With the Hajj season approaching, we present this Khutbah from the late Ustadh Sulaiman Dunya that will give insight into some of the history and background of this important pillar of Islam.

THE ARABS AND THE KA’ABA

“Ancient Arabia did not have a centralized government of any form. That is, there was no national governing body, or no one man, such as a king ruling the people. The Arabs were organized into tribes, with each tribe having its own chief, who was responsible for his own tribe in both war and peace. The members of a tribe were friendly with each other, and if one was in need of something the others tried to help him as much as they could.

As the Arabs were divided into different tribes, so were they divided by religion. Some Arabs were Christian, others were Jews, but the majority were idol worshipers-Pagans. These pagans prayed to the sun, the moon and the stars, but most of them prayed to idols fashioned by their own hands, whether out of stones, wood and any other material they could gather together. They even had special temples in which they offered sacrifices to these idols.

The Ka’aba, which was built by the Prophet Ibrahim (als) and his son Is’mail (als), as a place in which to worship one God was taken over by these pagans, and it became the main temple for their idols. The Ka’aba held over 360 idols, and nearly every family had its own idol, its own home made God. During certain months of the year, people from all parts of Arabia would come to visit these idols and to enjoy the sacrifices and the fairs (bazaars) which lasted for weeks. At these fairs, people made new friends and cleared up any misunderstandings among themselves. Poets sang their songs and orators read their rhetorical speeches. Poems and speeches the audiences liked were memorized and repeated by these people when they returned to their homes. In addition, the best speeches and poems were written in golden letters on scrolls, that were hung on the door of the Ka’aba until the following year, giving the people ample opportunity to memorize them.

These fairs also served as an important source of income for the Meccan merchants. Members of the Qurayish tribe who were the merchants of the city sold their wares at very high prices. As I said before, most of the Arabs prayed to idols, they prayed to these gods which they could touch and see, because they thought they could give them help. In reality they were not very religious because the most important thing in life for them was to make money.

The city dwellers, especially, desired money and sought their own pleasures no matter what the consequences. Wine was drunk in the streets like water. People had no pity for their enemies, torturing and even burning them at the stake with no mercy. Those considered weak and those traveling the country were robbed. Married men had many wives, and women were treated very badly and were considered as part of her husband’s property. As such, boys could inherit their father’s wives along with the rest of their holdings. The people were also very sad when a girl was born, and some even buried a newborn female infant alive.  

On the other hand, the Arabs were brave and very generous. If a stranger went to their home or tent he was greeted and made to feel at home. He was given the best to eat and drink, and was protected, if need be by his enemies. They were and are very hospitable people. In the midst of these people, and these customs (both good and bad) our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born and raised....”  

   

      COMMENTARY

The above Khutbah gives some background information on the character and conditions of the pre-Islamic Arabs and the first house of worship for mankind-the Ka’aba. Although most Arabs trace their lineage and religious traditions to Ibrahim (Abraham), in both religious beliefs and social norms, the Arabs particularly the Qurayish, (in the time of our Prophet) strayed from the ways of the great Patriarch. Over the course of time, idolatry replaced monotheism just as oppression and materialism replaced justice and benevolence among the children of Is’mail (alhs). Yet, despite their flaws, as one scholar explains, “...their virtues and natural potentialities were much more in comparison. They held in themselves possibilities of rising into a power that could change the course of history...They had not been corrupted by the traditional traits of culture and intellectualism; that is why Banu Is’mail were called ‘Ummi’, that is unaffected by external cultural influences. The simplicity, the natural facilities, and the social traditions of the Arabs were the basic factors that invited the Mercy of Allah to choose them as the first people where a worldwide revolution could be launched. This thesis has been aptly elaborated by Shah Waliyullah in the first part of his ‘Hujjat-Allah[SS1] -al-Baligahah’ as well as by Khudri in his ‘History of Jurisprudence’.¹   

The late Shaykh also mentioned in the khutbah the pre-Islamic fairs held in Mecca and their showcasing Arab poetry and rhetorical speech. This is due in part to the Arabs love of the spoken word, for scholars tell us that the Arabic spoken by the Arabs of the seventh century...“was also the most archaic of all the Semitic languages, closer to the mother-Semitic than the rest.”² Simply put, the type of speech among the people of this time contained much of the older/earlier characteristics of the Semitic languages amounting to pure, almost uncorrupted dialects. This phenomenon is also related to Ibrahim and the Ka’aba as the Arabs “...could not have preserved intact their archaic language over the centuries while forgetting their attachment to the Ka’aba. The memory of the Arabs which served them as the repository of their oral literature and tribal histories, was not about to forget such decisive figures as Abraham and Ishmael, who play cyclical roles in the existence of the Arab nomads. If this is so then the Ka’aba is the most ancient sanctuary still in use at the present day, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca is the most ancient ritual still in operation. The Qur’an says, “LO! THE FIRST SANCTUARY APPOINTED FOR MANKIND WAS THAT AT MECCA, A BLESSED PLACE, A GUIDANCE TO THE PEOPLES; WHEREIN ARE PLAIN MEMORIALS (OF ALLAH’S GUIDANCE); THE PLACE WHERE ABRAHAM STOOD UP TO PRAY; AND WHOSOEVER ENTERETH IT IS SAFE.” AND PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOUSE IS A DUTY UNTO ALLAH FOR MANKIND, FOR HIM WHO CAN A WAY THITHER.” (3:96) ²

