Explain the role of pre-Islamic culture in shaping Muhammad’s beliefs and why he adopted monotheism
Islam originated in Arabia. Before Islam, the dominant peoples were the Bedouin. Mecca was simply the largest, most affluent trading location of that time, and Medina was simply “an important agricultural settlement” 1. Life in these Bedouin tribes was divided by a clan system; related families formed clans, clans would form tribes, and leaders and councils would be elected for the tribe by the tribe. One major aspect of Arab Bedouin belief was that they “placed great emphasis on tribal ties, group loyalty or solidarity, as the source of power for a clan or tribe” 2. However, the Bedouins in Arabia did not see an importance for anything that did not happen during a person’s lifetime, and didn’t believe in many standard religious beliefs, such as reincarnation or divine judgment from greater beings after death. This meant that morality was not of much importance, and Muhammad aimed to fix that when he became the prophet. At the age of forty, Muhammad traveled up to a cave in the mountains. He traveled there to think about how he could better his life and fix the problems of his society. It was here that the archangel Gabriel flew down to speak to him, and this is most likely part of the reason that Islam holds morality as a strong staple. Means of communication were adopted into Islam as a way to spread the religion. A tradition from Mecca “was that of the mu'allaquat (literally "the hangings")….poets and writers would hang their writings on a certain wall in the city” 3. This was taken by Islam with the creation of the Quran,
Monotheism existed in 7th-century Arabia long before Islam came around, and Islam in fact stemmed from a culture that supported polytheism. Christians and Jewish peoples made up the biggest religions of that time, and they were all