unsieved flour. They had no proper
etiquette of dining. This can be assessed from the dos and don'ts prescribed by
the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم)
for eating and drinking in Ahadith which forbid many kinds of misbehavior like
gluttony, shamelessness, unclean habits and nonsensical talk while eating.
Plunder
As mentioned previously, Arabia had
two types of people, one settled in cities and settlements and another living a
nomadic life, the latter were larger in number. Although the citizens carried
some qualities like rights of neighbors, trusteeship and honesty, but the
defects of deceit, cheating and conniving in trade and business were plentiful.
They were expert in raiding and highway robbery of the nomadic type Almost all
were addicted to looting the travelers and snatching away goods by force. On
finding someone making a journey alone, they covered and hid the wells which
were on the way with grass and other things so that the traveler would die of thirst
and they would take his goods. Some of them were proverbially expert in
committing theft. These thieves were called Dhubân-ul-Arab (wolves of Arabia).
Conceit
Conceit had touched its peak during
Arabian Ignorance. Jadhimah Abrash was so haughty that he never appointed any
one as an adviser to consult with. He would say that Farqadain (the two
brilliant stars near the Polestar) were his companions. Many other tribes were
well known for these base qualities and none of the tribes were free from this
conceit. As a result of this, they never listened to the good counsel and
preaching of the Prophets and religious guides for obedience was a trait
shameful to them.
Unending
Malice
In case they failed to take revenge
on their enemy or assassin during his lifetime, they made his sons and
grandsons the target of their revenge and they passed their days in
discontentment until they took out their vengeance on their enemies. They would
take revenge even if the reason behind it had been forgotten. They would be intent
to kill someone out of enmity without even telling anyone what was the cause of
the hostility.
Mourning
the Dead
Upon the death of someone, his
relatives would tear at their faces and hair and cry in pain. Women would
follow the funeral with their hair untied and head dusted. Like the Hindus in
India shaving their head and beard out of sorrow for the dead, in Arabia during
the Days of Ignorance, women would shave their heads. Women were also called
for lamenting which they did at the top of their voices; after the burial,
these women were served food.
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