“The Islamic tradition would have it that the prototype Ka’aba is not earthly but celestial in nature. As a matter of fact, there are a number of otherworldly Ka’abas, each one the center of its place of existence, just as the Ka’aba at Mecca is the center of the earth.”² “The sacred nature of the Ka’aba is clearly indicated by the attitudes prescribed by the Law towards the Black Stone imbedded in the eastern corner of the edifice. While making his circumambulation around the Ancient house, the pilgrim should kiss or at least touch the Black Stone. This would have no meaning if the stone were devoid of symbolism.      Traditionally it is looked on “as ‘the right hand of Allah in the world”, so that the Pilgrim, in kissing or touching the stone, renews his pact with the Lord of the Ka’aba more or less in the same fashion as a man renews his pact with his fellowman through a handclasp”.² Some scholars believe touching or kissing the Black Stone is to renew one’s allegiance to Allah in person (by visiting His Sacred precincts) as one renews his pact with his king or commander in person after swearing loyalty to and serving him for many years prior.

 

With regard to the Hajj and its history, “the actual institution of the Pilgrimage goes back to Abraham’s time, the only things introduced by the pre-Islamic Arab pagans being the idols, which were to be found in the Ka’aba itself. Apart from destroying the idols—all 360 of them—and prohibiting the circumambulation of the Ka’aba naked, the Prophet merely purified the Pilgrimage of their paganistic veneer and restored them to their Abrahamic state. There is no adequate reason why anyone would doubt the antiquity of the rituals connected with the Pilgrimage nor their relations to Abraham and Ishmael”.²   

“The Pilgrimage to Mecca celebrates in its multiple rituals a whole series of events connected with the mission of Abraham his wife Hagar (Hajra) and their offspring Ishmael (Is’mail). If we stop to examine the different elements in the Pilgrimage that have to do with Abraham and his family, we realize more and more, that the claim of Islam to be a reaffirmation of the Abrahamic way not only on the sacred words of the Qur’an, which count for much already, but also on an ancient, sacred oral tradition that the memories of the nomadic Arabs kept alive in pre-Islamic times along with their observance of the rituals surrounding the Ka’aba and the Pilgrimage to that ancient sanctuary. Let us remember, in passing, that Judaism and Christianity are connected to Abraham through Issac, while Islam is connected to him through Ishmael”.² Indeed, the northern Arabs consider him their progenitor, and the Prophet, like the other Arabs in his day had an ancestral line that took him back to Ishmael. That linage was accompanied with a mass of traditions and stories surrounding the Ka’aba and the pre-Islamic Arabs, the so-called pagan Arabs, transmitted as part of their historical and religious connections to that ancient edifice.”²

“The rituals of the Pilgrimage proper last for only some five days, beginning on the eighth day of the month of Dhu-al-Hijjah and ending on the 13th, though some pilgrims leave before then. The main rituals have to do with the circumambulation of the Ka’aba, the running two and fro between Safa’ and Marwah, the standing on the plain of ‘Araf`at, the lapidation of the emblems of Satan, the sacrifice of animals at ‘Araf`at—all of this taking place between Makkah and ‘Araf`at, with the intervening places of Muzdalifah and Min`a having their own importance also.”²

“In the symbolism of the Pilgrimage, there is a type of meeting with the Divinity that is in anticipation of the Day of Judgment, and the fact that pilgrims tend to go on the Pilgrimage toward the end of their lives and even consider dying in Makkah as a benediction—all this points to a kind of judgmental nature to this pillar of Islam. The unsewn pilgrims dress, consisting of two plain pieces of white cloth, and the ascetical restrictions imposed upon all those who enter the sacred precincts indicated a state of confrontation with the Divine Presence that obliterates all the social hierarchies of the profane world; external distinctions disappear, the equality of all the immortal souls face-to-face with their Creator is what now appears. And since in that Divine Presence, the taking of lives, through hunting or uprooting of plants that have also a life of their own, and engaging in sensual pleasures would be out of the question, the Law prohibits all of that by way of keeping the believers within a framework of receptivity towards celestial graces.”² 

1. Evolution of Social Institutions in Islam, by Dr. Sayyid Matlub Husayn, pgs. 30-31

2. Islamic Thought and Culture, (Compilation of Papers) Edited by Is’mail R. Al-Faruqi, pgs. 20-23

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