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Social and Economic Conditions In Per-Islamic Mecca

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Mahmood Ibrahim
Mahmood Ibrahim
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

Mecca's existence depended primarily on its location near the most important trade route in western Arabia which linked the surplus-producing region of Yemen with Syria. The route branched near Ayla in the north to proceed to Gaza on the Mediterranean and also to Egypt. Another route branched near Mecca to proceed in a northeasterly direction toward al-Ubulla, Ḥīra, and eventually Sasanid Persia. The commercially advantageous location of Mecca was enhanced further by the Zamzam waterwell which made Mecca a convenient stop in the trade of antiquity. Also the concept of the ḥaram, the sacred area, and its center, the Ka⊂ba, made Mecca the object of pilgrimage during the sacred months, pilgrims/merchants traveled with security of life and property and went to Mecca to trade their commodities.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 343 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

NOTES

1 The most detailed history of pre-Islamic Arabia may be found in Jawād, ⊂Alī, Al-Mufaṣṣal fīt Tārīkh al-⊂Arab qabla al-Islām (10 vols.; Beirut, 1971);Google Scholar see also Levi, G. della Vida, “Pre-Islamic Arabia,” in Faris, N., ed., The Arab Heritage (Princeton, 1934), pp. 25–57;Google Scholar O'Leary, D., Arabia Before Muhammad (London, 1927);Google Scholar Smith, S., “Events in Sixth Century Arabia,” Bulletin of the School of African and Oriental Studies, 16 (1954), 425–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Quṣayy's transition to power might have been a gradual and peaceful one since he was married to the daughter of the leader of the Khuzā⊂ah, Hulail ibn Ḥubshiyya. This transition took place at the time of Bahrām Gūr in Persia and al-Nu⊂mān ibn al-Mundhir in Ḥīra, around A.D. 450. For more details see Abū, al-Walīd ibn, M. Aḥmad al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makka, Wüstenfeld, F., ed. (Leipzig, 1857),Google Scholar reprinted as Vol. 1 of Akhbār Makka al-Musharrafa (Beirut, 1964), pp. 50–65;Google Scholar Ibn, Ḥabīb al-Baghdādī, Kitāb al-Munammaq fī Akhbār Quraish, Khorshid, Ahmad Fariq, ed. (Heyderabad, 1965), pp. 31, 83–84;Google Scholar Muḥammad, ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Ta⊃rīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk (Cairo, 1962–1967), II, 256ff;Google Scholar Abū, Mansūr ⊂Abd al-Malik al-Tha⊂ālibī, Thimār al-Qulūb fī al-Muḍāf wa al-Mansūb, Abū, M. al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, ed. (Cairo, 1965), p. 116.Google Scholar

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30 Balādhurī, , Ansāb, 1, 73;Google Scholar Ibn, al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 11, 15;Google Scholar Ibn, Ḥabīb, al-Munammaq, pp. 94ff.Google Scholar

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32 Ibid., p. 88; Balādhurī, , Ansāb, 1, 69, 71;Google Scholar Ibn, al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, II, 11;Google Scholar for the doubt cast on the Banū al-Najjār connection see Ṭabarī, , Ta⊃rīkh, II, 248.Google Scholar

33 Ibn, Ḥabīb, al-Munammaq, pp. 130ff.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., pp. 54, 64.

35 See n. 24 above; Balādhurī, , Ansāb, 1, 101.Google Scholar

36 Ibn, Ḥabīb, al-Munammaq, pp. 45ff, 217ff, 340ff;Google Scholar Watt, , Mecca, p. 13.Google Scholar

37 Ibn, Ḥabīb, al-Munammaq, p. 341;Google Scholar see also a similar statement “ḥilf al-Fuḍūl seceded from the ḥilf of al-Muṭayyabūn and the Aḥlāf,” p. 47; see also Aḥmad, ibn Abī Ya⊂qūb al-Ya⊂qūbī, Ta⊃rīkh (Beirut, 1960), 11, 18;Google Scholar Watt, , Mecca, p. 6.Google Scholar

38 Ibn, Ḥabīb, al-Munammaq, pp. 244ff;Google Scholar Balādhurī, , Ansāb, I, 135.Google Scholar